Meteorologists say that summer begins on June 1. Pool worshippers won't celebrate summer until June 29, when NYC's outdoor facilities are open for business.
But what is summer really about if not the interminable lengthening of days, the unspooling of time itself, the feeling that as long as the sun is up, more is possible?
Thus, Hell Gate's Editorial Board believes that summer begins today, at exactly 10:57 a.m. Astronomically, this means that the sun is shining directly over the Tropic of Cancer, and that New Yorkers will enjoy some 15 hours of daylight. The sun won't set until just after 8:30 p.m.
What will you do with this precious gift of more sunlight?
Normally, we'd counsel a carefully executed sick-day-to-beach-day conversion. But with the high today being barely above 70 degrees, and with clouds lingering and threatening showers, we instead recommend turning off your air conditioner, opening all your windows, and going outside for a completely aimless but ambitious walk—a walk with no predetermined end. Just keep moving until you don't feel like moving anymore (or until you reach some ice cream) and then find a place to stop and think. Or don't think. You've got some time.
Here are some summer solstice links that have nothing to do with the Tropic of Cancer:
- Mayor Eric Adams is opening an "asylum application help center" for asylum seekers. The center is in Midtown at American Red Cross Headquarters, and is available "by appointment only."
- Transit riders are paying more and more money to help service the MTA's obscene pile of debt—now estimated to be $48 billion, Gothamist reports.
- NYCHA is going to demolish the Fulton Houses and the Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan and replace them with entirely new developments, at a total cost of $1.5 billion. The developers say that the construction will take six years.
- Brooklyn City Councilmember Chi Ossé is going to sponsor a bill that would require the party who hires a real estate broker to pay the broker fee. Good luck with that.
- Albany legislators passed a law that protects New York abortion providers who send medical abortion pills across state lines, and also passed legislation to make it easier for New Yorkers to challenge wrongful convictions. Governor Kathy Hochul will likely sign the first bill, but may veto the second.
- The FDNY reportedly failed to inspect the batteries during a recent inspection at a Chinatown e-bike store, where a fire killed four people earlier this week.
- "How a New York Town Took Back Its Power"
- Some members of Congress, including AOC and Jerry Nadler, are asking Mayor Adams to dial back the budget cuts.
- Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito took a private plane ride with a billionaire hedge fund guy to go fishing in Alaska, caught some huge salmon, and then did not recuse himself when the hedge fund guy had cases before the court. According to ProPublica, Alito also failed to disclose the trip on his financial disclosure forms. In a weirdly written rebuttal in the Wall Street Journal, Alito denies both charges: "I stayed for three nights in a modest one-room unit at the King Salmon Lodge, which was a comfortable but rustic facility. As I recall, the meals were homestyle fare…As for the flight, Mr. Singer and others had already made arrangements to fly to Alaska when I was invited shortly before the event, and I was asked whether I would like to fly there in a seat that, as far as I am aware, would have otherwise been vacant."
- Justice Alito: if you would like to write an OnlyFins column about this magnificent fishing trip, please drop us a line (get it?).
