Mr. Peñate,

Many thanks for the map you have developed -- I'm certain it will be
of great use to us in the coming months.

I have, as requested, published your blog post.  I have also taken the
liberty of promoting all members to administrator status, so that
everyone may publish their own posts.

Your blog post is controversial, and I for one greatly appreciate it
for that quality -- by your unhesitating enthusiasm for laying out
reasonable specific criteria, you have provided the Committee with
particular assertions to discuss and refine.  Bring on the debate, I
say!  In the spirit of healthy discussion, I have attempted to raise
objections to some of your claims; I have posted my reply as a comment
on your blog entry and, for the sake of my fellow Committee-members'
convenience, I have reproduced said comment in full below:

"I raise no objections to, and indeed heartily endorse, your first and
third criteria -- that a restaurant must be in the Upper West Side is
an incontrovertible claim, and personally I find the thought of dining
sans alcohol, even on official Committee business, to be an utterly
barbaric past-time which I cannot condone.

However, I think the second and fourth criteria merit some debate.
Your $16 average entree cap seems rather reasonable to me, though I
wonder if it is a little too exclusive -- in my opinion a $20 or even
$25 per plate establishment would still be fairly called mid-priced.
Regardless of the particulars, though, you omit the equally essential
price floor; surely a restaurant with $3 entrees, although possessed
of an admirably populist spirit, would not qualify for inclusion in
our study?  As for the fourth point, it strikes me as unjustifiably
self-serving; though I too appreciate the great virtues of comfort, I
think we as a Committee must be fully prepared to weather extreme
hardship for the sake of providing a full account of the district's
mid-priced restaurants."

Happy New Year,
Ethan Jucovy


On Dec 30, 2007 6:02 PM, Rolando Peñate <rpenate@...> wrote:
> Comrades,
>
> I am glad to see the committee ventured back to the filth-laden
> streets of the UWS to explore its plebian culinary offerings. Given
> the hardship endured, I have created a blog post detailing restaurant
> criteria, the area of study, and six potential research sites. If Mr.
> Jucovy would be so kind as to publish it, I would be greatly
> appreciative.
>
> Furthermore, I have created and invited you to a Google Map showing
> the relative position of these potential research sites within the
> space of the study area, as well as indicating those establishments
> which have already been inspected by the committee.
>
> To a happy and prosperous New Year,
> Mr. Peñate
>
>
> On Dec 29, 2007, at 10:41 PM, Ethan Jucovy wrote:
>
> > Friends,
> >
> > Today I "blogged" about some of the events of last Thursday's task
> > force meeting and the troubling questions which they raised:
> > http://www.nycstreets.org/projects/citizens-committe-to-study-mid-
> > priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side/blog/2007/12/29/finding-a-
> > mid-priced-restaurant/
> >
> > In short, it took us quite a long time to find a mid-priced restaurant
> > to study, despite their purported overabundance in the UWS.  Since I
> > would not dream of questioning the veracity of Mr. Baldwin's
> > assertions, I can only conclude that there are grave flaws in our
> > criteria for a restaurant's qualifying for our studies.  We have not
> > yet established any formal definitions or parameters for restaurants;
> > therefore I'd like to invite everybody on the Committee to weigh in --
> > either on this discussion thread, or in comments on my blog post --
> > with their personal opinions about what constitutes a mid-priced
> > restaurant on the Upper West Side.  I will volunteer to collect
> > responses and maybe aggregate them on a wiki page.  Perhaps once
> > consensus has been reached and some formal guiding parameters have
> > been established, we will avoid future incidents like last Thursday's.
> >
> > In addition, Committee members who have particular restaurants that
> > they know of off-hand which they think merit inclusion in our study
> > should please bring them up in a discussion or create a task for them.
> >  If we can establish a running queue of restaurants to study we will
> > never again be faced with the unpleasant prospect of last-minute
> > searching.  Names and addresses of alarmingly dirty bars to
> > investigate afterwards are also welcome.
> >
> > One final note: I have added a "latest updates" sidebar to the
> > project's homepage.  When making any update of particular note (a new
> > blog post, a new wiki page, or anything you deem deserving of
> > promotion) please add it to the sidebar at the same time.
> >
> > Ethan Jucovy
> >
> >
> > --
> > Archive: http://www.nycstreets.org/projects/citizens-committe-to-
> > study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side/lists/citizens-
> > committe-to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side-
> > discussion/archive/2007/12/1198986075659
> > To unsubscribe send an email with subject unsubscribe to citizens-
> > committe-to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side-
> > discussion@....  Please contact citizens-committe-
> > to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side-discussion-
> > manager@... for questions.
> >
> > !DSPAM:4026,4777135e33531096210785!
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Archive: http://www.nycstreets.org/projects/citizens-committe-to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side/lists/citizens-committe-to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side-discussion/archive/2007/12/1199055771136
> To unsubscribe send an email with subject unsubscribe to citizens-committe-to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side-discussion@....  Please contact citizens-committe-to-study-mid-priced-restaurants-on-the-upper-west-side-discussion-manager@... for questions.
>