Every year at the beginning of summer, the Upper West Side gets geared up for a foodie celebration, the New Taste of the Upper West Side, which brings together community members and celebrity chefs from nearby restaurants to raise money for a local cause. Sponsored and created by the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District (BID), this year’s events will take place along Columbus Avenue, from May 29th through June 1st.

This year, proceeds will go to the Sustainable Streetscape Project, a project on Columbus from 76th-77th Streets that will include new plantings and benches, solar lighting and a storm water collection area that will be the first of its kind across the city.
Several chefs participating in New Taste chatted about some of the delicious fare that will be circulating at the three events: Best of the West, which highlights the best chefs restaurants and chefs on the Upper West Side; Comfort Food Classics, which celebrates simple staples like burgers, cupcakes and soul food; and Soiree in the Park, a cocktail party held in Theodore Roosevelt Park, where 100 percent of the proceeds will go toward revamping the park.

John Fraser, owner of Dovetail
John Fraser is participating in Best of the West, and Soiree in the Park, and has been a part of New Taste since it began six years ago. Last year he impressed attendees with his completely vegetarian meal – turnip ceviche with quinoa. This year? Fraser hasn’t worked out all the details yet, but he guarantees that it will be lighter fare to balance out the burgers from the infamous Shake Shack and Five Napkin Burger.

“It’s almost turned into a family reunion with so much of the Upper West Side food community participating,” said Fraser. “Plus, New Taste has become quite large. It’s now three days long. It’s ultimately about a bunch of people who live up here gathering in one place and having a good time.”

Andy D’Amico, owner of 5Napkin Burger and Nice Matin
You can find Andy D’Amico’s juicy, infamous burgers at Comfort Food Classics. While Five Napkin Burger, with its three ounce slider topped with melted gruyere cheese, is sure to have a long line, don’t miss his other restaurant, Nice Matin’s contribution at Best of the West. This year, D’Amico is serving up a succulent short rib ravioli, topped off with a rich red wine and butter sauce. For festival regulars, D’Amico is switching up his usual fava bean tortelloni in favor of the heavier dish.

He is excited to be a part, again, of the newer event, “Comfort Food Classics.” For D’Amico, making popular comfort food is something to be proud of.

“Comfort food is that kind of not too much work to eat it,” said D’Amico. “It’s the same things we like and love, most of us eat it more often than the fancier food that will be served on Saturday night.”

Chef Jonathan Benno, Lincoln Ristorante
Jonathan Benno has participated in New Taste since his restaurant opened three years ago. The modern Italian restaurant is located right next to Lincoln Center’s reflecting pool. At this year’s Best of the West, Benno will be bringing the traditional Italian deli to the New Taste feast. He will be serving up a capicola sandwich, topped with crescenza cheese and hot peppers. The sandwich will be nestled between two slices of freshly-baked tomato focaccia bread.

“I’ve lived and worked in New York for 20 years and for a long time there weren’t a lot of restaurants up here,” said Benno. “Now the Upper West side is a dining destination.”

Chef Cesare Casella, Salumeria Rosi Parmacotta
Chef Casella has been wowing New Taste customers with “delizioso salumi” since the beginning of the feast six years ago. Ever year, he brings a selection of dried meats and cheeses to his booth, and this year is no different. Casella will be bringing a special type of prosciutto, parma cotto, sopressatta and mozzarella. He will be presenting his selection of meats and cheeses at both Soiree in the Park and Best of the West. Casella admitted that because so many new and favorite chefs will be at the event, that it’s difficult to pick and choose what to sample.

“It’s very tough, and you have to be a very good shopper,” said Casella. “Just try and taste as much as possible.”

Chef Maria Loi, Loi Restaurant
As a new restaurant in the area, this is only the second time Loi has participated in New Taste. Her Greek restaurant will be serving up the infamous Greek dessert, baklava, as well as a salmon tartare, a recipe inspired from by Ancient Greece. But despite the delicious concoctions, Loi says that her participation is all about the cause itself.
“I am always participating in events for charity, that’s why I love this event,” said Loi.

Other exciting vendors include Alice’s Teacup, Boulud Sud, Carmine’s, Magnoia Bakery and Tavern on the Green. Tickets for all events are still available online, ranging in price from $105 to $150 per person.

