Fifth Avenue co-ops stopped boarding up their façades for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade after Mayor Bloomberg gave them a stern warning—and promised additional cops—in 2005. But that doesn’t mean the entire Upper East Side will stay open for business this year on the day of the parade, June 8. Via Quadronno at Madison Avenue and 73rd Street, where hedge-funders, socialites, and media moguls—including Martha Stewart—get their $4 espressos, closes for just four days each year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and a certain spring day. A spokesman claims coincidence. “We close that day every year for internal construction,” he says. “The last day of the first week of June.” The Puerto Rican Day Parade is on the second Sunday of June each year. “They tell you the day before—they whisper it—‘Don’t come tomorrow,’” a well-heeled regular says. “The clientele starts clucking a few days beforehand, ‘This weekend, you know … ’”

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Elizabeth Wolff
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