Monday Bulletin: NASA Scientists Above Famed UWS Diner Get the Boot; UWS Synagogue Custodian Fatally Stabbed Abroad; Take the Mayoral Quiz

Monday, May 19, 2025
Sunny. High 71 degrees.

The week will start warm, before rain on Wednesday and Thursday brings temperatures back down into the 50s. There is no rain forecast for the weekend.

Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.

Thank you everyone who took the time to lend their financial support Friday on West Side Rag’s 14th birthday. We are incredibly grateful. You can support West Side Rag by clicking — HERE.

Upper West Side News
By Gus Saltonstall

Upper West Siders are likely to know 2880 Broadway, on the corner of 112th Street, as the home of Tom’s Diner, made globally famous by its appearances in “Seinfeld.” You’d be less likely to know what goes on within the address’ upper floors.

NASA scientists have worked for nearly 60 years within the building, which is also known as Armstrong Hall, but they are now set to be displaced. The space organization has told the more than 100 people who work at the address that they have to leave by the end of May, as first reported by the New York Times.

The move stems from a Trump administration cost-cutting push connected to an executive order this April calling for a “re-examination of all leased federal office space,” especially in city centers. The Department of Government Efficiency also examined NASA’s spending in the past few months.

NASA now says it has canceled its lease with the 112th Street building, but that money won’t be saved in the process since the lease is between Columbia University and a different federal agency, meaning that the $3 million in yearly rent will still be due, regardless of whether the scientists are in the building, a Columbia official told the Times.

NASA first moved into the building in 1966 with the goal of encouraging collaboration on space research between scientists and researchers at different New York universities.

Columbia is actively looking for a new space for the NASA scientists.

You can read the full story — HERE.

A custodian at an Upper West Side synagogue was allegedly fatally stabbed earlier this month while visiting Turkey, according to multiple reports, including the New York Post.

Yitzhak “Igor” Alishayiv, 46, who has worked for years at the Congregation Heichal Moshe synagogue at 303 West 91st Street, between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive, was a visiting a remote part of Turkey to spend time in nature, when he was allegedly stabbed to death by the owner of a bed & breakfast he was staying in after the two had some sort of argument, the Post and Turkish media outlets reported.

Ismail Kara, the owner of the bed and breakfast, was arrested less than a week later, according to reports.

“We’re desperately trying to get the body back so we could properly say goodbye to him,” Sara Shulevitz Vorhand, a criminal defense attorney who also co-heads the Congregation Heichal Moshe synagogue, told the Post, while adding that Jewish law calls for immediate burials.

Details still remain unclear about the exact timing of Alishayiv’s death and what the argument was about.

You can read more — HERE.

We are now nearly a month away from the primary elections in New York City on June 24.

At the top of the ballot this cycle will be the mayor’s race, which has 12 candidates from which to choose as of Monday.

The mayoral candidates on the Democratic line are Adrienne Adams, Andrew Cuomo, Brad Lander, Jessica Ramos, Michael Blake, Scott Stringer, Whitney Tislon, Zellnor Myrie and Zohran Mamdani. The Independents are Eric Adams and Jim Walden, and the lone Republican challenger is Curtis Sliwa.

Our friends at THE CITY recently put together “The Meet Your Mayor Quiz.” The quiz provides readers with 18 questions to see how your beliefs compare with the candidate’s stances on issues. At the end of the quiz, you are presented with the candidate that most aligns with your own opinions.

You can take the quiz for yourself — HERE.

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