A brand-new look for Theodore Roosevelt Park, a 12-acre quiet oasis located in the back of the Museum of Natural History, has been in the works for years. But soon, with the help of Community Board 7’s working group, Friends of Theodore Roosevelt Park, and the proceeds collected from New Taste of the Upper West Side’s “Soiree in the Park” fundraiser, the renovations will actually come to fruition.

The renovations include the somewhat controversial $500,000 upgrade for the Bull Moose dog run in the park, which would bring in astro turf and a composting system that would recycle dog waste, as well as solar lights, greywater run-off that would water nearby plants, and basic beautification to the park as a whole.

“The park is often seen as just the backyard or front yard of the museum, but that’s not true, it’s a city park upon which the museum sits,” said Community Board 7 member and City Council candidate Mel Wymore. He has led the community in bringing awareness to this Upper West Side park. “We wanted the park to be focusing on sustainability, we wanted an educational component, and we wanted to make sure it was a destination that bridged the Museum of Natural History to the rest of the Upper West Side community.”

Wymore hopes that the high-tech green sustainability of the park, as well as its financial stability, will be an example to future parks.

“This is the direction we are going in, we are seeing this all across the city, in buildings and in parks,” said Wymore. “It saves money from the energy costs, and provides more back-up sources of energy to run things when we have power outages.”

Improving Theodore Roosevelt Park is not a new concept. In fact, the Friends of Theodore Roosevelt Park group was created in 1989. In 1993, the group completely re-sodded and irrigated the park, which used to be a wasteland of mud and minimal grass. In 1997, the park was re-vamped again as part of the construction of the Rose Center Planetarium. At the completion of the Planetarium around 2001, an anonymous donor pledged $1 million to the park. In 2002, Friends of Roosevelt Park and the Museum of Natural History created a memorandum of understanding that would transfer funds between the museum and park.

Since then, the park has operated on a $250,000 budget, working with local interns who help with the park’s upkeep. In the past year, Wymore helped to create the working group, which has allowed more community involvement and created more buzz around raising money for the park. The Soiree in the Park event, with tickets priced at $150, will provide another source of revenue.

“In the beginning, the park had one guy who picked up the litter and that was it,” said Peter Wright, from the Friends of Roosevelt Park, who has been involved with the project since the beginning. “New Yorkers for Parks for the first 5 years of existence evaluated citywide parks and gave them grades. We consistently, with our tiny budget and small size, came in 4th or 5th out of 100. We as neighbors have to belly up for our park.”

Despite the hefty pricetag on the dog run, Wymore and the Friends of Roosevelt Park feel that the investment is worth it.
“it’s an amenity for the community and it’s what really changes quality of life,” said Wymore. “To take issue with how much something costs is to not see the big picture. We have to maintain our public assets.”

The East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station, which if built, would transfer 5,000 tons of garbage daily from the Upper East Side’s Yorktown neighborhood to New Jersey, has not been popular with the community. Opponents cite the garbage facility’s proximity to Asphalt Green, where hundreds of children play, nearby low-income housing, the plan’s exorbitant costs and pollutants that would be added to the air.

An aeriel view of Asphalt Green and the proposed transfer station site.

Pledge 2 Protect, a new advocacy group that has collected almost 8,000 signatures against the construction of the Marine Transfer Station, recently released reports that broke down the probable impacts of the garbage center. At the top of the list? Health concerns for the children in the community. The reports claim that the hundreds of trucks traveling in and out of the transfer center emitting diesel fumes would aggravate asthma and respiratory problems in children.

“Pollution is all over in an urban environment but concentrated in an area where children are playing is counterintuitive,” said Dr. Jennifer Ratner, a pediatrician and spokesperson for the study. “Where the fine particulate matter from the diesel fuel is going to spew, children will be exercising and breathing faster and breathing in these fuels. Is this really smart?”

Pledge 2 Protect has mapped the nearby schools, churches and recreation areas for kids that would potentially be
affected by the transfer station.

Diesel fuel, just this past year, was identified by the World Health Organization as a carcinogen. And according to the study, the fine particulate matter – pollution emitted from diesel trucks – will reach levels of 2.5 parts per million in the area where the trucks will be traveling. This fine particulate matter is so miniscule, that it cannot be emitted from the lungs, and instead remains in the lungs, causing pulmonary issues in children, according to Dr. York Battey, an air pollution expert from Yale University.

