The Briefly for May 16, 2019 – The "Maybe NYC is Better Off With An Absentee Mayor?" Edition
A new bill is looking to ban landlords from using facial recognition technology in their buildings and would allow tenants to pursue civil lawsuits against any landlord who did. (Gothamist)
You've got four chances to check out Manhattanhenge this summer, starting in two weeks. (amNY)
By the time you read this, there's a good chance that our dummy of a mayor has decided to not listen to New Yorkers, or his friends, or common sense, or the rest of the country, and launched his presidential bid on Good Morning America. Maybe the city will be better off if he's never around? (Splinter)
The City Council wants to provide the NYPD with more funding for the understaffed Collision Investigation Squad to investigate the 2,000 - 3,000 fatal crashes annually, of which they respond to just over 5% of. James O'Neill, NYPD commissioner, isn't interested. (Streetsblog)
A dump truck driver struck and killed a 58-year-old man while he was crossing W. 21st Street in Coney Island on Saturday. (Brooklyn Paper)
The TWA Hotel is open in all its retro glory. (Curbed)
More photos from inside the TWA Hotel. (6sqft)
Has the TWA Hotel truly opened if there was not a list of ten fun facts about it? (Untapped Cities)
New York City is nothing without its eccentricities, including Washington Square Park's Bubble Man, Stephen Duncan. (GVSHP)
The best happy hours in Brooklyn. (The Infatuation)
There are over 1.6 million feet of sidewalk sheds in the city, and now there's an interactive map to keep tabs on them all. (Viewing NYC)
Over 120,000 New Yorkers rely on the MTA's Acess-A-Ride to get around the city, but just because they rely on it, it doesn't mean it's at all reliable. (NY Times)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, except when it comes to the big dumb idiots at Big Seven Travel, which declared the Boston Accent "sexier" than the New York accent. (Patch)
A look at Cafe Phin, the city’s only authentic Vietnamese coffee roaster. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will no longer accept gifts from the human monsters of the Sackler family, architects of the country's opioid crisis. (NY Times)
The gala honoring Brazil's president and the man who is so outwardly homophobic it wouldn't be a shock if he was secretly gay himself Jair Bolsonaro happened without his presence, but not without interruptions and protests. (Gothamist)
How did the subway lines get their letters or numbers? Let's take a look. (amNY)
LaGuardia and JFK are nowhere near the top-ranked airports in the world, which is no shock to anyone who has the dubious pleasure of traveling through them. (Patch)
Don't look now, but the company responsible for Northside Festival and Brooklyn Magazine, which had held tens of thousands of dollar from former employees, seems to have ghosted. The website for the festival says the 2019 information is "coming soon." (Gothamist)
Check out the architectural finalists for the city's Big Ideas for Small Lots NYC competition, which challenged firms to design affordable housing on small lots across the city. (Curbed)
A “severely decomposed” body was found in the basement of a Brooklyn Heights building by maintenance workers. An NYPD investigation is ongoing. (Bklyner)
Marijuana isn't legal for recreational use, but that hasn't stopped the state legislature from moving on to "important" issues like trying to make texting or using or looking at any portable electronic device while crossing the road punishable by fines. (Gothamist)
A helicopter operated by "the Uber of helicopters" Blade landed in the Hudson River on Wednesday with no serious injuries or deaths, so it's safe to watch the videos of it all going down without guilt. (Gothamist)
Non-profit internet service provider and privacy-friendly company NYC Mesh is expanding its service to Greenpoint. (Greenpointers)
Governor Cuomo's administration blocked the Williams gas pipeline that would terminate just off the Rockaways, pointing out it would result in a failure to meet the state's water quality standards. The company plans on reapplying, but with the governor's focus on environmental issues, the chance of approval seems very low. (Politico)
The absolute best places for tiki drinks in the city. (Grub Street)
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