It's yet another scorching hot Monday in the Big Onion. Temperatures are going to stay in the mid-90s until at least Wednesday, so drop a few more ice cubes down your shirt, linger a little longer in that freezing ATM vestibule, and check on your elderly neighbors to make sure they are staying cool.
Oh, and welcome to our modest daily news roundup! We're gonna give you a few links, maybe a few laughs. Change is the only constant, etc. Let's dive in.
Were you able to check out the first Summer Streets on Saturday? Seven miles of Manhattan dancing and skating and biking and running and zero automobile traffic? If not, you'll get another chance on August 13 and 20. But that's it, because New York City can't afford to keep our sweet hot death machines off the road any more than that.
Mayor Eric Adams was there enjoying himself, though he spotted some NYPD officers standing around, seemingly doing nothing, and told them so. (Remember when he wanted us to send him our iPhone photos of this phenomenon?)
Too bad the mayor wasn't in the Rockaways this past Friday evening, where Parks Department police (yes, Parks Department police) arrested a guy for the crime of…swimming past 6 p.m.
“These people tackled me to the ground. I was literally screaming. They had my mouth under the water. It was baffling and traumatizing," the man told Gothamist. (In unrelated news, the NYPD is set to pay a record $67 million to settle police misconduct claims in 2022, and it's still only August.)
Much has been written about the NY-12 Democratic primary that has spurred a bitter fight between two congressional heavyweights, but this weekend saw some movement in the NY-10 race (aka the former Dong District), especially between the two candidates who are vying to be the most "progressive" choice—State Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, and City Councilmember Carlina Rivera.
Niou just scooped up an endorsement from Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, while Rivera got the thumbs up from Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. Both are narrowly trailing Dan Goldman, the attorney who prosecuted Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, according to recent internal polling from, uh, Dan Goldman.
Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune, and worth somewhere between $64 million and $253 million (lol), told Hamodia earlier this summer that he was cool with restricting some abortion access based on a "break-point of viability," and later walked that back a little—but the damage was done. Goldman is now at the "break point" where he is dipping into $1 million of his fortune to put into his campaign.
On Sunday, the Daily News editorial board endorsed Liz Holtzman for NY-10, who was the youngest women elected to Congress in 1972.
Mondaire Jones, who is also running for NY-10, has an endorsement from Taiwan's most famous and fraught tourist; Jo Anne Simon has Deborah Glick.
Hell Gate spotted Councilmember Rivera at the Henry Street Settlement's roller disco on Saturday afternoon. She said a few words to the (extremely sweaty) crowd and even skated a few laps. Personally, we endorse kneepads and shin guards if you are putting on roller skates for the first time in 20 years.
Here's some more stuff we're reading:
- Oh wow, can you believe this Donald Trump guy, ordering his generals around like some kind of fascist dictator? Just shocking and damnable stuff from two seasoned D.C. gumshoes, Trump will someday be forced to answer for this kind of un-American behavior…But seriously, if you're going to burn one of your free New Yorker articles it should be this delicious and insane Tad Friend profile of door-to-door salespeople.
- "The Hunter Becomes the Hunted" is the headline the Post somehow left on the table, about the New York Times's The Hunt columnist being entangled in a housing lawsuit for back-rent (Business Insider had it first).
- Axios is literally just publishing pictures of toilets now, perhaps to celebrate their $525 million sale.
- Gawker stands by their story on a former archivist for the New Yorker, but their silence on Audioslave is deafening.
- The Times notes that if people read fearmongery headlines enough they begin to have a distorted view of how safe their city actually is. Please subscribe to Hell Gate.
- Streetsblog is gonna get their interns whacked if they keep exposing blatant placard abuse like this.
- What's going on with the Staten Island Ferry? The CITY has some answers.
- Just fucking buy your own goddamn groceries people, it's a fun activity that ensures you will avoid buying 30 tubs of feta cheese.
Finally: Blueberry needs a home. Thank you for supporting Hell Gate!
