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☆ New York Is Full of Empty Offices After Covid. Make Way for the Playground City. - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Edward L. Glaeser | Carlo Ratti | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +20 min

We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area: the Playground City. The transformation toward the Playground City will not happen on its own. To draw people into the Playground City, we need to show, not tell. 6.Engage citizensGovernments should empower citizens to participate directly in making the Playground City. The Playground City sees people as both a means and an end, and it should involve them in the process of its creation.

“It is a crisis situation,” Ms. Hochul acknowledged on Tuesday. “There’ll be literally thousands more individuals coming across the border and ultimately find their way up to the State of New York.”Counties near the city are now bracing for overflow, some more willingly than others. The executive of the Democratic stronghold of Westchester County, just to New York City’s north, is open to welcoming some undocumented migrants from the city’s overflowing shelter system. “We are not a sanctuary county,” Mr. Blakeman said. Deputies with the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department sat a few yards away in cream-colored cruisers, ready to block the entrance of any approaching bus.

☆ We Want to Know What New York City’s Reading Overhaul Means for You
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Troy Closson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York City is confronting a longstanding reading crisis after the pandemic worsened outcomes for children in districts across the nation. More than half of city students failed state reading exams last year, and proficiency rates were even lower for Black and Latino children. Now, the city’s schools chancellor, David C. Banks, is making reading his central focus. Had your school already begun changing how it teaches children to read? We will not publish your submission — including any details about your school or child — without contacting you first.

☆ This Girl Scout troop sells cookies to support girls experiencing homelessness
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Vanessa Yurkevich | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

It’s important for every scout — but perhaps especially for Troop 6000, which is comprised entirely of girls who are experiencing homelessness or living in shelters. Unlike most Girl Scouts, Troop 6000’s cookie sale covers all fees for the girls including trips, summer camps and other activities. The funds help the troop hold Girl Scouts activities, as well as launch programs like the Troop 6000 Transition Initiative to support scouts and their families as they transition to permanent housing. So far, 100 migrant girls have joined Girl Scouts Troop 6000. Troop 6000 offers women a chance to lead in their community, by taking on volunteer roles within their shelters’ troops.

☆ For Many Big Cities, It’s Their First Rodeo. ‘You Don’t Do That In Cowboy World’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Charles Passy | Photographs Emily Kask For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

For those who follow the burgeoning sport of bull riding, the stars are naturally the riders themselves—who train for years to master the art of staying atop a 1,700-pound bucking bull for a full eight seconds, while maintaining a certain control, if not graceful authority. Then there’s Randy Spraggins, who’s charged with getting 750 tons of dirt–or 35 dump-truck loads—into New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

☆ Opinion | The Demonization of the Homeless Has Vile Consequences
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

I made that choice apropos of the killing of Jordan Neely in a subway car in Manhattan on Monday. Neely died from compression to his neck as a result of the chokehold, according to the medical examiner. We do know that Neely had been arrested more than 40 times in recent years, including once for assault. Most of all, we know how the homeless make many of us feel: anxious, uncomfortable and even afraid. You can sense it in the equivocating reaction to Neely’s death from New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, and New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul.

☆ Jordan Neely: The man who held New York subway passenger in a fatal chokehold 'never intended to harm' him, his attorneys say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Aya Elamroussi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

“Daniel never intended to harm Mr. Neely and could not have foreseen his untimely death,” the statement said. As soon as Neely got on the train, he started yelling about being “fed up and hungry” and “tired of having nothing,” Vazquez told CNN. Neely did not appear to be armed or looking to attack anyone, Vazquez told CNN. In the video recorded by Vazquez, Neely and Penny are seen on the floor of a subway car with Penny’s arm wrapped around Neely’s neck. One appeared to be mediating the situation while the other seemed to help Penny restrain Neely, according to Vazquez.

☆ What Record Office Vacancies Mean for New York City’s Economy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Matthew Haag | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Why It Matters: Office buildings tell the story of New York City’s economy. Before the pandemic, office buildings drove a significant share of the city’s economy. Private-sector workers in office buildings make about double the average annual salary than everyone else, according to the New York State Comptroller, underscoring their significance to the city’s economy. Office buildings are vital to New York’s economy for another reason: Their property taxes supply a chunk of New York City’s annual revenue. As vacancies linger, New York City, as well as other municipalities, have floated the idea of converting some buildings into residences.

☆ In ‘City on Fire,’ the New York of the Early 2000s Burns Bright
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Austin Considine | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the younger actors there to help recreate the night of Aug. 14, 2003, what they “saw” required a leap of imagination. But thanks to postproduction wizardry, viewers of the new series “City on Fire,” debuting May 12 on Apple TV+, will see what for New Yorkers during the regionwide blackout that night was so extraordinary: a night sky dotted with stars. The 2003 blackout had a distinctly communal energy compared with the blackout of 1977, which features prominently in the Garth Risk Hallberg novel “City on Fire,” on which the Apple series is based. As in the late ’70s, New York City’s future then seemed uncertain and its underground rock scene was vital. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the beginning of Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial rezoning efforts.