This is enough to increase emergency hospital room visits by 4-8 percent, according to the Department of Sanitation Solid Waste Management Plan. Children in particular who suffer from asthma or other respiratory diseases will be susceptible to the increase in pollution, according to Dr. Jennifer Peel’s 2005 study on ambient air pollution from the Rollins School of Public Health.

And it’s not just Pledge 2 Protect that has expressed concerns with the placement of the Marine Transfer Station.

“This is definitely a concern. All of the different fumes from the trucks may cause airway inflammation in children and chronic inflammation in asthma patients continues to be present,” said Dr. Denise Serebrisky, director of the pulmonary pediatric division at the Jacobi Medical Center in The Bronx, who is not associated with the advocacy group. “We already know that when asthmatic children are always exposed to these particles, their breathing becomes worse over time and they will need more medication.”

Dr. Serebrisky also explained that the garbage center will also attract more roaches and rats, which can also irritate allergies in children. Scientific studies and numbers aside, parents in the community are not too happy about the possible health effects of their children playing next to a waste management facility.

“If this is built, we will stop going to Asphalt Green,” said Jeff Yates, whose 5-year-old daughter plays regularly at Asphalt Green. “It will dramatically impact our lifestyle. They say that in New York, there are more rodents than people. Can you imagine if they put a garbage facility next to a recreational center?”

Wednesday at noon, hundreds of public housing advocates, flanked by City Council Members like Melissa Mark Viverito, gathered on the steps of City Hall to call for the end, or at least the delay of, public housing infill development, and a more transparent relationship between residents and the New York City Housing Authority. The cash-strapped New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which is $6 billion in debt, has entered the Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) for building luxury housing projects on affordable housing campuses citywide, in order to stem their out-of-control debt. But many residents of low-income housing, including those from Frederick Douglass housing on West 107th Street, have been fighting back.

“They treat public residents as second class citizens,” said Madelyn Innocent, a Frederick Douglass resident and Community Board 7 member. “How much is it going to take for NYCHA to actually listen to us? As a resident of Douglass housing, I’ve seen too much of NYCHA non-transparency. Plus they’re wasting a lot of money and not putting their funds where it needs to be on repairs.”

So how is NYCHA supposed to get out of debt without putting up unpopular high rises? Ideas have been laid out by Community Board 7, residents and NYCHA itself, but the issue is more complicated than at first glance. This past week, Community Board 7 voted strongly for two resolutions that would introduce a moratorium that would sufficiently delay any requests for proposal on infill development at Frederick Douglass. The board also overwhelmingly approved abandoning the infill development plans completely, and searching for different revenue sources for NYCHA.

“Plan NYCHA, the organization’s plan for increasing revenue lists things like putting up cell phone towers, leasing space out to businesses, putting up billboards,” said Nick Prigo, the chair of Housing on Community Board 7. “In other words, they do have other techniques to generate money. I’m supportive of these ideas, and I think people might be open to low rise commercial space.”

But according to NYCHA, Plan NYCHA needs to take each of these strategies into account, including infill development, in order to dig themselves out of the hole, and improve upon already-existing housing. According to Sheila Stainback, a NYCHA spokesperson, Congress has been underfunding NYCHA by $750 million since 2001, and as a result housing has been falling into disrepair (Frederick Douglass houses alone would take $200 million just to keep up with the backlog of complaints).

“The alternative ideas suggested by Board 7 are still under active pursuit by NYCHA, or currently underway; but together, they are not capable of generating anywhere near the level of funding that the land lease initiative is capable of providing,” said Stainback in a statement.

One of the other most common suggestions that was proposed by the City Council in a resolution was to take back the $73 million annually owed by NYCHA to the NYPD. According to a decades-old memorandum of understanding, NYCHA will annually owe $73 million for “special housing police services.” In addition, according to Victor Bach, who directs Community Service Society (CSS) housing policy research and advocacy, NYCHA also pays $23 million in pilot payments in lieu of property taxes.

“If they can scare up enough capital to catch up with the 6 billion dollars, then they don’t need to go into redevelopment. What’s standing in their way? The politics of who controls those funds and why the city has to get $100 million a year from NYCHA,” said Bach. “This is a long-term problem that merits a long-term solution. NYCHA should be working with the communities affected over the long-term to plan what’s best for the community as a whole.”

There have also been various other ideas out of this mess. Madelyn Innocent said that she has suggested reaching out to various celebrities who used to live in public housing, like Whoopi Goldberg and Jay-Z, for funds.

