Mayor Eric Adams’s Department of Transportation has again postponed installation of protected bike lanes on Brooklyn and Kingston avenues in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, citing nebulous “capacity constraints.” The project, originally more ambitious, w…
A new mural in Bushwick, Brooklyn, unveiled by The Action Lab with artist Andre Trenier, offers a colourful riposte to surging ICE raids and rising anti-migrant rhetoric in New York. Celebrating street vendors and city diversity, it pairs images of resilience with the frankly ambitious aim of inspiring both neighbourly solidarity and “Know Your Rights” workshops—because if art can stop a raid, we truly have masterpiece potential.
A subway conductor in downtown Brooklyn was punched in the face and robbed of her train keys by a masked attacker at Hoyt–Schermerhorn Streets station, the NYPD reports, just days after Governor Kathy Hochul lauded a $77 million boost for police patrols and record-low subway crime. With four stabbings since her announcement, we trust the new funding finds a more timely timetable than the C train.
Weitao Shi, operating via his FBL Development and Golden Stone Management firms, has filed plans to replace an empty gym at 245 Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn with a 30-story residential tower containing 158 units, retail space, and enough amenities to impress even the most jaded condo-dweller. The locale—already witnessing a record 3,700-plus new units this year—appears to welcome cranes with open arms, if not exactly open space.
New York’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who outpaced Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa in November, plans to mark his January 1st swearing-in with a Broadway block party stretching from Liberty to Murray Street. Registrants can watch online or elbow for space near City Hall, where he’ll be joined by Jumaane Williams and Mark Levine. We suspect even Times Square’s ball drop feels upstaged.
After a month dissecting whether Linda Sun, once aide to Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul, funneled New York’s policy toward Beijing (and her own real estate portfolio), a Brooklyn jury deadlocked on all 19 counts, prompting Judge Brian Cogan to call a mistrial. Prosecutors must mull whether another round—with 40-plus witnesses and fewer Ferraris—might yield answers or simply more exquisite indecision.
A forum in Bensonhurst drew nearly a hundred residents to debate the city’s plan to stack apartments atop the newly reopened New Utrecht Library, a proposal pitched as a balm for Brooklyn’s housing crunch. Concerns ranged from congestion to whether the Dewey Decimal System could withstand upstairs neighbors, but officials seemed keen to press ahead—albeit with a gentle nudge from the community’s formidable chorus of cautious optimism.
Petty thieves relieved over 40 concertgoers of their phones during two December shows in Brooklyn—Paramount and Monarch venues—offering proof that inflation now extends, briskly, to street crime. Both places have ramped up warnings, and the NYPD is circling, but cybersecurity experts suggest these filched devices quickly travel onwards, mostly to China. Only a sliver of cases seem to get solved—though vigilance, apparently, is now the opening act.
We note New York police are hunting two men after a string of purse snatchings against women in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood; authorities report several incidents but have so far avoided naming suspects. This flurry of nimble-fingered activity has revived calls for more patrols, though we wonder whether the city’s would-be pioneers of street crime might be in for a brisker chase than usual.
