The Upper East Side has a reputation. With Gilded Age mansions and marble-lobbied prewar co-op buildings, it is the home of both Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue. The three words themselves act as a shorthand for wealthy, refined, exclusive and possibly snobbish.
But in New York City, nothing is ever just one thing. Neighborhoods contain multitudes, and the Upper East Side is no exception. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who this week moved into Gracie Mansion, the city’s official mayoral residence, might just find that his new neighborhood is more diverse, more international and more interesting than he imagined.
Sure, there’s the obvious — Central Park (and its coyote couple), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim.
But there’s so much more. Public lectures at the Explorers Club. Sunset films at Carl Schurz Park. Restaurants with food from around the world. If and when Mr. Mamdani has time to venture out, he might just have some fun.
Soccer on the Roof
Whether the mayor, a lifelong soccer obsessive, will have time to play remains to be seen, but there are a few places for him to find a game near his new home.
Marx Brothers Playground on East 96th Street and Thomas Jefferson Park on East 114th (technically East Harlem, but just a nine-minute Citi Bike ride away) have soccer fields.
Jessica Caunedo, the marketing manager of NYC Footy, a soccer league that Mr. Mamdani has competed in, lives and plays soccer on the Upper East Side. She often joins the games that take place on the roof of the Loyola School on East 83rd Street.
“It’s hidden away,” she said of the caged-in, open-air soccer pitch. “You can’t see it unless you know it’s there — it’s so cool that it’s a hidden little pocket.” Even walking into Loyola’s grand school building, on Park Avenue, with its circa-1900 architecture in Renaissance Revival style, is fun, Ms. Caunedo said. “It’s so ‘Gossip Girl’!”
Tarek Pertew, the co-founder of NYC Footy, is hoping Mr. Mamdani can make playing soccer on the Upper East Side even easier.
“Nobody can play after work hours in the fall, because so few fields have lights,” Mr. Pertew said. “If he wanted to play soccer after work, he just can’t do it.”
That is, unless Mr. Mamdani converts the grassy area outside Gracie Mansion into a soccer pitch, Mr. Pertew said.
“You can comfortably fit a five-a-side pitch on that lawn,” he said. If Mr. Mamdani could make it happen, Mr. Pertew added, “I would play weekly there.”
Art in Stunning Settings
Living near Museum Mile will be a plus for Mr. Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, an artist.
But there are also countless art galleries to check out on the Upper East Side, including outposts of Gagosian and David Zwirner and the breathtaking Lévy Gorvy Dayan building — a Beaux-Arts townhouse on East 64th Street. A recent show there, Downtown/Uptown: New York in the Eighties, featured works by Barbara Kruger, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, among others.
Salon 94 is another free-to-the-public gallery in a historic mansion — with a spectacular neo-Renaissance oval staircase — on East 89th Street near Fifth Avenue. “We’re a big champion of female artists,” said Jackie Greenberg, the director.
The gallery, which consistently draws a diverse crowd, is currently exhibiting Aboriginal artists from the Western Australia desert and showcases all kinds of cutting-edge art, including ceramics, paintings and much more. Ms. Duwaji would feel “quite inspired and at home” there, Ms. Greenberg said. “Look, they’re eight blocks away — it’s a straight shot” down 89th Street, she added. “We would love them to come visit.”
Kebabs and Raw Beef
Mr. Mamdani has made a point of celebrating the breadth of the city’s dining scene, especially in Queens, where he lived previously. But there are good options on the Upper East Side, too.
The mayor is a fan of lamb adana, and customers rave about the kebabs from A la Turka on East 74th Street and Second Avenue. Al Badawi, a Palestinian restaurant on the corner of Second Avenue and East 89th, has lamb kebab and lamb shanks.
At Zabb PuTawn on First Avenue near East 83rd Street, the chef Therdtus “Tony” Rittaprom — whose previous restaurant, Zabb Elee in Queens, earned a Michelin star — makes authentic Northeastern Thai dishes, including goi neur, a spicy raw-beef salad that Mr. Mamdani often seeks out.