Bach said that Battery Park City has been under an agreement since the 1970s to give all excess revenues to affordable public housing, but the money has instead been going into the city’s pocket. According to Scott Sieber, a representative from Comptroller Liu’s office, these funds were actually designed to go toward The Housing Development Corporation and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, not NYCHA.

Although the path to a solution remains unclear, residents have been fed up with the lack of transparency throughout the whole process.

“I am opposed to the infill plan because I believe that to do this for 20 percent affordable housing is not enough, and to take park and playground space away is wrong,” said Julie Menin, a candidate for Manhattan Borough President. ”There has not been any information or really any community outreach.”

NYCHA has stated that they would give preference to developers who want to include more than just 20 percent affordable housing.

The Children’s Museum of the Arts downtown recently played host to several kids in the foster care system, and Heart Gallery, a non-profit organization that pairs professional photographers with kids and takes their pictures. From there, Heart Gallery, which has over 100 chapters all over the country, displays giant-sized photos of the kids at galleries or in public spaces like Penn Station. The hope, said director Laurie Sherman Graff, is to attract families who might be potential foster parents. In a gallery room at the Children’s Museum of the Arts, 18 large portraits of 20 kids, ranging in age from kindergarteners to teenagers, and will be on display until the end of the month.

Foster kids pose with their professional portrait at the Children’s Museum of the Arts

“It really jumped out at me, the thought that there’s children out there who need families,” said Sherman Graff. “People see these photos and they’re touched by them.”

The original Heart Gallery project started in New Mexico in 2001, and the New York chapter was created in 2006 by Sherman Graff. She has taken portraits of foster kids to exhibits in Penn Station, Times Square and politicians’ offices. Heart Gallery also does match parties, where they invite prospective parents and foster kids, and get them to do activities together.

Many of the foster kids at the event last week shyly told heart-wrenching stories about their experiences in the foster care system.

Most of them had been shuttled from temporary home to temporary home. One 14-year-old girl explained that at one home, the first words out of her foster mother’s mouth upon meeting her were to ask for the $40 in cash that foster kids are given once they go to a new home. Another foster child said that she has hated most of her foster home experiences because it was tough to get along with the families.

But even with their hardships, there are success stories. The keynote speaker at the event was Demetrius, a 17-year-old foster child who has never really had a home or a family, and has lived in 25 homes during his life. Despite this, the young man has aspirations of becoming a lawyer, and has been accepted by two colleges upstate.

“I don’t want to settle for less,” said Demetrius. “I know I’m greater than this.”

Demetrius also said that it was a struggle to follow the correct path. His older siblings are in and out of jail, and have dabbled in drugs. But even though he was often angry at the foster care system, and at his temporary families, he has stuck it out.

Demetrius speaks about how his caseworker helped guide him through a tough adolescence.

Demetrius will age out of the system in 4 years, so he said that at this point, he considers his caseworker to be like family to him.
“My caseworker Toni Anne said to me that I will leave her before she leaves me. And it’s true, I age out in a few years and she was always there for me,” said Demetrius. “I want to help kids like me because being in the foster care system is not easy. We can work together, we can overcome this.”

All success stories aside, Sherman Graff explained that the reason Heart Gallery works in particular is that usually the foster care system will distribute photos of children that look like driver’s license shots. By working with professional photographers, however, they can really capture the personality of a child.

“You come to their level, you engage them in conversation first. If they’re super outgoing or inverted, hopefully that photograph will make their personality shine,” said photographer Camille Tokerud. “You can see your own kids in them. When you see the photo of that child, you can really relate to them.”

Kids currently in the foster system pose at the gallery that displays their portraits.

Camille Tokerud had been looking forward to seeing Nicholas, one of her young subjects at last week’s event. But she was just informed that he was adopted a couple of days prior.

“I got goosebumps,” said Tokerud. “I miss seeing him, but this is why we’re all here. This is why I do this.”

The results of a recent open space survey found that the Upper East Side is one of the worst neighborhoods in the city for fresh air. At a recent community board meeting, panelists talked about ways to improve upon the lack of greenery in the community. But many residents seem to think that the answer lies within already-existing open space, like the Sutton Place Park along the East River ­— the esplanade in desperate need of a clean-up, and in public land being leased out for private use like the Queensboro Oval, located near the 59th Street Bridge.

