The local paper for the Upper er East Side
OURTOWNNY.COM
CENTURIESOLD TEXTS ON DISPLAY < CITY ARTS P.14
FEBRUARY
19-25 2015
OurTownEastSide @OurTownNYC
CITIBIKE PREPS FOR EAST SIDE EXPANSION
45 years and Counting
THE RETURN OF THE NEW YORK ECONOMY
NEWS Neighborhood expected to receive about 25 stations, amid a mixed reception BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
While the chunky blue bicycles of CitiBike are a common sight in Lower Manhattan and in midtown, uptown districts like the Upper East Side have been gearing up for months to receive the popular bike-sharing program into their neighborhood -- and not always with open arms. According to the Dept. of Transportation, between September 2011 and April 2012, the department held 33 bike share demonstrations; presented to community boards 54 times; held 13 community planning workshops; met over 150 times with other stakeholders, institutions and business improvement districts; and collected almost 10,000 individual station location suggestions and more than 60,000 support votes on the suggestion map. And last week, the DOT and Community Board 8 held a joint forum on CitiBike locations on the Upper East Side. For months the DOT solicited suggestions on its website for where to put CitiBike stations. Popular locations include around Grand Army Plaza, Hunter College and Rockefeller University, and the 86th Street corridor from Lexington Avenue to York Avenue.
In Brief
Illustration by John Winkleman
ALL IN THE FAMILY, SINCE THE 1800S Lobel’s, on Madison Avenue, is still run by the family that started it 175 years ago BY PANYIN CONDUAH
Every week for the rest of the year, Our Town will celebrate its 45th anniversary by profiling a neighborhood business that has been around longer than we have. Know of a local business that should be on our list? Email us at news@strausnews.com
Meat slabs, band saws, and a passion for quality are what ties the Lobel men to their Upper East side butcher shop. Lobel’s, at 84th Street and Madison Avenue, has been in the area for 65 years -- but has been in existence for much longer. The roots of the business go back to Austria, where Nathan Lobel made his living raising cattle. Today, the fifth generation of Lobel’s has taken over the business,
which is celebrating its 175th year. Father Stanley, brothers David and Mark, and cousin Evan all take shifts working in the small shop from Monday through Saturday. David was one of the very few family members to start in the business right away, and quickly realized it was where he belonged. “It’s a part of you,” he said. He remembers waking up early as a child to accompany his father on errands for the shop. The two would go to wholesale meat markets to inspect and stamp the best pieces of meat to sell at the store. That approach has continued, with Lobel’s committed to selling only the top 2 percent of prime U.S. beef. “We work very hard at that and it’s something we have to do every single day,” David said. “You’re only as good as the last meal you send
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That hum you’re hearing? It’s the sound of New York’s economy clicking on all cylinders. New data from City Comptroller Scott Stringer shows nearly every corner of the New York economy revving back. Unemployment, while still higher than the national average, is at a six-year low; city tax revenues are the fourth-highest ever; venture investment in the city last year surpassed $5 billion, nearly 60 percent higher than in the previous year; now office leasing activity is the hottest since 1998. And, as the Times pointed out this week, the very solid gains in the city economy came despite a relatively weak contribution from Wall Street, which has historically tended to lead New York out of its doldrums. In official circles, it’s considered good news that the city is recovering, job-wise, while Wall Street hiring has remained nearly flat. Of course, the generally good economic news doesn’t hide the fact that the wealth gap in the city -- the divide between the extremely rich and the rest of us -- is bigger than at any other time in history; the Times’ recent series on the absentee landlords at the luxury towers on Central Park has brought that point home. The second caveat, highlighted by Stringer, is that even though 2014 was strong, things dipped a bit in the fourth quarter, a point that bears watching. “While our economy lost momentum late in the year, most indicators are trending in the right direction,” he said.
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