At Bombay Chowk, the chef was born in the northern part of the Punjab region in what is now Pakistan but spent his childhood in the southern Philippines. The result is an eclectic menu with Goan specialties and more standard Indian favorites, including lamb xacuti, railway canteen goat and biryani, a favorite of Mr. Mamdani.
If Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Duwaji are looking for a good spot for a date night, there’s Hoexters, on East 82nd Street. The owner, Alexandra Shapiro, is a born-and-bred Upper East Sider who never thought of the neighborhood as stuffy, exactly, but admits that for years, downtown seemed a lot cooler. Earlier this month, she returned to live on the Upper East Side. “I’m back, baby,” she said.
The restaurant, with its dark jungle-print wallpaper, ironed white tablecloths and brasserie-inspired menu, is buzzy, with a casual but elevated feel.
“I want it to be the kind of place where you can come in, sit at the bar and have a burger and a shrimp cocktail and a martini — or you can go to the back and celebrate someone’s graduation,” she said.
After dinner, Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Duwaji might seek more entertainment. Drinks, go-go dancers and late-night gyrating can be found at Ethyl’s, a 1970s-inspired bar on Second Avenue near East 85th Street. A framed satin Studio 54 jacket adorns one of the walls, alongside photos of Cher, Pam Grier and David Bowie.
If the mayor and first lady would prefer to be tucked away inside a speakeasy, there are several, including the UES, an elegant bar with high-concept cocktails hidden behind an ice cream shop on Second Avenue near East 89th Street.
Cultural Treasures
There are other neighborhood gems as well. The Society of Illustrators on East 63rd Street near Lexington Avenue hosts all sorts of public events, including an upcoming Edward Gorey-themed cocktail party. The Book Cellar on York Avenue near East 78th Street has well-priced used fiction, nonfiction and classics.
The Graffiti Hall of Fame, on Park Avenue at East 106th Street (technically East Harlem), is a showcase for artists from around the world. It consists of vibrant murals on the concrete walls surrounding the schoolyard of the Jackie Robinson Educational Complex, which would make a fun backdrop for a news conference, a photo shoot or a selfie for the mayor, who is a hip-hop fan and former rapper.
And if there’s something else specific that Mr. Mamdani is looking for, he can probably find it on First Avenue near East 87th Street, at Punjabi Junction.
The narrow grocery store is filled to the ceiling with all kinds of products, from spices to snacks to bags of ragi flour to cans of Sosyo, an Indian carbonated drink. It also offers hot meals to go, and Harpreet Sohal, the co-owner and main chef, is intensely dedicated to pleasing her customers. Half of her clientele are cabdrivers, she says, and they line up for her homemade sweets, mango lassi, pinni, stuffed roti and biryani.
“We sell out our biryani even before noon,” Ms. Sohal said. “Every Sunday there’s a line.” Her husband, Balbir Sohal — whom she calls “the master of chai” — whips up ginger chai, allspice chai, cardamom chai and pink chai, and those also sell out.
Ms. Sohal has a WhatsApp group with over 400 members, and she will often ask them: “Are you craving a food item which your mom or grandmother used to cook? We would love to cook that for you. Let us know.” One customer, after receiving a special custom curry, told Ms. Sohal: “You are ma Annapurna.”
“Ma Annapurna is the goddess of food,” Ms. Sohal explained with a smile.
Ms. Sohal added that she was thrilled that Mr. Mamdani was moving into Gracie Mansion. “I’m very excited to serve him,” she said. “I want to welcome him — and want to tell him that a piece of him also lives around him.”
Dodai Stewart is a Times reporter who writes about living in New York City, with a focus on how, and where, we gather.
The post Psst, Mayor Mamdani: The Upper East Side Is More Fun Than People Think appeared first on New York Times.