“We have plenty of open space. What the public does not have is access to existing public land,” said Monica McLaughlin, an Upper East Side resident. “We do not have a shortage of open space on the Upper East Side. We do have an alienation of public lands by the wealthy.”

Residents are particularly frustrated with the yet-to-be-built new Sutton Place Park, which would run behind One Sutton Place apartment building and connect already-existing open spaces from 56th to 57th Streets. Up until a few years ago, the supposedly public land had been used as a private backyard for residents of the apartment building. But in 2011, community members said “enough is enough” and after four years of trying, won a lawsuit against the Sutton Place South Building Corporation, which requires the building to share the costs with the city of building a brand-new public park on the 10,000 square foot property.

Two years later, however, ground still has not been broken on the project because of negotiation issues with the architect, and the residents association at One Sutton Place.

“We are very keen to make sure the open space comes out of the negotiations. It has to serve the community to the maximum extent possible. We can’t let the community be short changed,” said Lou Sepersky, the vice president of the Sutton Area community organization. “I don’t know where else you’d find space for active use in the community. The area was so densely built, it has become a serious problem.”

According to Sepersky, the problem lies within the co-op owners wanting to build a gate around the park, and have it close at dusk, instead of 9 p.m., which is the norm for city parks. These designs, he said, defeat the purpose of having the public park. The design for the new park was recently rejected a second time by Community Board 6, and by the Design Commission. So it’s back to the drawing board for Sutton Place, and the community organization is meeting with local City Council Member Jessica Lappin this week to discuss the next steps.
But this rectangular piece of land is not the only greenery worth tapping into, according to residents. At the Upper East Side open space panel, many residents brought up the constant question of the Queensboro Oval, a piece of land near the 59th Street bridge, which for most of the year, is enclosed under a dome and leased out to a private tennis club. For the summer, however, the dome is uncovered, and the space is used as a softball field. Residents feel, however, that only letting community members use the supposedly space for two months out of the year is not fair. Patricia Scharlin Taylor, a member of the Sutton Area community organization, thinks that the space could be used as an outdoor market, or as a playground with equipment for adults.

“I would say we’ve got a high proportion of seniors who live in this area and no place for them to go except sit in these hard park benches with very little greenery,” she said.

Sapersky agrees that it’s not just a matter of the lack of green space, community residents need places to be active, as opposed to passively enjoying small gulps of fresh air.

Either way, the NYC Parks Department is not budging on the Queensboro Oval, and says that the tennis club has a licensed agreement with the Parks Department to operate on that site.

Community Boards 6 and 8 are continuing to work on strategies for healthier living on the Upper East Side.

By Joanna Fantozzi & Allison Volpe

Recently, the City Council addressed the issue of raising the smoking age from 18 to 21. New York State is following suit with Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal’s bill that would make it illegal for those under 21 to buy cigarettes. The bill bans suppliers and stores from selling any tobacco products to under-age youths. Each year in New York, according to the Assembly Member, 53,000 people under the age of 18 become regular smokers. As a former smoker herself, Rosenthal wants to try and nip young nicotine habits in the bud.

“From a personal standpoint I started smoking when I was 17 and I smoked for almost 20 years,” said Rosenthal. “I went through the whole get addicted when you’re younger thing. You also don’t realize how badly you feel until you stop smoking for awhile, its so hard to quit.”

We took to the streets on the Upper
West Side to find out what local residents think of the push to keep cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers.

Neal Bloom, 42, Tribeca
“I’m completely for it. I have two kids of my own, and I’d be really disappointed if either of them became smokers. It is just so terrible for your health, and I don’t think young people fully understand that. So I think raising the age would be very helpful.”

Robert Ferrara, 20, Upper West Side
“I think it’s ridiculous. I have every right to be able to smoke a pack of cigarettes. It’s ridiculous enough that the drinking age is 21. People my age are allowed to get married and fight in wars, yet we can’t drink and shouldn’t be able to smoke? It doesn’t make sense.”

Erin Earey, 28, East Village
“I mean, if kids really want to smoke, they’re going to find a way to get their hands on cigarettes regardless. I’d be for it though. My brother has been smoking since he was 14, and I really wish he didn’t. It does worry me.”

Jenny Son, 24, Lower East Side
“I’m all for it. Too many young people smoke and are destroying their health so early. I don’t think 18 year olds realize what a serious decision they’re making when smoking. Three years may not seem like a lot of time, but I think a college freshman is more susceptible to start smoking than someone who is about to graduate.”

