The Briefly for August 30, 2019 – The "Celebrations Have Already Begun" Labor Day Weekend Edition
The first Labor Day celebration took place in Manhattan 130 years ago. (amNY)
Street closings and timings for this year’s J’Ouvert festival and West Indian American Day Carnival. (Curbed)
This weekend is the last big weekend for the Hailstone icehouse in Crown Heights, as they sell ice like it's going out of style, 40 pounds at a time. (NY Times)
What's open and closed for Labor Day weekend. (Patch)
This weekend's weather is looking pretty comfortable. (amNY)
The change from L train shutdown to slowdown is nearly doubling the project's cost. (Curbed)
Step inside of Sweet Afton and you'll feel like you're inside a Wes Anderson movie. It wouldn't be far from the truth, because the bar's redesign was put together by Kris Moran, set designer for Moonrise Kingdom. (Time Out)
NYCHA General Manager Vito Mustaciuolo is under investigation for harassment. An expose in the Daily News outlined his misbehavior. The NYCHA hasn't said if he will continue working full-time while the investigation proceeds. (Patch)
It's that time of year again: New York Fashion Week starts next weekend. (amNY)
Squirrels can be cute, but bringing a dead squirrel onto the subway is not cute. (Patch)
A look at the rejected ballots from the Katz/Cabán primary in Queens and how easily Katz's 55-vote lead could have been easily erased. (The Indypendent)
Put Stan Lee on New York's new license plate, you cowards! (Bronx Times)
A preview of Portal: Governors Island, an art fair which opens on Governors Island this Saturday. (Gothamist)
Where to eat and shop in Hell's Kitchen. (amNY)
The five-day celebration of J’Ouvert has already begun. (Street Easy)
Brooklyn's first Chick-fil-A is accused of trying to poach workers from local businesses. (Patch)
The City Council is being accused of trying to bury a public meeting about the plan to replace Rikers Island with four "community" jails by scheduling it on the hectic first day of school. (Queens Eagle)
The number of city classrooms with lead-paint hazards has doubled after a set of inspections, bringing the number to 1,858. The city says all the affected classrooms will be ready for Thursday's first day of school. The Department of Education is supposed to inspect each classroom annually. (Gothamist)
Mayor Bill de Blasio has failed to qualify for the next round of Democratic presidential debates in September. The mayor has already said he didn't plan on dropping out of the race if he didn't qualify. Mayor, what is so wrong with the city that you lead that you'd prefer to spend this much time away from it? (Patch)
Despite the law signed by Governor Cuomo last week barring them from state waters, the company floating billboards around Manhattan and Brooklyn's shoreline continues to do so after finding a loophole in the language used in the law. The state has not enforced the new law with any citations. (Gothamist)
The case against Jeffrey Epstein was officially closed by a Manhattan federal judge. (Patch)
One of the hidden gems of the garment district is Acuario Cafe. How can you find it? There no signs and you can only find by walking through a freight elevator of an office building on 37th St. (Viewing NYC)
Do you know about the IFC's secret peephole? (Bedford + Bowery)
The new Kosciuszko Bridge bike lanes make riding across the bridge easy. Getting to the bridge on a bike? Much more difficult. (amNY)
Two former NYPD Detectives who were initially accused of raping an 18-year-old woman in their custody have pleaded guilty to receiving a bribe and "official misconduct" for having sex with a teenager inside a police van after a traffic stop in Coney Island, and will only serve five years of probation. (Gothamist)
16 fantastic Filipino restaurants. (Eater)