The Briefly for July 5, 2019 – The "We're Headed for a Cabán/Katz Recount" Weekend Edition
I hope everyone had a great 4th of July, regardless if you celebrated or not. July 4th was a cause for celebration for The Briefly as well. It's the one year anniversary of the first email sent by The Briefly. Thank you for being a reader.
You might think of it as a holiday weekend, but the MTA has other plans. 12 subway lines have planned disruptions this weekend. (Subway Weekender)
Tiffany Cabán was 1,100 votes ahead of Melinda Katz on election night. As of July 4, she was 20 votes behind. Queens is headed for a manual recount. (NY Times) https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/nyregion/katz-caban-recount-queens-da.html
More than 2,500 affidavit ballots were rejected and the Cabán campaign will be fighting to have them counted. This is the 2000 presidential election all over again. (Politico)
Congrats to Joey Chestnut on winning his 12th hot dog eating championship, with 71 hot dogs in 10 minutes. In Times Square, that would cost roughly $1,500. (amNY)
Despite what you experienced on July 4th, fireworks and sparklers continue to be illegal in New York. (amNY)
After multiple years and nearly a half billion dollars in renovations, full service on the N train has been restored in Brooklyn. (The City)
The panel of experts overseeing the rehab of the BQE hasn't made any decisions, but have intimated that the plans the city has put forward, which include replacing the Brooklyn Promenade with a temporary highway, have little chance of being approved. (Brooklyn Paper)
Our mayor, who spent July 4th in Iowa, said "I’m a half-glass-full kind of guy" when it comes to his polling numbers, which are in the toilet. His office in New York, which is been full empty, as he pretends he's not wasting time and money in Iowa. He missed the funeral for 9/11 responder and NYPD detective Lou Alvarez and failed to preside over the weigh-in for Nathan's hot dog eating competition, something Mayor Bloomberg did 11 of the 12 years he was mayor. (Gothamist)
26 (kind of obvious, but still a solid list) things to do in the city this summer. (Curbed)
The Central Park bomber has been at-large for three years. (Gothamist)
There are 25 horses in the Prospect Park Stable, and each "manufacture" 75 pounds of poop daily, bringing the total to nearly a daily ton of horseshit. The owner of the stable has begun turning the manure into compost and gifting it to the nonprofit Red Hook Farms. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
Got a hankering for strawberries? Here's a list of where to get yourself a strawberry dessert. (Grub Street)
Bushwick's The Notorious B.I.G. and Alfred Hitchcock mural was vandalized. A video was taken of the vandal, but they haven't been found (Bushwick Daily)
Community Board 7 voted to approve a bike lane for Central Park West. The neighborhood will lose 400 parking spots in the process, but the board weighed those parking spots vs the life of Madison Lyden, who died after she was forced from the current bike lane by a parked cab and hit by a truck. (Streetsblog)
Eliot Engel, who represents parts of the Bronx, Westchester, and Yonkers in the House of Representatives, is the next New York Democrat to be primaried from the left. His challengers cite is conservative views on Israel, the Middle East, and education among some of the reasons they feel he needs to be challenged. (Politico)
The city's sheriff arrested Anthony Medina, a debt collector who allegedly scammed on cab drivers by pretending to be a city marshall to harass drivers into giving up their medallions and cabs and occasionally shook them down for cash. (Gothamist)
The East Village's Mikey Likes It is closed after a tax-related seizure last week. (EV Grieve)
Cash Cab is back and will be filming in NYC this summer. (amNY)
The removal of the citizenship question from the 2020 census is a win for New York, as state Attorney General Letitia James's office helped lead the charge against it. (Patch)
Four neighborhoods, Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, East New York, and Brownsville account for 23% of the city's shootings this year. Despite a trend towards less violent crime in the city, shootings and reported rapes citywide have increased this year. (The Brooklyn Reader)
Where to eat and what to do at the South Street Seaport. (amNY)
The principal of LaGuardia High School, Dr. Lisa Mars, has stepped down following a sit-in by the students and years of protests by students, teachers, and faculty. A divergence from the school's mission is what drive the protests and the vote of "no confidence" in May. (Gothamist)
Serial subway groper Giovanni Verdelli has been arrested 70 times and the NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill is calling for his permanent banning from the subways. (Downtown Express)
The ultimate guide to Penn Station. (Curbed)
The man who tossed piss onto two transit workers in April, Brandon Jobson, was arrested and charged with two counts of assault. You're in trouble, Brandon. (Gothamist)
The entire Brooklyn Congressional delegation called for the firing of Customer and Border Protection officers after posts in a private Facebook group with 9,000 members surfaces with threats to Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and insensitive comments about the ongoing crisis at the United States' southern border. (Kings County Politics)
Spots for a big group hang outside. (The Infatuation)
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