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In the Bronx, Woodlawn-bound [4] skips Burnside Av
In Queens, all Manhattan-bound [7][7X] local/express trains stop at 74 St-Broadway
A tax office that won't answer to the people it's taxing.
Mayor Mamdani's Finance Department skipped Tuesday's Council hearing on its pied-à-terre tax rollout, citing pending litigation, after Council members refused its request to postpone [7]. Lawmakers read eleven pages of questions to empty chairs over seventeen minutes [7]. Robert Bertagna, a 30-year Upper East Side resident, said the city billed him $52,000 unless he proved a residency his voter registration already showed [2]. The city had approved 2,318 of 9,884 exemption applications as of Tuesday, with a Sept. 18 deadline for the rest [7].
“The point is the government is assuming that I'm guilty unless I can prove myself to be innocent.”
“Litigation doesn't suspend legislative oversight.”
City & State New York - All Content
Politics | Spectrum News NY1
GothamistA mayor who campaigned on stopping evictions is still turning away three of every four New Yorkers who ask for help.
The city rejected roughly three-quarters of nearly 30,000 One-Shot Deal rent-arrears requests between January and March, a denial rate essentially unchanged from Adams' final months despite Mamdani's campaign promise on eviction prevention [59]. The refusal rate has climbed from 62% in 2022 to about 75% now, even as applications nearly doubled [59]. Tenant lawyers say incomplete applications are automatically denied after 30 days, and renters are typically approved only with a lawyer's help [59].
“From start to finish, it's completely broken.”
“I just keep meeting resistance ... Sometimes I feel broken, and it becomes overwhelming because there's a sense of grief.”
GothamistThe tunnel that has squeezed LIRR riders for fifteen months just got its lane back.
Amtrak finished the first phase of a $1.6 billion rebuild of two Hurricane Sandy-damaged East River rail tunnels Monday, reopening the repaired Line 2 tunnel after a 15-month shutdown that cut LIRR peak-hour service into Penn Station by 20% [70]. The four tunnels, opened in 1910 and shared by Amtrak, the LIRR and NJ Transit, carry 450 trains a day [70]. MTA Chair Janno Lieber, who had urged Amtrak to repair the tunnel nights and weekends instead of a full shutdown, said the closure meant riders faced more crowding [70].
“This project forced the Long Island Rail Road to reduce its peak hour service into Penn by 20 percent ... That's a lot of trains, and it meant customers experienced a lot more crowding into Penn.”
6sqft
On Aug. 15, sculptors of all ages spent the afternoon turning the West 12th Street stretch of Coney Island beach into a gallery of sandcastles for the 34th annual Sand Sculpting Competition, judged across individual, adult-group, family and people's-choice categories before the tide erased every entry [100]. Organizer Cindy Vourderis said "every mound was claimed, and the talent was unbelievable," the kind of afternoon where grandmothers, kids and out-of-towners all crowd one stretch of sand to watch strangers build something that won't survive the evening [100]. It is the most New York kind of art show: free, splashy, gone by morning, and beloved anyway.