The "This Dog Needs A Forever Home" Edition

Hochul vs Adams on reforming bail reform, hot garbage month, Union Pool reopens, a bodega cat was abducted, Monkeypox goes emergency on a federal level, nine summer sandwiches, and more

Today - Low: 76˚ High: 89˚
Possible light rain in the evening and overnight.
This weekend - Low: 76˚ High: 89˚

Thanks to reader Lizzy for today’s featured photo from Sunset Park, living up to its name. Send your city photos to thebriefly@gmail.com

• Eric Adams is trying to make the case that bail reform is responsible for an increase in crime, claiming, "The hardworking men and women of the NYPD are doing the work." (Estefania Hernandez for NY1)

• No one in a leadership position in the state government agrees with Mayor Adams, with Governor Hochul saying Adams is pushing a political slogan instead of looking for answers. (Jon Campbell, Samantha Max, Matt Katz for Gothamist)

• The NYPD is on track to spend far more in lawsuit payouts than in any year in recent history. The department paid more through July this year than it did in 2020. (Samantha Max for Gothamist)

• Monkeypox is officially a federal health emergency, freeing up emergency funds and lifting some bureaucratic hurdles. There are currently 1,630 reported cases of Monkeypox in New York City. (Apoorva Mandavilli, Sheryl Gay Stolberg for NY Times)

• Boka, a gray bodega cat, was abducted from Green Olives Deli & Grocery in Park Slope. Your help is needed to help return Boka and identify the thief. (Emma Orlow for Eater)

• The Sanitation Department's "Clean Curbs" pilot program in Times Square is very good at leaking trash juice onto the street. The containers aren’t rat-proof and allow heavy rain to soak the trash in water like it was a french press. (Eve Kessler for Streetsblog)

• Happy August; it's officially hot garbage month. (Christopher Bonanos for Curbed)

• Speaking of hot, at least half of the city's cooling centers were listed as closed during the July heatwave. Once you start reading the statistics, like 54% of centers are inaccessible to people in wheelchairs or how East Flatbush only had 1.2 cooling centers per 100,000 people, it gets real bleak real quick. (Elizabeth Kim for Gothamist)

🌷 nancy 🌸 @31stofjuly

Ive seen so many 35+ year olds in Manhattan smoking huge vapes this week, gripping it with two hands like a baby bottle

• The fight over school budgets continues. The latest news is that city schools can now use $100 million of federal stimulus money to pay for school staff. It's not a complete win, and the money was previously earmarked for overtime pay for tutoring or other support. It wasn't allowed to be used for salaries until now. (Reema Amin for Chalkbeat)

• "In total, the City currently has $4.4 billion remaining in federal Covid stimulus aid for education that must be spent by FY25," according to an analysis by city Comptroller Brad Lander's office. That seems like it could fill the Adams administration's $215 million change in the education budget. (Matt Troutman for Patch)

• Union Pool reopens tonight! Remember: You're still not allowed to bang in their bathrooms. Someone let me know if the signs are still up. (Bill Pearis for BrooklynVegan)

• If you already miss the ChocoTaco, you could try to fill the hole in your stomach with this $100 23-karat gold-covered version from Serendipity3. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)

• In honor of the 60th anniversary of the opening of Astroland, the Coney Island History Project is opening a permanent exhibit about Astroland next to the original Astroland rocket. (Ben Feinblum for Untapped New York)

• Fourteen tourist trap restaurants that are actually good. I'll argue it's a pretty good list. (Eater)

• Headline: The Dog Lawyer Doesn’t Care That You Hate Him. (Hope Corrigan for NY Times)

• I love defiance in real estate. Here's the story about two holdout houses that forced Rockefeller Center to be built around them. (Ephemeral New York)

• The city's best piece of defiance real estate is the Hess Triangle, which dates back over a century. (Jen Carlson for Gothamist)

• Have you seen the new Penn Station ceiling at the LIRR concourse? To quote Time Out, "the whole thing is very underwhelming." (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)

THE CITY @THECITYNY

On Monday, @NYCMayor vowed to “immediately” reopen a closed @NYCHA playground @THECITYNY reported on. Turns out, immediately is not now, or "even close" according to NYC officials. The latest on the playground at Morrisania Air Rights.

buff.lyBronx Public Housing Playground Still Closed After Adams Vow to OpenLike his predecessor, the mayor said he’s going to “do an analysis” and develop a plan to get NYCHA playground repairs on track. But there’s no sign of that happening anytime soon.

• The Brooklyn Public Library is launching a new pilot program this month to browse, listen to, and borrow a collection of nearly 400 records. (Aaron Ginsburg for 6sqft)

• Okay, the Cicada Killer Wasp sounds pretty scary, especially when you hear it's out in full force in Prospect Park. Don't fret. They are not aggressive. (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)

• Real Estate Lust: A $35 million penthouse with 8,000 square feet of outdoor space with a gym, bar, home theater, hot tub, and more. If you've ever wanted to take a shit on the doorstep of a Kushner, Joshua Kushner would be your neighbor. (Michelle Cohen for 6sqft)

• Michael Steinhardt, hedge fund billionaire and namesake of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, will resign from the university’s board of trustees, months after he was ​​ordered to surrender stolen antiquities worth $70 million by the Manhattan district attorney, not to mention sexual harassment allegations against him in 2019. (Arnav Binaykia for Washington Square News)

• The Brooklyn Book Festival is returning from September 25 through October 3 to Downtown Brooklyn with a virtual day on September 25. (Drew Richardson for Brooklyn Paper)

• If you don't know why there's a statue of Jackie Gleason outside the Port Authority Bus Terminal, it's time to learn why. (Atlas Obscura)

• I made an error last edition by saying Representative Malliotakis's redrawn district would include Park Slope, Gowanus, and Sunset Park. The maps we revised in May. Thank you to Hope, who let me know of my error politely. (Nicholas Fandos for NY Times, May 16, 2022)

• Podcast: A history of the taxi cab. (Bowery Boys)

• Robert Sietsema’s Nine favorite summer sandwiches so far. Not a single hot dog on the list, despite them being legally defined as sandwiches in New York state. (Robert Sietsema for Eater)

Last Edition’s Top Stories:

1. Was this you swimming in the East River? We just wanna chat. (Emma Davey for Greenpointers)

2. Robot Cat Servers Are Descending on NYC Dim Sum Parlors (Luke Fortney for Eater)

3. These braided cardamom buns are the star of the show at this new Scandinavian bakery (Anna Rahmanan for Time Out)

Featured City Pet: Sabrina!

This one is different. Sabrina is a foster dog looking for a forever home through Muddy Paws Rescue. Here’s a note from Laine, who fostered Sabrina for a month: She is the sweetest little thing, but gets quite stressed when she meets new people so hasn’t shown her best side at adoption events (even though she is the biggest cuddle bug). I need you to adopt Sabrina, and you can apply right here.