☆ New York City’s Most Expensive Neighborhoods
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Michael Kolomatsky | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York City’s notoriously volatile real estate market is cooling — the high end included — according to a new report from PropertyShark. The report showed that in the first quarter of 2023, the median sale price fell in 28 of the city’s 50 most-expensive neighborhoods from a year earlier, while the number of sales dropped or was flat in 46 neighborhoods. Only four of the 50 neighborhoods had a median sale price of $2 million or more, compared with eight in the first quarter of 2022. In the most expensive area, Manhattan’s Hudson Yards, the median sale price rose about 6 percent year-over-year, to $5.729 million; but in TriBeCa, the next most expensive, it fell 6 percent, to $3.5 million. But its $2.6 million median sale price was level from a year earlier, so it was price reductions in other neighborhoods that improved its ranking.

☆ Ed Sheeran Inks Lease for $36,000-a-Month Apartment Near the Brooklyn Bridge
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Katherine Clarke | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Be the first to know about the biggest and best luxury home sales and listings by signing up for our Mansion Deals email alert. The British pop star Ed Sheeran has rented a $36,000-a-month apartment at Pierhouse, a new development in New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, according to a person familiar with the situation.

☆ New York City’s Mayor Faults Joe Biden and Texas Governor on Immigration
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jimmy Vielkind | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Eric Adams expressed his dissatisfaction over federal immigration policy and decisions to send migrants to the city, at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival. New York City Mayor Eric Adams criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending buses of migrants to the nation’s largest city, while also urging President Biden to get a handle on the southern border. Mr. Adams, a Democrat, said the influx of migrants has created a fiscal burden for the city that is affecting its ability to provide other services. The mayor faulted the Republican governor while speaking about his vision for the future of the city at The Wall Street Journal’s “Future of Everything” festival.

☆ These Opera Singers Throw a Mean Right Hook
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Charles Passy | Photographs Amir Hamja For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In the ever-dramatic world of opera, conflicts of all sorts play out behind the scenes. Deep in the bowels of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera on a recent Saturday afternoon, a fight of a more literal sort broke out: a boxing match with punches aplenty, a few blistering taunts and even an eventual knockout.

☆ NYC to give out 500 Apple AirTags for residents to put in their cars to combat car theft
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Laura Ly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Some Kia, Hyundai, and Honda models are getting stolen in New York City so often that the Mayor is giving out Apple AirTags to help residents track their vehicles. The city plans to distribute 500 AirTags to residents to place in their cars to combat car thefts in target neighborhoods, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced at a press conference on Sunday. Adams made the announcement in a Bronx neighborhood that has seen over 200 car thefts this year alone – the highest of any precinct in the city. The Hyundai and Kia vehicles in question include the Hyundai Santa Fe and Tucson, and the Kia Forte and Sportage, with 2015-2019 model years. So far this year, the NYPD has recorded thefts of 966 Kia and Hyundai cars – marking an increase of 819 cars since last year, Chell said.

☆ New York State Budget Deal Would Raise Minimum Wage and Change Bail Laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Luis Ferré-Sadurní | Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced that she and state lawmakers had reached an agreement on a roughly $229 billion state budget that would change the state’s bail laws, increase the minimum wage and provide urgently needed funding for New York City’s transit system. The deal capped weeks of contentious negotiations that divided the governor and the Democrat-led State Legislature, delaying its expected passage by almost a month — the latest budget in over a decade. The broad strokes of the “conceptual agreement” were revealed by the governor at an impromptu news conference at the State Capitol on Thursday evening; some of the details, Ms. Hochul said, were still being “fine tuned.”Representatives for Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, confirmed the deal. Lawmakers, who had already left Albany for the week because they had not anticipated an agreement, are expected to vote to approve the budget as early as next week.

☆ Opinion | American Road Deaths Show an Alarming Racial Gap
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Adam Paul Susaneck | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +15 min

The year before, pedestrian deaths reached a 40-year high. Pedestrian and cyclist injuries tend to be concentrated in poorer neighborhoods that have a larger share of Black and Hispanic residents. Roosevelt Boulevard North Philly High Injury Network West Philly 3 miles Percent Black and Hispanic 20 40 60 80% Washington D.C. Oslo and Helsinki, which adopted Vision Zero in the 1990s, recorded zero traffic deaths in 2019, and Helsinki had just two pedestrian deaths in 2021. In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington, pedestrian deaths have actually risen since the adoption of Vision Zero.

CNN —Harry Belafonte, the dashing singer, actor and activist who became an indispensable supporter of the civil rights movement, has died, his publicist Ken Sunshine told CNN. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Belafonte, left, plays a school principal in a scene from the film "See How They Run" in 1952. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images Belafonte poses with the Emmy Award he won in 1960 for the musical special "Tonight With Belafonte." Fred Sabine/NBCU/Getty Images Belafonte and other recipients of Albert Einstein Commemorative Awards display their medallions after being honored in 1972. He is survived by his wife Pamela, his children Adrienne Belafonte Biesemeyer, Shari Belafonte, Gina Belafonte, David Belafonte, two stepchildren Sarah Frank and Lindsey Frank and eight grandchildren.

