By Devin Gannon, Mon, August 5, 2019 Photo via Wikimedia
Residents in southeast Queens are pushing the city to place a monument of jazz artist Billie Holiday in their neighborhood, instead of Kew Gardens, as the city proposed. In March, First lady Chirlane McCray announced plans to erect four statues of trailblazing women across the boroughs, including commissioning one of Holiday near Queens Borough Hall. But as Patch reported this week, locals want the monument to be in the Addisleigh Park Historic District, where Holiday, as well as many other prominent jazz musicians, lived in the late 1940s and ’50s.
More here
By Michelle Cohen, Thu, August 1, 2019 Image: City Foodsters via Flickr.
Starting August 2, visitors at Manhattan’s venerable Metropolitan Museum of Art will be able to indulge in a taste of the iconic Lower East Side deli in a pop-up within the museum’s cafeteria, Food & Wine reports. Through the end of summer, hungry culture vultures can choose from turkey or pastrami sandwiches, potato salad, pickles and a selection of Dr. Brown’s soda. “Expert cutters” will even be on-site to serve up the hand-carved platters. The pop-up will occupy a temporary version of the downtown delicatessen, complete with a mini Katz’s lightbox on display. The pop-up will be open Thursday through Monday starting at 11:30 A.M.
Still hungry? find out more
By Nicole Mondrus, Tue, July 30, 2019 Photos via Nicole Mondrus for 6sqft
Located in the middle of a traffic median on Queens Boulevard and 58th Street in Woodside, a marker set in the pavement makes a bold claim: “The Geographic Center of NYC.” The math used to calculate geographical centers is fairly complicated and doesn’t quite account for other environmental factors. However, there seems to be a fair consensus as to the streetside marker in Woodside: It isn’t the geographical center at all.
What’s the deal?
By Alexandra Alexa, Tue, July 30, 2019 Photo via Flickr cc
New York City has assembled a task force to find sites for new public schools, but the search is proving to be exceedingly difficult, as the Wall Street Journal reports. The School Siting Task Force said at a meeting on Monday that out of 7,000 city-owned properties they looked at, they found only two to be viable possibilities. Citing an urgent need, city officials said they would be putting out a Request for Proposals for private properties in the next few weeks as the School Construction Authority anticipates a need for 45,000 seats within the next five years and is looking to find 70 sites for new schools.
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By Devin Gannon, Mon, July 29, 2019 Via Flickr
The giant inflatable rodent set up by unions outside of New York City construction projects is getting challenged in court. An advice memo from the general counsel at the National Labor Relations Board says inflatables, including famed Scabby the Rat, should be illegal for unions to use in protest. As Gothamist reported, Peter Robb, the President Donald Trump-appointed general counsel for the NLRB, said the big balloons like Scabby are “coercive” and “unlawful.”
More this way
By Devin Gannon, Fri, July 26, 2019 Via Pexels
Manhattan requires the second-highest income in the country to afford an average two-bedroom apartment. A new report from SmartAsset analyzed how much a household needs to make in order to afford rent in the 25 largest cities in the United States. In Manhattan, New Yorkers would need to earn an annual salary of at least $162,857 to afford the average two-bedroom rent in the borough, currently around $3,800 per month.
Dig into the data
By Alexandra Alexa, Wed, July 24, 2019 Image via Disability Rights Advocates
A settlement in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday has established a plan to improve sidewalk accessibility throughout New York by making all 162,000 street corners in the city fully accessible within 15 years. Judge George B. Daniels mandated a comprehensive citywide survey to identify which corners need curb cuts installed or upgraded, which must be completed by October. This marks an important step toward making the city’s streets easier to access and safer for the disabled community—and all New Yorkers.
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By Alexandra Alexa, Mon, July 22, 2019 Image via Google Maps shows 206 West 17th Street in 2016. Now, the handful of single and four-story buildings has been replaced by a short, glassy retail space.
Air rights can be bought by whoever values them the most. In most scenarios, that ends up being a developer, but that’s not always the case. The New York Times recently reported on a rather unusual deal made in 2016 when a group of Chelsea loft owners refused to let a proposed condominium tower obstruct their natural light and Empire State Building views. Instead, they came together and made a substantial offer to buy the air rights themselves: $11 million.
How much is a view worth?
By Michelle Cohen, Mon, July 22, 2019 Image: Consumerist dot com via Flickr.
After thousands of New Yorkers lost power this weekend as temperatures soared through the 90s, the city looked to Con Ed for answers, including Mayor Bill De Blasio, who said in a Monday briefing that he was “extremely disappointed” in the utility provider, Gothamist reports. The latest shortfall, which saw over 50,000 customers in a swath of southeast Brooklyn without power this weekend, was apparently no accident; Con Ed throttled power to its customers in a “preemptive move to take those customers in southeast Brooklyn out of service in order to protect vital equipment and to help restore power as soon as possible.”
What’s the story, Con Ed?
By Michelle Cohen, Mon, July 22, 2019 Image ©6sqft.
At the start of the Friday evening rush hour last week, about a third of the New York City subway system–the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Times Square shuttle lines–ground to a halt, leaving commuters stranded–some for as long as 90 minutes–in the sweltering heat. AM New York reports that the cause of the breakdown was a computer glitch the MTA has been fighting for months.
Delays and more delays this way
