By the time Tom Allon arrived at West Side Spirit to become its editor on Aug. 1, 1986, the paper already had a clear mission. Allon learned that directly from the then-publisher, Steven Bauman.

“He wanted it to be an investigative and robust newspaper, to pursue the truth with neither fear no favor,” said Allon, who today is president and CEO of Manhattan Media, which publishes West Side Spirit. Manhattan Media is also the company behind Our Town, the Spirit’s sister weekly on the East Side, along with New York Press, AVENUE magazine, New York Family, City Hall and The Capitol.

As for the Spirit, Gary Daniels started the newspaper in 1985. The arrival of a “New West Side Paper” was mentioned Feb. 8 of that year in the New York Times. The plan, the Times said, was a newspaper with a circulation of more than 100,000, to be “distributed free in apartment buildings, stores and hotels.” Initially, the paper was meant to “stretch from the Battery to Washington Heights.” To reflect that,the name changed for a few years to Manhattan Spirit. In later years the publication would concentrate on the Upper West Side.

By the time Allon was on board more than a year later, Jerry Finkelstein was a key investor—and he, in turn, installed Bauman, who hired Allon. A quarter-century later, Allon said he is proud that the Spirit has “survived and thrived for 25 years in a cyclical economy.”

These days, the paper is much more than just a publication that arrives via paper. There’s a growing web presence, at www.westsidespirit.com, Facebook and Twitter, and Manhattan Media sponsors and hosts a range of initiatives. The Westy Awards honor West Siders of note each year. The Blackboard Awards pay tribute to excellent schools, teachers and principals. And the Building Worker Awards highlight doormen, porters and other workers throughout the city.

Ronnie Eldridge, a former City Council Member representing the Upper West Side, said she thinks that local newspapers are “the spine of a community,” helping to create the sense of belonging that they cover. She’s looked to the Spirit to fill that role.

“It’s gone through so many variations, but it’s always been something that everyone has looked forward to reading because it was local,” Eldridge said.

Hitting the same theme was Lisa Linden, a public relations expert and CEO of Linden Alschuler & Kaplan.

“Community newspapers provide a critical, hyper-local focus on news and events. They are the backbone of New York’s neighborhoods,” Linden said. “That’s it in a nutshell.”

The news itself is rooted in the communities being covered.

“Hyper-local wasn’t a sexy word 25 years ago,” Allon said, “Or even 10 years ago.”

But it remains the secret of the Spirit’s success.

That same year, a new weekly community newspaper, West Side Spirit, was launched to provide West Siders with the news of their neighborhoods.

In addition to being the only newspaper in town to comprehensively cover the news of the West Side, we also helped provide a forum for interesting writers and new voices. In the late 1980s, a high school English teacher named Frank McCourt wrote a regular column in the Spirit. A recent Vassar College grad named Tom Beller—now an acclaimed author—wrote quirky features for the paper from 1986 to 1987. We also provided a platform for the witty columns of a bright new voice on the West Side: Tama Janowitz.

We took some well-known names and allowed them to write about their passions: “Mayflower Madam” Sydney Biddle Barrows offered sex advice to eager readers and former Mayor Ed Koch began providing his take on movies.

Today, we still aim to tell compelling tales of West Side life, covering education, politics, real estate, business, cultural happenings and just about anything that touches the life of an Upper West Sider.

And this week, with our 25th anniversary issue, we are rededicating ourselves especially to telling West Side stories. As you can see inside today’s issue, we’ve told our share. Some of our former editors and reporters share their favorite tales of the last 25 years. We’re impressed with those editors and writers themselves, as many now have bylines appearing in the New York Times, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Law Journal.

But we’re just as impressed with their recollections. Certainly West Side Spirit has won journalism awards and earned a reputation for being a feisty, hard-hitting community weekly with groundbreaking investigative reporting. We helped free an innocent man from jail (“The Jane Street Murder Case”) and brought to national attention the plight of the homeless mentally ill (“The Wild Man of West 96th Street”).

In 1991, in fact, New York magazine dubbed West Side Spirit “the tiny but tough tabloid.”

We liked that nickname. We still do.

