The "Another State of Emergency" Edition
A Fancy Feast restaurant, another challenge to outdoor dining, shaming Woody Allen, more confusing over school budgets, bumper cars at JFK Airport, Lee Zeldin and Mayor Adams see eye to eye, and more
Today - Low: 73˚ High: 87˚
Humid and partly cloudy throughout the day.
• Welcome to the New York state Monkeypox state of emergency. Patch breaks down what it means. (Matt Troutman for Patch)
• The rise in cases of Monkeypox (current NYC count: 1,472) is paired with the city's sexual health clinics being overwhelmed by patients, including staffing shortages, the time it takes to treat monkeypox, and long lines. (Elizabeth Kim for Gothamist)
• If shaming alleged child molester Woody Allen for his opposition to bike lanes where a Citi Bike rider was killed by the driver of a tractor-trailer on the Upper East Side helps the cause of getting more bike lanes in the city, let's all shame alleged child molester Woody Allen together. (Joshua Dudley for East Side Feed)
• The mayor announced in June that he would build 150 miles of new bus lanes. He's followed that up by reducing the hours of bus lanes in Washington Heights and Inwood. (Julianne Cuba for Streetsblog)
• Sigh, another lawsuit challenging outdoor dining. The lawsuit challenges the program because it claims, without irony or satire, that "there is no public health emergency" that requires it to continue. (Matt Troutman, Claire Schnatterbeck for Patch)
• Frederick Then and Diego Suero have been found guilty of the murder of Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz in June of 2018. (Síle Moloney for Norwood News)
• Robot cat servers in dim sum parlors in Brooklyn and Queens. Luke Fortney for Eater)
• Where to go: Smør Bakery on E 12th. What to order: Braided cardamom buns. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)
• Does anyone reading this care that Danny Meyer is stepping down as CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group? It's not a rhetorical question. This guy gets so much coverage in the food press, but I can't figure out if he actually matters outside of that bubble. . (Erika Adams for Eater)
• Gatto Bianco by Fancy Feast is a real restaurant that will be open on August 11 and 12, serving meals inspired by Fancy Feast but not including actual cat food. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)
• It took ten city agencies 12 weeks to pay $4.2 billion of funds from 2,600 contracts for 460 nonprofits. Let's not celebrate that we're getting caught up on our bills to nonprofits providing essential services. Let's make sure it never happens again. (Naeisha Rose for Patch)
• A little sunlight can go a long way. In less than a week, the city's reporters have discovered that Bishop Lamor Whitehead's entire public image is built on shifting sands, including questioning if he really owns the real estate he claims he does. (Kim Velsey for Curbed)
• Mayor Adams continues to push the state to roll back the bail reform efforts passed in 2019, and now he has a new ally in his efforts. Republican gubernatorial hopeful Lee Zeldin supports the mayor's plans. (Jon Campbell for Gothamist)
• If you've heard something about the weird situation surrounding the guy who ran up to Zeldin on stage at an event, Josh Solomon breaks it down. (Sean Carlson, Matt Katz, Emma Illick-Frank for Gothamist)
• The NYPD must disclose roughly 2,700 documents and emails regarding its surveillance of Black Lives Matters protests from March to September 2020, after a ruling from the state's Supreme Couty. If you don't have anything to hide, why wouldn't you produce the documents, right? (Robbie Sequeira for Brooklyn Paper)
• Two shootings by different off-duty New York City correction officers this summer raise questions about how correction officers are trained on when to use deadly force outside of a jail setting and how the Supreme Court decision over the city’s gun laws increases the likelihood of encountering armed civilians. (Samantha Max for Gothamist)
• Sgt. Adrian Dejesus of the 123rd Precinct was arrested and is facing two charges of possession of a forged instrument and falsifying business records for using fake license plates. (Samantha Max for Gothamist)
• If you were this person swimming in the East River, Greenpointers would like to talk to you. (Emma Davey for Greenpointers)
• Mayor Adams visited a pool in the South Bronx, didn't take questions from the press, and didn't announce anything. Two questions: Why bother, and why did Gothamist write this up? (Elizabeth Kim for Gothamist)
In June, the city breezily announced on Twitter that it wouldn’t offer free swim lessons this year, because of, it said, a “national lifeguard shortage.” Senior swim and lap swim were also canceled. Caught flat-footed, Mayor Eric Adams’s administration hired 78 more lifeguards in recent weeks. The free swim lessons remain canceled.
-Mara Gay, Too Many New Yorkers Can’t Swim. It’s Time to Change That.
• Michael Lopez's apparent drug overdose marked the 11th person in the city’s jail system to die this year. His death highlights the system's mental health and oversight issues. (Reuven Blau for The City)
• Five appointees have been named to the congestion pricing review board to make recommendations for congestion pricing tolls. (Matt Troutman for Patch)
• A look at the 12th Congressional District Democratic debate between Carolyn Maloney, Jerry Nadler, and Suraj Patel, which will air on WNYC on Tuesday night. (Jon Campbell for Gothamist)
• Streetsblog looks at how piss-poor NYC is at building car-free school streets compared to cities like Vancouver to Auckland to London to... just about every other city. (Jesse Cobourn for Streetsblog)
• Over the course of ten hours, the Adams administration took away the Department of Education's online budgeting application and then reinstated it. Another chapter in the intensely confusing school budget. (Christopher Werth for Gothamist)
• The TWA Hotel at JFK added bumper cars to the list of activities available at the airport that aren't "catching a flight on time." (Shaye Weaver for Time Out)
• Montefiore Health System in the Bronx performed the world's first heart transplant between two HIV-positive people. (Megan VerHelst for Patch)
• Now and then, someone catches up with Dan Smith, who will teach you guitar. (Collier Meyerson for NY Times)
• The Times says that Representative Nicole Malliotakis's re-election is clouded by her opposition to abortion. As if the rest of her politics doesn't disqualify her in her newly shaped district, which includes Sunset Park, Park Slope, and Gowanus. (Jesse McKinley for NY Times)
• Photos: The hawks of Diana Ross Playground. (D. Bruce Yolton for Urban Hawks)
• A look at the five signature dishes from two tasting menus at Hags, a queer and trans-led fine dining destination. (Deanna Ting for RESY)
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Featured City Pet: Everly!
Thanks to reader Ryan for sending in this photo of Everly, barely five months old and super adorable. Email your pet to thebriefly@gmail.com
