Thursday, September 10, 2026 · No. 30
Day one of the new school year, and the neighborhood has a grocery headline to go with it: Whole Foods has started building its third store on the Upper East Side. Tomorrow marks 25 years since September 11 — the East Side's own remembrance gathers at 4pm, details below. Plus froyo signage, a tower nearly dressed on First Avenue, and a corrections note we owe from Tuesday. Here's your Thursday.
The Lead
Whole Foods starts construction at Second and 79th — its third store on the UES
Construction has begun on a third Upper East Side Whole Foods, at 1524 Second Avenue at East 79th Street — the base of the Continental Towers, in the space a Duane Reade left in November 2024, Upper East Site reports. This one is the chain's smaller 'Daily Shop' format: Commercial Observer put the lease at 8,121 square feet when it was signed in July, with Mann Report carrying the same deal. No opening date has been announced. For the stroller set doing the mental map: the new one joins Whole Foods' Third Avenue stores at 87th and at 68th — three within a nineteen-block run.
via Upper East Site
Openings & Closings
MYKA's froyo signage is up at 1547 Second Avenue
MYKA — the Madrid-founded Greek frozen yogurt chain we reported was UES-bound on Monday — now has signage up at 1547 Second Avenue near 80th Street, in the former Ania Rybka Salon space, per East Side Feed, with Patch confirming the address. No opening date yet; the famously long lines remain, for now, a West Village and Rockefeller Center phenomenon.
via East Side Feed
Around the Neighborhood
The twin-tower rental at First and 86th is nearly finished
The 23-story twin-tower rental project at 1655 First Avenue — also addressed as 355 East 86th Street — is nearing exterior completion, New York YIMBY reports, with the white, black and gold facade largely finished and mainly the bulkhead and ground floor to go. Developer Chess Builders bought the site from Extell for $50 million; the 198-unit rental is slated to wrap in winter 2027, per YIMBY, with Hoodline carrying the same timeline.
via New York YIMBY
Menin presses Lyft on Citi Bike age checks; City Hall is skeptical
Council Speaker Julie Menin is urging the city and Lyft to revive age verification for Citi Bike, in a letter amNY dates to August 24 — while the Mamdani administration has voiced skepticism, citing questions about handling minors' data and whether verification would work. Gothamist reported earlier that officials and Lyft had said age checks were coming; where that lands is now the open question.
via amNY
What the Q's ride to 125th Street will cost, depending on who's counting
The MTA plans to extend the Second Avenue line — Yorkville's Q — north to 125th Street and Lexington Avenue by the end of 2032, with new stations at 106th, 116th and 125th, per the authority's own project page. The official capital price is $6.9 billion; Gothamist reports federal documents put the full figure at $7.7 billion once $731 million in financing costs is counted. Either way, the East Side's next one-seat ride uptown is priced like a small nation's GDP.
via Gothamist
Corrections
For the record: Tuesday's Papaya King corner
Tuesday's edition (#29), as first published, gave Papaya King 'a dozen years' on the 86th Street and Third Avenue corner — the stand served there from 1932 until 2023, and now trades from across the street at 206B East 86th — and described the Maison171 tower rising on that corner as 'full-floor apartments,' where sources describe roughly 24 residences across 17 stories. Both were fixed the same morning by our standards desk; both had been live on the site and the day's social card, so our bar says they're owed this note.
via The Yorkville Ledger
This Week
A 9/11 remembrance ceremony gathers Friday at 4pm
Tomorrow marks 25 years since September 11, and Community Board 8's calendar lists the Lighting the Way East Side 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony for Friday, September 11 at 4pm. We have the date and time from the board's own listing title; we could not open the listing or confirm a venue by press time, so check CB8's calendar before you go. The neighborhood's losses that day were not abstract; we'll mark the anniversary properly in tomorrow's edition.
via Manhattan Community Board 8
Last laps: the outdoor pool season ends Sunday
The city's outdoor pool season closes Sunday, September 13, per NYC Parks — which makes this weekend the last one for free swimming at John Jay Park's Olympic and intermediate pools at East 77th and Cherokee Place, just south of our line. Kid-friendly through the final whistle.
via NYC Parks
Yorkville, Remembered
The 92nd Street Y wasn't always on 92nd Street
The 92nd Street Y traces to September 10, 1874 — 152 years ago today — when a group of German-Jewish professionals incorporated the Young Men's Hebrew Association in New York, initially renting rooms at 112 West 21st Street. Philanthropist Jacob H. Schiff later financed a purpose-built home for the YMHA at Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street, designed by architect Arnold W. Brunner, which opened in 1900; that building was replaced by the current one, completed in 1930 with two gymnasiums and a 25-yard indoor pool. A block west of our Third Avenue line, the Y has anchored Yorkville and Carnegie Hill's cultural life since it moved to 92nd Street in 1900.
source: Wikipedia
Day one of the school year is in the books, which makes tonight the first 'how was it?' dinner of the season. Our unscientific finding, renewed annually: 'fine' remains the most information-dense word in the neighborhood's vocabulary. Full sentences generally return by October.