As always, we’ll continue to be the small-town newspaper in the big metropolis. Where you can see your neighbor’s name in a story about community opposition to a new building. Where you can find tips on where to shop or dine in your neighborhood.

We’ll continue to cover the stories that are too small for the mass media, because our motto continues to be “all important news is local.” Let the dailies and television news focus on foreign wars and entanglements and natural disasters. We are content to be the must-read on the West Side for a quarter-century now.

To our readers, loyal advertisers and to the entire staff—past and present—who have supported us these last 25 years, thank you. If we haven’t covered your story or made it to your block yet, rest assured we’ll be there soon.

The best is yet to come.

Tom Allon
Publisher, West Side Spirit

At home with newsman Jimmy Breslin and longtime public servant Ronnie Eldridge

Always Reaching for the Sky

With an eye toward a greener city, the Durst family builds a legacy

Heir to the Sturgeon Kingdom

The world famous Barney Greengrass has been feeding generations

On the Frontlines of the Gourmet Revolution

An iconic family business built on dedication and discriminating palates

Inspired by a Neighborhood

A political star who was shaped by his Upper West Side roots

Crafting the People’s Guidebook

From mimeographed reviews, Tim and Nina Zagat built a publishing empire

Where Culture Meets Community

A couple’s decades-long effort to make a better neighborhood

Brothers Who Build

With visionary projects, three generations of Zeckendorfs shape the city

Paterson Ethos: ‘Remember Where You Came From’

The governor and his father leave their mark on political history

Pick one story to represent a whole year? Impossible. But we did it anyway, keeping in mind that we wanted to represent the paper’s passion for reporting on city politics, crime, schools, real estate, business and the changing nature of our own neighborhoods. We’ve always covered the little stories, the ones that neighbors notice and tell us about. But we break big news too, like the 1991 investigation by Stacey Asip. Her reporting led to William Emerson, a homeless man, being freed after he had been indicted in the famous Jane Street murder.
Here is a look back, year by year and story by story, at just some of the gems we have been lucky enough to report throughout the past quarter-century.

December 1985

“The West Side’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives”
West Side Spirit started with a bang. Or at least with a fair number of stories about the fear of the bang-bang crime culture that was an important part of urban life in the mid-1980s. A March story, “West Side Crime: The Story Behind the Numbers,” talked about how “Crime—and the fear of crime—pervades the life of most West Siders. Our personal safety, our need to protect our loved ones, has become the paramount issue of 1985 for many New Yorkers.” The story went on to say that many New Yorkers “believe that we are losing the battle against crime.” The paper ended the year in December with “The West Side’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives.”

June 1986

“Child Pornography: Flourishing Through the Loopholes”
Street crime was not the only kind. West Side Spirit began its passion for investigative pieces early in its history. In this edition, there was a cover story about how child pornography ravaged neighborhoods—and lives. “In the bout between children’s rights and sex exploiters’ megabucks… it’s no contest,” we wrote. “Locally, profits are up and prosecutions are down.”

September 1987

“Manhattan is the Muse”
We weren’t always so serious. The paper launched an annual fiction and poetry contest, tapping into the creative talent of West Siders. This edition featured the winners of West Side Spirit’s first annual fiction and poetry contest. But tragic news was never far away, since even this “special double issue” left plenty of room for serious subjects, like the “AIDS Primer” for readers.

January 1988

“Invasion of the Theater Snatchers”
Tom Allon, the then-managing editor who would later become the company’s president and CEO, did a front-page piece about how “two powerful chains now control much of what you see, and what you’ll pay to see it.” The piece came in the wake of the 1987 closing of the Regency theater, the Upper West Side’s last remaining revival house, which was bought by Cineplex Odeon and converted into a first-run theater. The story underscored West Siders’ passion for all things cinematic. This would not be the last time that West Side Spirit investigated the retail landscape and whether smaller, independent businesses can survive.

November 1989

“Now, the Hard Part”
Mayor-elect David Dinkins made history that year by becoming the city’s first-ever African-American to win the top spot at City Hall. But West Side Spirit took an early look at the daunting challenges he would face. Also in the paper: predictions on who would likely be key players in the new administration, which came to office after 12 years of the Koch administration.

