The "Congestion Pricing Scenarios" Edition
No more Trader Joe's Wine Shop, everyone hates Dimes Square and loves it, Cuomo sues the state, doing the real work for the Texas migrants, a sober dive bar in the East Village, and more
Today - Low: 65˚ High: 81˚
Partly cloudy throughout the day.
This weekend - Low: 69˚ High: 79˚
• Farewell to the Trader Joe's Wine Shop on 14th. No warning, just gone. (EV Grieve)
• The city's mutual aid groups are doing the real work while the mayor falls for Texas Governor Abbott's public relations game, cracking jokes about sending New Yorkers to canvas against Abbott. This is a human disaster with no room for levity from the leader of the city. (Max Rivlin-Nadler for Hell Gate)
• Here are the seven possible congestion pricing scenarios. (Jose Martinez, Rachel Holliday Smith with additional reporting from Shantel Destra for The City)
• The city's school budget cuts are back on. Another appellate court overturned the decision that was overturned that I reported in the last edition. It's astounding how hard the city wants to fight to take money out of the school system. (Amy Zimmer for Chalkbeat)
• Education department officials misled Council members before their budget vote, according to City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, about what impact the cuts to spending would have. According to her office, schools are facing $365 million in total cuts — well above the $215 million the mayor outlined in his budget. (Jessica Gould for Gothamist)
• Want things to get even more complicated? No, no, we don't, but when has that ever stopped the city from moving ahead with its plans? School Chancellor David Banks wants to find the money by cutting hundreds of millions of tuition payments for students with disabilities. The argument is that public money is going to private tuition. A lot of that money goes towards students with disabilities who end up looking for private schools because the city cannot provide them with an appropriate and fair education. (Alex Zimmerman for Chalkbeat)
• Feeling the need to sploot? Splooting is adorable and is what squirrels do when it's too hot to exist outside, aka "heat dumping," which sounds way grosser. (Matt Troutman for Patch)
• Weezer's Broadway residency is canceled partially because people stopped caring about Weezer almost twenty years ago. (Amanda Hatfield for BrooklynVegan)
• Manhattan borough president Mark Levine has a pretty good idea: Turn part of the West Side Highway into a two-way bike lane. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)
• Disgraced former Governor Cuomo, who isn't a pervert and is just Italian, is suing the state to pay his legal fees from his sexual harassment case in federal court last year. What a guy. (Kate Lisa for NY1)
• Mayor Adams has appointed a friend as a paid senior adviser while allowing him to keep his job as an executive at the Resorts World Casino. On top of his casino salary, he is earning an additional salary through the Economic Development Corporation and is also earning $124,000 a year from his NYPD pension. (William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubenstein, Michael Rothfeld for NY Times)
• The guy who attacked Rick Moranis in October of 2020 was arrested. (Mike Mishkin for I Love the Upper West Side)
• The Times looks at knotless braids in Harlem and Brooklyn. (Sandra E. Garcia for NY Times)
• 13,000 Chipotle workers in the city will be compensated to the tune of $20 million after they were cheated out of predictable schedules and paid sick leave following an investigation from the city. (Matt Troutman for Patch)
• A sober dive bar in the East Village. Same owner as Lucky, across the street on Avenue B. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)
• Apartment Porn: A $7.5 million Kips Bay townhouse with an in-ground saltwater lap pool in the backyard, landscaped roof deck, and a bunch of other ridiculous details. (Michelle Cohen for 6sqft)
• Congratulations are in order to July rents, which broke another series of records. Hooray? The average rent in Manhattan is now $5,113, median rents are up to $4,150, and Brooklyn's average rents are at $3,883. (Clio Chang for Curbed)
• What about rent-stabilized apartments? According to Brick Underground, there are some reports of bidding wars for broker fees from 15 to 25%. These were for, no joke, no-fee listings. (Jennifer White Karp for Brick Underground)
• There's a new NYC Ferry that goes from Wall Street to Rockaway Beach, and it will cost $8 instead of $2.75 and is reservation only. (Devin Gannon for 6sqft)
• The Department of Buildings, a bunch of certifiable wangs, shut down an illegal rooftop pool in Williamsburg. (Esther Wang for Hell Gate)
• The 14 best steakhouses in the city, updated and unranked. (Eater Staff and Ryan Sutton for EAter)
• Laws that shouldn't be necessary, but here we are: A new law requires museums to identify art stolen by Nazis. (Elizabeth Shwe for Gothamist)
• The city is rolling out a pilot program for some city-owned vehicles that is installing governors to prevent speeding. Not included in the program is the mayor's SUV. The mayor announced this while posing with a car that got a speeding ticket in June. (Julianne Cuba for Streetsblog)
• A night at the Fancy Feast restaurant for humans. (Choire Sicha for Grub Street)
• A look at Open Streets, how it's changed since early 2020, why there are 63 miles less of them this year, and how proponents of the program are trying to reshape how we all think about our streets. (Winnie Hu for NY Times)
• A carriage horse collapsed in Hell's Kitchen on Wednesday night from a neurological disease from eating infected opossum poop. Police hosed off the horse after it collapsed and eventually stood back up, but its time to ban horse-drawn carriages in the city. It is ridiculous that this is still an argument. (Catalina Gonella for Gothamist)
• There's a renewed push to install a new 7 train stop in Hell's Kitchen at 10th and 41st. The stop was supposed to be a part of the Hudson Yards project but was dropped. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)
• There’s so much to hate about Dimes Square, and we love to hate so much of it. You’ve never heard of any of these people, and they don’t matter, their feuds are petty and childish, and after the last few years, I can completely understand the general fascination with this tiny circus and all of its inconsequential self-important clowns. (Helen Holmes for The Daily Beast)
• With the new Penn Station plan steamrolling forward, a look at some of what will be lost in the neighborhood, from restaurants to recording studios to Aerial Arts NYC, and more. (Kim Velsey for Curbed)
• Headline: Anxious New Yorkers Worry Whether Eric Adams Is the Man for the Moment. (Emma G. Fitzimmons for NY Times)
• The LA hot chicken chain Dave's Hot Chicken is opening its first NYC location on 8th Ave by 56th on August 19. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)
• Eating at HAGS, the queer and trans-owned fine dining restaurant mentioned in a previous edition of The Briefly. (Emma Orlow for Eater)
• The Washington Post focuses on the heroes of our city's compost, including a pug in Astoria. It's easy to get caught up in the negative aspects of the city, but stories like this show what's always made our city great. (Meghan McDonough and Rengim Mutevellioglu for The Washington Post)
• Ludlow and Rivington on the Lower East Side will become Beastie Boys Square. (Aaron Ginsburg for 6sqft)
• 29 outstanding halal spots. (Caroline Shin for Eater)
Top Clicked Stories from Last Edition:
Featured City Pet: Dumpling!
Thanks to reader Michele for sending in this photo of Dumpling offering up the Belly That Doth Not Be Touched. Send in your pet photos to thebriefly@gmail.com
