New York’s Aqueduct Racetrack, closing after more than 130 years, will soon hand its sprawling 100-acre plot to state authorities, with public workshops next week seeking ideas for redevelopment. Given the city’s cries for affordable housing—plus the site’s size (outscaling Hudson Yards and Willets Point combined)—expect calls for mixed-income homes and local shops. Whether politicians can resist racing toward flashy alternatives is, as ever, an open wager.
New York City in brief
Top five stories in the five boroughs today
As contract talks between five unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stumble over 2025 pay, the New York City area faces a possible Long Island Railroad strike from May 16, threatening chaos for its 300,000 daily riders. Both camps agree on modest raises through 2024 but remain at loggerheads over the final year—proof that there’s nothing like a looming shutdown to sharpen the economics of compromise.
New York saw SNAP rolls shrink by 6.2%—over 180,000 people—between January 2025 and February 2026, echoing an 8% national plunge after Congress tightened eligibility and work rules via last summer’s “One, Big Beautiful Bill.” Advocates argue that fewer applicants reflect not less hunger but more federal red tape and wary immigrant families; the state’s “safety net” now comes with considerably larger holes.
New York’s Rent Guidelines Board, presiding over rates for nearly a million city apartments, readies its first vote on rises since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the reins. Previous years dished up incremental bumps; now landlords cite inflation, while tenants plead hardship. Both sides, accustomed to seeing the board as a fiscal weather vane, once again watch nervously—hoping for either sunshine or less of a chill.
President Donald Trump and erstwhile government-efficiency tsar Elon Musk targeted America’s Social Security Administration for fraud, prompting Trump to install finance executive Frank Bisignano atop the S.S.A. and a shrinking Internal Revenue Service. Despite Bisignano’s admission he initially “Googled” his new agency, he oversaw cuts of 7,000 staff and plummeting morale scores, confirming that downsizing government doesn’t necessarily shrink headaches—just the number of people fielding complaints.