July 1990

“Manhattan Monopoly”
West Side Spirit took a recession-era look at the state of real estate in the city—and the brave players who bet on a better future. The subtitle here is “Scoring Against the Slump,” a reminder that “a few mavericks… have turned the weak market to their advantage.” Among the success stories cited: William Zeckendorf, Jr., and his work to bring about Worldwide Plaza on the block bound by West 50th and 51st streets and Eighth and Ninth avenues.

December 1991

“No Way Up”
West Side Spirit continued its political coverage, explaining why being mayor can be a dead-end job for New Yorkers. Mayor Ed Koch unsuccessfully tried to get himself elected governor in 1982. That turned out to prescient, since other mayors since then have found that it is

not easy to get a promotion from what’s long been called “the second toughest job in America.”

February 1992

“The Wild Man of West 96th Street”
This story became a national sensation, picked up by other news outlets because it seemed to underscore the sense that something needed to be done to make city streets safer. The piece by Janet Wickenhaver delivered on what the headline promised, which was a look inside “what happens when a dangerous homeless man adopts a neighborhood that doesn’t want him.” The story detailed the efforts of Upper West Sider Lisa Lehr to confine a mentally homeless man, Larry Hogue, to a mental institution.

March 1994

“Will Trump’s Riverside South Ever Get Off the Ground?”
Editor Faye Penn took on the hot topic of “Trump’s Gambit,” looking back in history and ahead to the battle over a key West Side development. In 1985, Trump unveiled his plan for what had been called Penn Yards. He said he would build something called “Television City,” but by 1994 the idea was refashioned and renamed Riverside South. “We want to stop the project,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler told West Side Spirit. “But we may not be able to.” Today, it’s closer than ever to final approval, though with the inclusion of a school and affordable housing, it’s far different from the original concept.

December 1995

“A Tale of Two Schools”
West Side Spirit has a long and rich history of investigating educational issues and celebrating success in city schools. This piece by Jon Hart took aim at a key question: “How does one school flourish while a nearby school declines?” Only five blocks separated P.S. 9 and P.S. 166, “but academically they’re miles apart,” the story reported. “The tale of these two schools—which have made headlines recently as a result of a dispute over a Gifted and Talented program which both want—offers a glimpse at how two institutions only a quarter of a mile apart moved in opposite directions.” Today, of course, both schools are well-regarded and sought-after by local families.

March 1996

“See Ruth Run”
This is the year when another West Side Spirit cover story asked the question, “Where Have All the Activists Gone?” But at least one familiar Upper West Sider, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, was about to stick her neck out. In a piece by James Rutenberg, who now toils at The New York Times, West Side Spirit asked, “How can a liberal from Manhattan win over the increasingly conservative neighborhoods of Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island?” The answer came in November 1997: she couldn’t. But Messinger would go on to serve as a leader at American Jewish World Service.

February 1997

“Donald Trump’s Card?”
Maybe it’s a journalistic credo: When it doubt, write about Trump. Now it is is true of newspapers all around the nation, but West Side Spirit covered Donald Trump as one of our own from the start. In 1997, editor Chris Erikson updated development-weary West Siders about The Donald’s latest plans. “After 12 years of maneuvering,” Erikson wrote, “Donald Trump says he’s set to break ground for the first phase of his Riverside South development. But while Trump revs his bulldozers, opponents of the plan vow to fight to the bitter end.” By the next year, West Side Spirit had a front-page question: “Will Riverside South Overwhelm Local Schools?”

February 1998

“Talking in Circles”
For many years, West Siders wondered—and argued—about the future of Columbus Circle. In this issue, “Westsiders speak their minds on the future of Columbus Circle,” and boy, did they ever. “The entire area seems ready for an overhaul,” the paper said, setting the tone for West Siders to weigh in. “But change is rarely accomplished easily in New York.” True enough, but change would come to Columbus Circle.

November 1999

“Homeless for the Holidays”
West Side Spirit asks whether Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s crackdown on street people is actually making poverty a crime. In this piece by city editor Mary Reinholz, the paper continued its years-long investigation into homelessness, from the perspective of those living through it and those living near it. One 27-year-old homeless man said: “I sleep in front of church steps because when you’re in front of the church steps, the police usually don’t bother you. They’ll bother you anywhere else.”

