The "I'm the Mayor Is Not An Excuse" Edition

Signs your apartment is telling you to move, the dumbest new idea for Manhattan, A secret bar inside a secret bar, no more Cuomo comebacks please, and more

Today - Low: 35˚ High: 36˚
Heavy rain in the evening and overnight.

The latest seven-day positivity rate: 27.65%
73.55% of city residents have received two shots, 83.08% of city residents have received more than one shot. Source: NYC Department of Health.

Thanks to reader Marissa for this photo from the Roosevelt Island tram on an early and freezing cold morning. Send in your NYC pics to thebriefly@gmail.com! I get so much spam because I put my email address in these digests. The least you could do is to send a photo!

We’re past the 15th of the month. Has Eric Adams been paid in Bitcoin yet?

• Mayor Adams fought back against claims of nepotism by stating, "I'm the mayor." Yes, you are the mayor. It is impossible to have nepotism without you being the mayor. "When other mayors hired their lower partners, they hired their people they knew from school that they came up through the ranks — how there was nothing to say about it?" Mr. Mayor, I can guarantee you plenty of criticism of previous mayors for nepotism before you. (Matt Troutman for Patch)

• If this line of bullshit sounds familiar, it's because Eric Adams has been using whataboutism to defend himself for years. He argued that his staff should be allowed to park in Brooklyn Borough Hall Plaza in 2019 illegally. From this piece: "Adams also said that Borough Hall staffers can legally park in the plaza, reasoning that administrations before his did the same." He made this argument on illegal parking and placard abuse during a town hall. (Vincent Barone for amNY Metro)

• No surprise here, but NY Politics thinks the mayor should be able to hire his brother. Schneps Media purchased politics NY in January of last year. Schneps Media’s president is Victoria Schneps, the publisher of amNY Metro, who served on Eric Adams’s transition team. (Stephen Witt for PoliticsNY)

• Upcoming restaurant openings. (Neha Talreja for The Infatuation)

• Five connections between Martin Luther King Jr and New York City. (Shiloh Frederick for Shiloh in the City)

• Don't talk about a Cuomo comeback. Much like "don't inject bleach," "don't take horse medicine," and "stop talking about Eric Adams's bucket of dead rats," these are things that shouldn't have to be said multiple times. (Nick Reisman for NY1)

• A woman was killed after being pushed onto the tracks and struck by a train at the Times Square subway station on Saturday afternoon. “Yes, I did because I’m God. I can do it because I’m God!” was the reason given by a homeless man who turned himself in on Saturday night. (Dean Moses for amNY Metro)

• How to join a community board and what to know before you apply. Join your local community board. Do it. (Rachel Holliday Smith for The City)

• Ten signs your apartment is telling you to move. One of the reasons is ghosts! (Kelly Kreth for Brick Underground)

• One-bedroom apartment rents are "rising at an alarming rate," up 32% year over year. (Aidan Seiden for amNY Metro)

• Real Estate Lust: A $2 million luxury Upper East Side one-bedroom with south exposures, a state of the art kitchen, heated stone bathroom floors, in a building with a 70-foot indoor swimming pool, sauna, spa, winter garden, and more. (Aaron Ginsburg for 6sqft)

• Ten places to volunteer in New York City this winter. (Aaron Ginsburg for 6qsft)

• How can we help end the flooding in Manhattan? How about extending Manhattan 1,760 acres, allowing it to completely eat Governors Island and push further south than Red Hook? File this under "so stupid, you should see it." (Jason M. Barr, unironically in NY Times)

• The restaurants closed by the Department of Health, Jan 1-11. Just when you thought Pizza' D'Amore's 95 violation points were high, here comes Buddies Coffee with 112. (Kathleen Culliton for Patch)

• A look back at NYC's subway tokens. (Monique Zamir for Untapped Cities)

• Advice for when your neighbors make a lot of noise. (Brick Underground)

• States with populations less than NYC. (r/DataIsBeautiful)

• 12 secrets of Cobble Hill. (Noah Sheidlower for Untapped New York)

• A secret bar within a secret bar within a coffee shop. Does the secret bar's secret bar have a secret bar? The Lab is inside of Patent Pending inside of Patent Coffee on W27th. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)

• Want to hit two speakeasies in one night? Head north half a mile and look for Pan-Asian Sei Less, whose hidden entrance is in the middle of a mural. Sei Less opens this weekend. (Shaye Weaver for Time Out)

• A list of bars with outdoor heating lamps. (Hannah Albertine, Mackenzie Jones, Neha Talreja, and Kenny Yang for The Infatuation)

Featured Pet: Flippy!

Thank you to reader Robin for sending in this photo of Flippy!

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