The Briefly for March 26, 2020 – The "Plenty of Dogs and Cats to Adopt" Edition
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Clear throughout the day.
PDF Guide: Know Your Rights Guide for Transgender New Yorkers Navigating COVID-19 (Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund) “The only beds we’ve been able to free up are people who have died.” Elmhurst Hospital in Queens is the center of NYC's COVID-19 crisis. (Yoav Gonen for The City) Video: The Times spent 72 hours following an emergency room doctor at Elmhurst hospital. (Robin Stein and Caroline Kim for NY Times) A heartbreaking plea from Rachel Sobolev, an emergency medicine resident in the city, begging the president to take this pandemic more seriously. (Rachel Sobolev for HuffPost) No matter what you read, New York City is not running out of pets to adopt. The Bloomberg story was changed after publication, and probably after most people read it, to say that it was referring to foster animals. There are still plenty of animals that are looking for a forever home. (Hilary Hanson for HuffPost) If you've ever wondered why it seems to take forever for the city to do anything, here's a perfect example. The city has been in the process of installing a protected bike lane on Sixth Ave for seven years. Community Board 5 requested a study in 2013 and approved the design in 2015. What's the holdup now? The Department of Transportation wants another approval from CB5. (Julianne Cuba for Streetsblog) Governor Cuomo said on Wednesday that we may have made incremental progress on slowing the wave of coronavirus cases. This is not a reason to celebrate or to stop creating physical distance between you and anyone else, but it's a sign that some of our shared sacrifices might be working. (Ben Verde for Gay City News) New York, you've got the rest of the week to prove to the mayor that you can use playgrounds responsibly or he will close them all. (Mary Frost for Brooklyn Eagle) Photos: New Yorkers are not good at physical distancing. These are the people to blame. (Ben Yakas and Jen Carlson for Gothamist) Between Hicks and Henry Streets in Brooklyn Heights, you'll find Love Lane, the city's possible original "Lover's Lane" dating back to the 1800s. (Atlas Obscura) From the discovery of dendritic cells to the cure for tuberculosis, 10 medical discoveries made in NYC. (Noah Sheidlower for Untapped New York) A second Trader Joe's was temporarily closed this week after a staffer tested positive for COVID-19. The closure of the Soho store will last at least three days while the store is sanitized. The Union Square store closed temporarily on Sunday and expects to reopen on Saturday. (Luke Fortney for Eater) Whole Foods is limiting the number of customers in its stores to 50, causing some mega lines outside the East Houston St store. (Luke Fortney for Eater) A look at Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree who created the first hospital run by and for women on Bleecker St. (Harry Bubbins for GVSHP) Remembering the Happy Land social club fire of 1990 and how it changed New York. (Allison Gilbert for NY Times) “The Trickle Up” is a streaming service from performer and playwright Taylor Mac that charges subscribers $10 per month to access original performances from 50 different artists, with proceeds going to artists struggling financially. (Devin Gannon for 6sqft) The FDA approved a new potential COVID-19 treatment that takes blood plasma from people who have recovered from the virus and transfuses it into people suffering from the disease. The New York Blood Center will be the first in the country to collect blood for the treatment. (Grant Lancaster for amNewYork Metro) Subway ridership is down 87%, buses are don 70%, Metro-North is down 91% and the LIRR is down 71%. The MTA is estimating its weekly losses at $125 million a week and that the federal bailout's $4 billion might not be enough for the MTA to survive. (Kathleen Culliton for Patch) "A Piece of Work" is a podcast tour of collection highlights at the Museum of Modern Art hosted by comedian and actor Abbi Jacobson. Listen, when it comes to "understanding" modern art, I'll take all the help I can get. (Howard Halle for Time Out) Going through this crisis is enough, but imagine going through a divorce right now on top of everything. (Hannah Ingber for NY Times) Photos: What life is like for a delivery person. (Ryan Christopher Jones and Amber Jamieson for BuzzFeed News) With defendants accused of crimes now facing judges by video because of the coronavirus pandemic, the city’s court system no longer has a way of supervising the vast majority of suspects being released back into their communities. One of the many messes that COVID-19 is making that we're all going to have to figure out how to fix after it's over. (Beth Fertig for Gothamist) We're still early in the crisis and there are thousands of hourly workers across the city running out of time and money for multiple sectors of the economy that were abruptly shuttered. (Sydney Pereira and Danny Lewis for Gothamist) RIP Terrence McNally, a playwright whose accolades and body of work is beyond what I could summarize here. (Andy Humm for Gay City News) The city is sending homeless shelter residents and public hospital patients with coronavirus to hotels and officials aren’t providing hotel staff or the city employees monitoring the infected guests with protective equipment — instead instructing them to maintain social distance. The homeless shelter residents is a change in policy, prior to this they were sending them back to shelters. (Greg B. Smith for The City) Jumaane Williams, the city's public advocate, is advocating for a "full lockdown" that would close parks and construction sites and ban New Yorkers from leaving their neighborhoods except for essential work. (Kathleen Culliton for Patch) Where to get pizza delivery in NYC. It's a little light on suggestions in the outer boroughs, but it's fun to remember when we used to be able to go places to do things. (Matt Tervooren for The Infatuation) Thank you to Lily from Hellgate Farm for today's featured photo, which is allowing me to relax for a moment if I stare hard enough at it.