September 2000

“Who Wants a Longer School Day?”
The current school year, West Side Spirit said, has its roots in a mostly agrarian society, which depended on children to help with farming during the summer. Since that set-up has changed, so too should the school year. At least that’s the argument made by some educational advocates. Their views were expressed in a cover story, which continued the paper’s tradition of asking questions about city schools.

September 2001

“West Siders Rally”
The sub-headline was: “Heroes answer call of their city.” A nightmare of unprecedented proportions played out in our city and in the pages of West Side Spirit, as the paper told the tale of 9/11 as it was lived by New Yorkers. “There’s a basic human need to tell stories,” the paper said in a front-page editorial in the weeks after the attacks. “Sharing tales of joy or—in the case of this month—tragedy binds people together. It’s cathartic.” And the paper served in these weeks as a space and place for the sharing of stories about loss and pain and survival and a new era in the city and the world.

July 2002

“What Should Mike Do About Schools?”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his first year as mayor, wanted and eventually won control of the city’s schools. “Community school boards are on their way out,” the paper said, addressing readers. “And it’s up to you, according to Assembly Member Steven Sanders, what should take their place.” Suggestions abounded from educational experts, polled by the paper. Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition, advanced one theory: “We have to have for children,” he said, “what the American Association of Retired People is for retired people.”

Fall 2003

This year, West Side Spirit launched the Blackboard Awards, a series of special issues and events celebrating excellence in city schools. The Blackboard Awards went on to become a separate and award-winning division of Manhattan Media. In the papers, space was set aside to honor specific schools and, eventually, teachers and principals.

March 2004

“Registering Sex Offenders: Does It Prevent Crime?”
Continuing its investigative tradition, West Side Spirit’s reporter, Lauren A. Elkies, studied a hot topic in a two-part series. She started one article with a piece of news: While the state sexual offender subdirectory said there were no dangerous sexual offenders living on the Upper East Side, there were two listed by the police. Her series “Levels of Risk” looked behind the statistics to the debate about what really makes a community safe.

March 2005

“Is Manhattan’s Republican Party Dead?”
In 1994, the borough’s GOP controlled seats in the State Senate, the Assembly and the City Council. But by 2005, the only Republican with a big political New York City job was the mayor. And he was thought by many to be a Republican in Name Only, or RINO. So West Side Spirit took a look at the Republican Party’s fall from grace—and wondered whether the liberal, urban Republican was becoming an endangered species.

January 2006

“The Case for Charter Schools”
Years before the mainstream media began following the day-to-day battles over extending charter schools throughout the state and nation, West Side Spirit took aim at the debate over educational innovation. “The president, governor and mayor all want more of them,” the paper said on its front page about charter schools. “Why many believe they are part of the solution to improving our school system.” Writer and future editor Charlotte Eichna talked to advocates for lifting state limits on charters. Opponents spoke up, too, insisting that charters become better schools because they get to pick better students.

July 2007

“What Next?”
With Albany debating and eventually rejecting the mayor’s idea of congestion pricing, West Side Spirit got to wondering what would happen next. Traffic congestion remained a big, obvious issue. For his part, the mayor was candid about being disappointed over the lack of state help. “It’s sad to note that after three months of working with all parties to address their questions, the failure of the State Assembly to act in time on a deadline imposed by the federal government is a terrible setback for clean air and to our critical commitment to fight climate change,” he said in a statement.

February 2008

“Is Broadway Dying?”
Empty storefronts forced West Side Spirit back into doing what it has done so many times over the years: covering the changing retail environment. It plays out neighborhood to neighborhood, even street to street, and the plethora of empty storefronts got the paper’s writers investigating Broadway’s future. One particularly popular complaint: the rise of the bank and drug store, with more and more of them appearing throughout the neighborhood.