Joseph Awgul, 35, Upper East Side
“I honestly don’t care either way. I think most kids smoke when they’re a teenager in high school or in college, and then just stop when they get older. I don’t see it as a pressing issue.”

The Upper West Side is known as the land of desirable commercial real estate. In fact, Barbara Adler, from the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District, claims that nearly 100 percent of the storefronts in her area of jurisdiction are occupied.

So what is up with the storefronts scattered throughout the Upper West Side that have been shuttered and bordered up for years? A reader pointed out some of them to us: Georgia’s Café on 89th and Broadway, which shut its doors almost two years ago; the now-closed Uptown Birds, on Amsterdam between 85th and 86th, which had its last Yelp review in 2009. And one of the major eyesores of the neighborhood: 543 Columbus Avenue – a boarded up, graffiti-covered storefront that has been vacant for decades.

An empty storefront on Columbus Avenue.

According to business and real estate experts, these storefronts are anomalies.

“Every empty store is a different story,” said Rafe Evans, senior vice president for Walker Molloy brokerage company, who blames the landlords in many cases, more so than the market. “There are tenants for these spaces if the landlords are reasonable or motivated. There’s no such thing as a space on the West Side that would not be able to find a good fit.”

We investigated some of the specific spots to try and find out why they’ve sat empty.

2418 Broadway between 89th and 90th St. – This seemingly – deserted storefront used to be Georgia’s Café – a fairly controversial place when it was open. “Frequently the issues of Georgia’s had come before the community board,” said Andrew Albert, a representative from the West Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. “[The owner] put in an air conditioning unit which bothered people next door, and had other various violations.” According to Rafe Evans, there was also a fire in the building, and the landlord decided not to re-open the commercial space because they were under-insured. In December however, the building was sold to Manhattan-based real estate owners Albert and Robert Gilardian of the Gilar Group for $47 million. A new restaurant will be opening soon at the location.

522 Amsterdam Avenue between 85th and 86th St. – What used to be Uptown Birds is now completely empty.

According to the Department of Buildings, a partial stop-work order has been in place for the building since last year for unsafe work conditions, but the issue was resolved. The real story, according to Evans, who has worked on the building, the place will not sell because the owner refuses to either remove the scaffolding from the building, or to lower the price based on that undesirable part of the building. As a result, he said, the landlord is stuck between a rock and a “for rent” sign, and has not seen any interest in the building.

543 Columbus Avenue and 86th St. – This space has been an empty shell for years, and according to Rafe Evans, the reason why is a bit of a mystery. He said that the storefront is allegedly owned by the family who operates Three Star Coffee Shop next door. Occasionally, he said, a “For Rent” sign will go up in the window, but it will soon be taken down, which is a shame, said Rafe, because the area is prime real estate. According to the Department of Buildings database, the building is owned by Columbus West LLC, and a Stop Work Order has existed on the property since 2008 for structural instability of the building.
“It’s a matter of weird personalities very often,” said Evans. “How some of these people get to control millions of dollars of assets is beyond me.”

For this Mother’s Day, or even for that perfect spring Sunday afternoon, it’s the perfect time to celebrate with brunch. One of the best parts of brunch is that delicious Bloody Mary. But not all spicy tomato cocktails are created equal. Take mom or your loved ones out for brunch, (even a liquid brunch), to one of these downtown places, where Bloody Marys take on an unusual twist.

At Burger and Barrel, the gastropub at Houston Street and Mercer Street, for instance, take your pick from four Bloody Mary choices including the traditional recipe. But for those looking for something more adventurous, try the Bloody Maria, made with infused tequila. The Queen Mary is made with spicy tomato juice, cucumber, gin and garnished with dill and lemon.

But the real draw, according to General Manager Carmelo Pecoraro, is the BBQ Bacon Bloody Mary, made with homemade BBQ sauce, tomato juice and candied bacon. It won first place in the Tito’s Vodka best Bloody Mary competition.

“I feel like everyone likes a Bloody Mary made a certain way,” said Pecoraro. “There’s always a variation on it, and that was the whole idea, to create something new.”

