The local paper for the Upper East Side VERIFYING VALUABLE VACCINES ◄ P.2
THE FUTURE OF COMPOSTING
ENVIRONMENT Melanie Horn walks Toki in Central Park. Photo courtesy of Elisabeth Rasmussen and Melanie Horn
THE CANINE CONNECTION PETS
A chance meeting in an Upper East Side dog park creates new bonds BY ALICE TECOTZKY
One spring afternoon, Elisabeth Rasmussen was sitting in a dog park on the Upper East Side, finishing one of the phone meetings that have become too commonplace, when, suddenly, she saw someone walking toward her with Phoenix, her dog. Astonished, Rasmussen began to approach the woman, but stopped when she realized that Phoenix, whom she adopted in February, was sitting right next to her. Yet Rasmussen was not seeing double; there truly was a Phoenix look-alike strolling excitedly over to the bench she had been sitting on. And not only that, but Phoenix
and Toki, the doppelganger, seemed to recognize each other. “Up until that point, Toki was extremely shy, she wouldn’t approach other dogs, her tail was often pretty down in the dog park,” explained Melanie Horn, Toki’s owner since early March. “When she saw Phoenix, immediately her tail was up and wagging, she was jumping around. I had never seen her that excited.” Convinced that Phoenix and Toki were not meeting but indeed reuniting, Rasmussen and Horn began talking, and the two discovered that they had both adopted their dogs from Bideawee, a New York-based no-kill pet welfare organization. Phoenix and Toki are not, the women discovered, two old, bizarrely identical pals— they’re brother and sister.
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Program squeaks through budget cuts due to efforts by UWS resident Anna Sacks and Council Member Keith Powers BY SAMI ROBERTS
On July 1, the results of New York City’s fiscal budget meeting were in. Many New Yorkers were involved and interested, likely more than ever before, in how the city
would be spending its money. One program that squeaked out from under the guillotine was the budget for city composting programs. Pre-pandemic, composting in New York City meant a few different things. Some neighborhoods were eligible for brown bins for food scrap collection, for individual homes and apartments to be picked up by the city. For homes without brown bin collection service — a program for which participation is voluntary depending on the land-
City Council Member Keith Powers co-created the CORE Act (Community Organics and Recycling Empowerment Act). Photo: John McCarten / New York City Council
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INSIDE We really need the council as a whole to understand the role of recycling and composting in a major city, and to view our city as being required to be a leader in this country around it.” Council Member Keith Powers lord or homeowner — residents can take their food scraps to drop off locations set up by communities or GrowNYC, often located at farmers’ markets each week. When the pandemic took hold in New York, composting of any kind (except composting within your home, if you are so brave), was COVID-canceled. Anna Sacks, an Upper West Side resident, was one of the forces behind the budget fight who prevented composting in the city from being eliminated altogether. Sacks has become well-known online as “The Trash Walker,” making it her personal hobby to go through peoples’ trash collections and save items that are in good condition from going to landfills. “A third of all of New York City’s residential waste consists of stuff that can be composted. That’s a major chunk of it,” she said. “And right now, what we’re doing is throwing out that material. What we’re producing is not actually trash, what we’re producingiswaste,butthiswaste
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QUART PROCLAIMS VICTORY Challenger Cameron Koffman conceded as vote count went on. p. 3
COVID CLEANING
A collector declutters and discovers wonders in the junk drawer. p. 6
WORD ON THE STREET
Over the last few months, readers have sent us poems they’ve written. A selection. p. 13
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, July 31– 7:54 pm. For more information visit www.chabbaduppereastside.com.