June 2009

“The Mayor’s Race: Focus on Housing and Development”
West Side Spirit took time to delve deeply into the issues of the mayoral campaign over several weeks, including matters like housing and transportation. In the housing issue, the mayor’s record of development was weighed against the promises of two Democratic challengers, Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., and Council Member Tony Avella. Thompson said he wanted “smart development,” meeting the more pressing needs of citizens. Avella joined Thompson is asking for a rent-freeze. Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the eventual victor, touted his Five Borough Economic Recovery Plan, aimed at the recession. And the mayor argued he had already added 80,000 new units of affordable housing during his tenure. When it came to transportation, also a hot topic examined in the paper, the mayor had become well-identified with his congestion pricing proposal, which had failed to win over the State Legislature. Bloomberg himself became something of an issue when he sought to lift the two-term limit on mayors, eventually deciding to seek a third term. He won it, beating Thompson, but in a race that was narrower than many pundits had expected.

There were two stories West Side Spirit covered in great depth in the early 1990s that are knit together in my mind. Both concern homeless men. Both concern the street life of the city in a time that is growing remote.

It was a time when tourists and newcomers said New York brought to mind Calcutta. Before Disney took over Times Square. When squeegee men cleaned your windshield whether you liked it or not. And no subway ride was free of an interaction with a stranger asking for money.

One was the story of Larry Hogue, dubbed the “Wild Man of West 96th Street” on these pages. It was the odyssey of a mentally ill, crack-addicted man through the revolving doors of the criminal justice and mental health systems, and Upper West Sider Lisa Lehr’s efforts to confine him. The story was also about the neighborhood in the West 90s that, by default, became host and victim of Hogue’s irrational and often frightening behavior, a neighborhood that I once described as being like “a liberal who had been mugged.”

The second story was written and relentlessly reported by my colleague, Stacey Asip. It concerned the murder of an ad executive at a phone booth on Jane Street. A homeless man, William Emerson, was arrested for the murder, unjustly, as it turned out, and on the strength of an unreliable witness with questionable motives.

Both of these stories illustrated how the system was failing the city’s vulnerable people and neighborhoods. One story deprived a man of his freedom; Hogue has spent most of the intervening years at Creedmor. The other returned it to him; Emerson has disappeared into the mist of memory, as far as I know.

There was a kind of symmetry to the stories that made us feel like we were doing the right thing, looking at life on a case-by-case basis, with no political agenda clouding our view. Homeless people were not just one faceless mass to us, a point driven home to me when I later became editor of Street News and became genuine friends with several.

Sadly, the issues that Hogue and Emerson exemplified are still very much with us. The mental health system continues to fail the public. And the problem of innocent men being railroaded by the criminal justice system, and lying witnesses, is not likely to subside any time soon.
–
Janet Wickenhaver Allon, editor of AVENUE magazine, was the associate editor and then editor of West Side Spirit from 1990 to 1993.

No one story stands out from my time at the Manhattan Spirit, as it was called then. Several do. Together they tell the tale of New York City then and now, a city transformed wonderfully and tragically, yet in some ways stuck in time.

Certainly one of my favorite stories from back then was about a crack gang who controlled a small sliver of the Upper West Side. I was only 24 and it was exciting, in its way, to report on drug dealers who had killed people on the corner of the very street on which I lived, West 107th Street. It was the stuff of the day’s mighty tabloid writers—Mike McAlary, Pete Hamill, Jimmy Breslin—who I tried so hard to emulate—and the bosses let me, too.

It may have been just one small drug ring terrorizing no more than 10 square blocks, too small to gain much notice in the daily papers. But it was part of a patchwork of drug syndicates that had helped to drive the city’s murder rate above 2,000, and had caused so many of us to constantly look over our shoulders after dark.

I remember one winter night leaping out of bed at the sounds of gunfire and sirens, grabbing a notebook and giving chase to cops running along the icy and slippery sidewalks looking for the shooters. They never found them. And they were not a little perplexed and annoyed at the young man from their community paper tailing them in a dingy overcoat.

I remember trying in vain to learn the story behind a drive-by shooting in which a man was hit in the knee right before my eyes. It happened one spring night just outside the open door of the Night Cafe on Amsterdam Avenue, where I was drinking a beer alongside a fellow young reporter, Warren St. John. I was certain it was related to our local drug gang, but the gunmen and the victim, who was quickly scooped into a car that literally burned rubber as it sped off to God-knows-where, were long gone before the police arrived.