More recommendations:
*Cole’s (Greenwich Ave and Main Street) — Get a drink and an appetizer all rolled into one with Cole’s “Kitchen Sink” Bloody Mary. Chef Daniel Eardley pickles the green beans for the cocktail, which are thrown into the in-house made Bloody Mary mix, along with caper berries, olives, celery and lemon.

*Sauce (Rivington and Allen Street) — You and your loved ones have a choice of three fresh Bloody Mary concoctions at this farm-to-table mom’s Italian kitchen-esque restaurant. Plus all moms eat for free on Mother’s Day at Sauce! Try the Bloody Mario (made with Grappa Zardetto di Prosecco), The Bloody Maria (made with Sauza tequila), and a traditional Bloody Mary made with Tito’s Vodka.

*Colicchio and Sons (10th Avenue Between West 15th and West 16th Streets) ­— The Bloody Verde – You heard that right. It’s green, not red. That’s because this Bloody Mary variation, at one of Tom Colicchio’s famous restaurants, is made with green tomatoes, jalapenos, chilis, cilantro and green Tabasco sauce.

It’s no secret that some Upper East Siders are skeptical, at best, of the Memorial Sloan Kettering-City University of New York medical center and educational complex that may be going up on 73rd to 74th Streets Street and York. In fact, 136 residents have signed a petition against the construction of this building. At last week’s CUNY-MSK Task Force meeting, the committee voted to disapprove the zoning map change, disposition of the project site, and the waivers that would allow MSK-CUNY to increase the height of the building, floor area, and add rear yard and side yard extensions.

The MSK-CUNY complex would consist of the cancer center building (approximately 23 stories tall and treating over 1,200 patients daily), and the CUNY-Hunter building, which would be 16 stories tall, and is currently in the Uniform Land Use Review Process, waiting for approval. The many swirling concerns in residents’ minds about the proposed project include a negative influence on the community, swelling pedestrian population, and blocking riverside access. But by far the largest concerns are traffic and parking-related.

In their Environmental Impact Statement released last month, AKRF, an environmental, planning and engineering consulting firm, determined that 19 intersections would be severely impacted by the new traffic, but that parking would have little to no change. According to AKRF, thousands of new people and cars would be coming to the center every day, and according to residents, that would decrease the public open space in the area.

“If your resolution is simply going to say ‘we disapprove of this because of a lack of open space,’ we ask you to please look at past applications you’ve approved that did not include any public space,” said Shelley Friedman, who is the lead attorney for the MSK-CUNY project, to the board.

But residents are still unhappy with impact on traffic and parking. The traffic problem areas, according to George Alexiades, who presented an alternative look at the community impact at the meeting last week, exist between 71st and 74th and York Avenue. The traffic there, he said, is severely backed up, even now, during peak rush hour times due to multiple turn lanes, and cars trying to get onto the entrance of the FDR Drive. Alexiades also said that delivery trucks often block lanes of traffic in that section, creating a line of cars trying to turn onto York Avenue.

“It is just backed up constantly, people cannot get through that intersection because York is already packed,” said Alexiades. “If you put in this structure it will be impossible, and it will congest all the side streets because they will be looking for parking.”

In addition, MSK admits that the proposed parking spots would not be enough for the complex. Alexiades is picturing constant streams of cars circling the nearby blocks for a parking spot. But Anne Locke, from AKRF, said that the parking and traffic might only cause congestion during peak hours of the day.

So what is the solution to the inevitable traffic jam? According to MSK-CUNY, increasing the time of the green light by two seconds could mitigate most of the problems in the affected intersections.

“We have had so much construction around here, and so many institutions making promises, but when the day is done, the promises fall away,” said Elaine Walsh, a community board member. “The community is tired of this.”

The problem here, said Alexiades, is that with the huge influx of people coming into the area every day, those two seconds would probably not make much of a difference. He said that he and the other residents who are vehemently against this cancer and educational complex believe that the only way to mitigate the concerns for both traffic and parking would be to decrease the size of the complex. But it doesn’t look like MSK-CUNY will be changing their plans anytime soon. And according to Owen Gutfreund, an urban planning expert, that may be a good thing, despite the traffic.

“The shift of this site’s use, from the previously noxious and unattractive industrial building to an attractive and modern new community-service facility such as I’ve seen will be a dramatic improvement that should be welcomed with open arms,” said Gutfreund. “Opposition to this project is nothing less than NIMBYism of the worst sort.”

The full board will vote on the zoning resolution changes at their meeting this week.