☆ New York City Has Two Million Rats and One New Rat Czar
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Jimmy Vielkind | Joseph Pisani | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Kathleen Corradi ’s anti-rat bona fides date to grade school, when she organized a petition drive to have her Long Island town do something about an infestation behind her house. Now, she has been crowned New York City’s rat czar. The 34-year-old beat out 900 other applicants for a position that, the job posting said, requires a “swashbuckling attitude, crafty humor, and general aura of badassery.” Mayor Eric Adams , who announced it last week, has been vocal about his hatred of a rodent thought to number around two million in New York.

☆ Twitter descends into chaos as news outlets and brands lose verification
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Several prominent Twitter users including LeBron James, William Shatner and Stephen King also refused to pay to keep their verification badges, prompting Musk to personally intervene. “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. Twitter verification is no longer an indicator that an account represents who it claims to represent; instead, it reflects that a user – or, apparently, the owner of Twitter – paid for Twitter Blue, the company’s subscription service. Isaacson, who is verified on Twitter as a subscriber to Twitter Blue, tweeted a photo of Musk on Thursday from SpaceX’s Starship launch site.

☆ Roll the Dice, Save Gotham From Climate Catastrophe!
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Alyson Krueger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A race against time — or, rather, global warming wrought by fossil fuels — the game invites four players to work together to decarbonize New York City by 2035. The challenge is rooted in reality, said Stephen Wemple, general manager of the Utility of the Future team at Con Ed, the city’s largest utility company. Kathy Hochul has mandated that 70 percent of New York State’s energy must be renewable by 2030, and 100 percent by 2040. Currently, renewable energy percentages are in the “high 20s,” he said. Energetic is the brainchild of Richard Reiss, a fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Cities at Hunter College and the founder of City Atlas, an online resource about New York City’s transition to green energy.

☆ New York’s Budget Is Really Late. What’s Taking So Long?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Grace Ashford | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

But lawmakers have seemingly agreed to leave intact most of the 2019 changes to the state bail law that made the vast majority of misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies ineligible for bail. Why It MattersMs. Hochul has repeatedly said that a good budget is better than an on-time budget. On April 26, New York City’s executive budget plan is due — which will be a challenge, given the uncertainty in Albany. And the budget clock is not the only one that is ticking: The 2023 legislative session runs only until June 8. The longer lawmakers spend on the budget, the less time they will have to address anything else.

☆ New York City Panel Weighs Rent Increases of Up to 16 Percent
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Mihir Zaveri | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

People already struggling to afford the staggering cost of living in New York City were hit with a new, ominous figure on Thursday: A panel that regulates rent-stabilized apartments discussed rent increases of 15.75 percent on two-year leases, the highest such figure in almost two decades. New York City’s roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments are considered a crucial source of affordable housing. They are supposed to be insulated from market forces that have sent asking rents in unregulated apartments soaring. Last year, the panel, known as the Rent Guidelines Board, allowed the largest increases in almost a decade — 3.25 percent on one-year leases and 5 percent on two-year leases — citing rising costs for landlords. But while the figures discussed on Thursday suggest that tenants should prepare for another increase, it is unlikely the board will ultimately endorse the highest figures.

Even worse than a cheesy shirt? Bed head in the boardroom. No matter how bad the morning crunch, wet those locks. If you don't have time to shower, shove your head briefly under the bathroom tap, then comb those strands into place before applying pomade, says Greg Dasaro, co-owner of New York City’s Friend of a Barber. Peter Gamlen

☆ How Broadway Theater Owners Are Trying to Block a Times Square Casino
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Dana Rubinstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Some New Yorkers may love Times Square; some definitely hate it. That also goes for a casino that may be headed there. Caesars Entertainment and SL Green Realty Corporation, New York City’s largest commercial landlord, say that Times Square — with its neon lights and jostling tourists — is tailor-made for their Jay-Z-backed bid for a parlor of one-armed bandits and roulette wheels. But Max Klimavicius, the owner of the century-old Sardi’s restaurant, would like a word. “A casino in Times Square has the potential to jeopardize the character of the theater district and ultimately the fate of its restaurants,” Mr. Klimavicius said.

☆ Don’t Be Surprised When the Boxers Start Belting Out Opera
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( Charles Passy | Photographs Amir Hamja For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

NEW YORK—In the ever-dramatic world of opera, conflicts of all sorts play out behind the scenes. Singers make royal demands of management. Musicians push for better pay. Deep in the bowels of New York City’s Metropolitan Opera on a recent Saturday afternoon, a fight of a more literal sort broke out: a boxing match with punches aplenty, a few blistering taunts and even an eventual knockout.

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