And I remember trying to convince the superintendent of our building, who was plugged in to the neighborhood toughs, to tell me about the head of the gang, who went by the name Flaco. He said he knew all about him, but never told me anything worth reporting.

Court papers finally helped me to lay out in the pages of the Spirit the way the gang had kept others out of its territory, how it worked with suppliers and how its members had tried to buy off a local police officer. The gang was called “Young Talented Children,’’ the court papers said, and our cover story about it had the headline, “Young, Talented & Deadly,’’ and a drawing of a bullet. What I didn’t realize at the time was that we were documenting a dying industry whose near-demise would deliver such a safer city and take so many once too-familiar phrases out of our local lexicon. When was the last time you talked about “drive-by” shootings or commonly saw “crack vials” or “crack heads?”

That battle may have been nearly won—yes, skirmishes continue—but more than a few other stories we covered then still rage now. I wrote at least two cover stories that in one way or another had to do with crumbling school buildings and the Board of Education’s inexplicable inability to deal with them. I remember vividly that I was working on the second of those when terrorists blew up a Ryder truck in the basement of the World Trade Center. But my story proceeded without delay, as off-topic as that might seem in retrospect. We probably should have devoted the whole paper, and the one after that and the one after that, to the attack. But while six had died, the attack seemed to have been a fluke break-through by a hapless band of dunces, one of whom was so careless as to sign his real name on the truck rental agreement, leading to his quick arrest. The towers were the worse for wear and tear, to be sure, but they did not fall. They, and we, seemed indestructible.

Then there was the battle over the future of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rail yards on the West Side. Then-Gov. Mario Cuomo was pushing the idea for a Yankees stadium on the yards, an idea that was picked up by Rudolph W. Giuliani as well. Later, of course, Mayor Michael Bloomberg also tried to succeed where those two New York gorillas failed, with a stadium for the Jets and the Olympics. I covered that stadium fight for the New York Times and thought of the last one. I can still see our July 1993 Spirit cover about the proposed West Side stadium in my mind’s eye. It featured a photo of a Yankees pendant shoved in the ground at the edge of the yards with a headline that read, “The Manhattan Yankees?”

It sure seems timely now, yet it was not among our prettiest-looking covers. The deck was stacked against it on that score. Our resident genius art director John Moynihan (1960-2004) had not designed it. Moynihan came up with the most striking cover of my time at the Spirit. The story was about heroin use at Columbia University. We struggled for a headline until Moynihan shouted out, in a put-on, old Boston newspaper guy’s accent: “Columbia’s Dark Secret.’’ He illustrated it with a reverse negative of the Columbia library streaked with psychedelic colors. Moynihan loved newspapers and newspapering; he got us pumped and always reminded us that our little community weekly could be just as tough and exciting as anything else in town.

When it came time to put out the giant 10th anniversary issue of the Spirit—an overwhelming task for our tiny staff—he rallied us by digging up a bonanza of old photos of the borough that he found at the Public Library’s photo archives on 42nd Street. We—Chris Erikson, a chap called George Matouk and me—rallied him on that crushing deadline night, he told us, by coming up with snappy captions and headlines. I’ll never forget how he convinced us to celebrate the closing of the issue at an empty Hogs & Heifers early that morning with several shots of Jamesons and several more pints of Guinness. When we closed the bar we stumbled over to the printing house around the corner, where we had dropped off the proofs a couple of hours earlier. Together, with the sun coming up, we saluted as the issue rolled off of the presses. The Spirit was 10, but we were all just getting started.
–
Jim Rutenberg, a reporter for the New York Times, was editor of West Side Spirit from 1993 to 1994 and political editor from 1995 to 1996.

I had written for my college newspaper, so it didn’t seem a stretch in December of 1986 when my high school friend and newly installed editor of the West Side Spirit, Tom Allon, asked me to do an article. The topic was the Irish Arts Center, where Frank and Malachy McCourt had recently performed. That led to features about Second Stage, Ensemble Studio Theater and the Pearl Theater Company.

I guess Tom liked my style, since in May of 1987 he asked if I would become the West Side Spirit’s theater editor. I’d alternate a column of reviews with theater-related articles that I’d assign and then edit. Thus started a wonderful 18-month association with the Spirit that ended only when I moved to New Orleans.

Among the highlights of my tenure were seeing the original productions of Driving Miss Daisy with Dana Ivey and Morgan Freeman, George C. Wolfe’s subversive The Colored Museum, Sondheim’s Into the Woods with “his most hummably enjoyable score in years,” David Henry Hwang’s complex and thought-provoking M. Butterfly with John Lithgow, and the haunting Joe Turner’s Come and Gone by August Wilson.

Some shows were memorable for other reasons. The magnetic charm of Peter O’Toole in Pygmalion. Charles Busch’s rubbery face in the wonderfully wacky Psycho Beach Party. Madonna in Speed-the-Plow. Peter Brook’s Mahabharata required nine hours of sitting on BAM’s hard benches over three weeks. After the first installment, I couldn’t wait to head out to Brooklyn each week for the following two parts of this monumental work.

There were some unusual shows. Before it became an institution, Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, with its huge interactive cast and a trek from Washington Square to East 14th Street, seemed like an oh-so-cool in-joke among the cognoscenti. Tamara allowed you to follow the character(s) of your choice through its Park Avenue Armory setting; its World War I intrigue and an intermission repast from Le Cirque made “an audience feel as though it had strolled into a luxuriant Masterpiece Theatre presentation.” And in YOU—The City, cast members escorted an audience of one—you—from Times Square to a playground in Clinton with stops along the way in St. Luke’s Church and a porn theater as they held forth with existential monologues about a search for a mysteriously disappeared WHO.

In August 1987, we did a cover story on up-and-coming theater artists. Charles Busch, post-Vampire Lesbians of Sodom but pre-Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, was one. Park Overall was another; she was clearly too talented for off-off-Broadway and soon made the leap to the big screen (Biloxi Blues, Mississippi Burning) along with an extended run on the little (Empty Nest). Readers of the Spirit could say they saw her here first.

Probably the most satisfying moment of my time at the Spirit, however, was when I was informed that my positive review of the Westside Repertory Theatre’s production of She Stoops to Conquer led to a noticeable uptick in business. It was nice to know that we could make a difference.

From my first review of the South African revue Asinamali! to my last before heading down south of the campy Chorus Girls on Mars, it was a year-and-a-half that I look back on with undiluted fondness.
–
Brian Maxwell, who was theater editor of West Side Spirit from 1987 to 1988, has been theater editor of Ambush Magazine, based in New Orleans, since 2002.

I am pretty sure the only time the police were called specifically on me was while working for West Side Spirit.

The story I was reporting focused on so-called illegal hotels, which were often found in Single Room Occupancy residences and other types of buildings that weren’t outright classified as “residential.” When New York City’s tourism industry heated up in the mid-2000s, many landlords found that it was more lucrative to rent out rooms to tourists than to keep these accommodations as part of the neighborhood’s permanent affordable housing stock. City officials agreed that this practice was against the letter and spirit of the law, setting a dangerous precedent, but landlords pointed to vague phrasing in a building’s certificate of occupancy that they claimed allowed them to run transient establishments. In the meantime, residents of these buildings complained of inconsiderate and noisy tourists, ever-changing neighbors and landlord harassment.

One such resident, Anne Cunningham, was kind enough to invite me into her home to show me how it was actually being operated as a hotel. At first glance, The Tempo, on West 73rd Street, looked like your average, nicely appointed Upper West Side high-rise. But inside were all the hallmarks of the hospitality industry: a rack of brochures advertising tours and shows, a check-in desk in the lobby and a handful of people wheeling suitcases and lugging bags throughout its hallways.

Trying to act inconspicuous, I began snapping pictures to document this activity, chatting up some of the tourists to ask them how they found this place and what their hometown was. The manager, of course, didn’t appreciate that. He interrupted my conversation, instructing the guests not to talk to me, and threatened to call the police. The guests, at this point, were totally freaked out and confused.

Hackles raised, I felt that I was truly onto a good story—if this building’s hotel business were legit, why would this guy care if I took photos and talked to people? Moreover, I was experiencing harassment—as a member of the press, uncovering injustice! OK, so this wasn’t exactly Watergate, but still, it was exciting. I had clearly touched a nerve and the erosion of affordable housing was a huge issue on the West Side, and in the city as a whole.

Feeling completely in the right and figuring I could get off the hook using my precinct connections, I told the manager to go ahead and call the cops. Indeed, when the police arrived, I showed them my press credentials and they declined to detain me—although they suggested I leave.

I did, using my brush with the law as the lede for my November 2007 story, “Tourist Traps: Critics say hotels are illegally encroaching on much-needed housing, but building owners say the law isn’t so clear.”

Although the city has cracked down on these hotels, many still exist and West Side Spirit reported about partial vacate orders issued for two such buildings as recently December 2009. I’m sure those won’t be the last
stories either.
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Charlotte Eichna has worked at West Side Spirit since 2003, and has been executive editor since 2008.

To some people, a Chinese menu shoved under the door is an appreciated convenience. To others it’s a minor annoyance. But for a time on the Upper West Side, it seemed like something else entirely—it seemed like a very big deal indeed. It also seemed like the story that wouldn’t die.

There were threats, physical altercations and public demonstrations. There was legal action, police and government intervention. Activists involved with the cause made straight-faced references to “the movement.” All of this over Chinese menus. What exactly was the deal?

On the face of it, it was simple enough. Behind it was a Chinese restaurant, Empire Szechuan, with a promotional strategy that involved aggressively blanketing Upper West Side residences with takeout menus. The strategy worked pretty well, helping Empire Szechuan grow from a single restaurant to a thriving mini-chain.

The problem was, some Upper West Siders began to get sick of the onslaught. They complained, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Then they got really sick of it. A few decided to fight back.

So one night in 1992, at peak dinner hour, a group calling themselves the “Menu Vigilantes” invaded the Empire Szechuan at West 97th and Broadway and scattered menus around the dining room, surprising the hell out of diners who’d stopped in for a peaceful plate of sesame noodles.

West Side Spirit covered the counterattack, and some bigger media picked up the story. The restaurant promised to stop after that, but they didn’t, and the vigilantes returned, this time with a TV camera crew in tow.

From then on, the battle, which we took to calling the Chinese Menu War, not only stayed alive for months and months, it just got more heated. Letters were sent by the score, not only by community groups but by city and state officials, one of whom drafted an anti-dumping bill. The New York Times and CNN ran stories. The Community Board revoked the restaurant’s cafe permit. The captain of the 20th Precinct met with Empire Szechuan owner, James Shau. An Upper West Side landlord, Saul Lapidus, took Empire Szechuan to small claims court repeatedly, suing for the cost of clearing menus out of his buildings (he eventually won).

Nothing, it seemed, dammed the flood. Seething with frustration, people spoke of the menu deliverers in semi-awed tones, like they were some mysterious, unstoppable force of nature.

Violent altercations between doormen and the delivery men were not uncommon around this time. I remember going up to see one West 109th Street doorman who, at the end of his rope, had called West Side Spirit to vent about his daily run-ins with the menu dumpers. Things were so bad that he was worried that someone was going to get seriously hurt. “It’s come down to that,” he said, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Over menus.”

It was, after all, only menus. So, again, what exactly was the deal? What were people so worked up about?

Some claimed that an anti-Asian bias was behind the complaints. But I’m inclined to think that Saul Lapidus put his finger on it when he told the paper, “We’re assaulted everywhere, in the streets, in the subways. To be assaulted in our homes with this garbage—it’s an indignity.” In a city where one is required to fend off one unwanted advance after another, it seemed that having the unwanted advance literally shoved under one’s door was the last straw.

So why was I so captivated by the whole thing? I guess because it was such an oddball, only-in-New-York story. It showed how a little issue could become a big one when it upset the delicate balance required for people crammed together on a little patch of island to coexist in a state of relative harmony.

And it just never seemed to end. For that matter, it probably still hasn’t.
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Chris Erikson, currently an editor at the New York Post, was the associate editor and then editor of West Side Spirit from 1993 to 1997.