Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani urged supporters to join them and volunteer in the final weeks of the general election at an event Saturday, the latest stop on the senator’s national Fighting Oligarchy tour.
The event was held at Brooklyn College, where Sanders, a borough native, attended school for a year before transferring to the University of Chicago.
The pair of legislators, both democratic socialists, praised one another to cheers from the thousands of people inside.
Mamdani said Sanders’ 2016 presidential run “gave me the language of democratic socialism to describe my politics.”
He attended the senator’s rally at Queensbridge Park with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019, when he ran for, and won, a seat in the state Assembly.
“As I ran for state assembly, for the many months beyond that, we continued to look to him and his campaign and his vision as the compass for the work that we wanted to do,” Mamdani said.
Sanders commended Mamdani’s upset of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June primary by 13 percentage points.
“This guy started at 2% in the polls and blew away the opposition,” he said.
“And what was most extraordinary about the primary campaign and the campaign he’s right now — it’s not ugly 30-second ads. It is a grassroots movement.”
Sanders discussed the mayor’s race, both in terms of President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to clear the field for Cuomo and the push by some of the wealthiest New Yorkers to stop Mamdani’s surge.
“What are these oligarchs afraid of?,” Sanders asked, then shared a message to those looking to stop Mamdani: “To hell with you, we’re going to take you on.”
Mamdani currently leads in the polls, gaining much of the labor and political support that had initially backed Cuomo in the primary.
In recent weeks, Trump has discussed the idea of some of the candidates – including Mayor Eric Adams, Republican Curtis Sliwa, or Andrew Cuomo – dropping out to make it a one-on-one matchup to defeat Mamdani.
Adams has shot down multiple reports that he was in discussion to take a job in the federal government as a way to leave the race. He vehemently denied it again on Friday outside Gracie Mansion, even as calls from some of the wealthiest and most powerful New Yorkers called for him to drop out.
“This is the city where we will choose our own mayor,” Mamdani said. “It’s not going to be Donald Trump, it’s not going to be Bill Ackman, it’s not going to be DoorDash.”
Attendees included Brooklyn College students and faculty, including freshman Ahmed Razaq, who cast his first vote ever for Mamdani in the June primary.
“He’s going to be great for the city,” he said. “He’s going to do a lot for things the city needs like affordable housing.”
Lucy Blum, 21, came with friends and her 16-year-old cousin, Lou Wallach, who all live in Brooklyn and waited outside on the wait list.
“We need some hope right now. It’s sad, hard times,” Blum, who just graduated from college and is looking for freelance film jobs, said.
Although Wallach isn’t old enough to vote, she’s been closely following the mayor’s race.
“I really hope Zohran gets it. He’s a figure that we need right now, and someone who I actually believe could create change in New York and inspire other states to do the same,” she said.
Jaylynn McCurdy, 22, said she felt “invigorated” by Sanders and Mamdani’s message.
“As young people, it’s really important that we get involved.”
The aspiring doctor born and raised in Brooklyn said she voted for Mayor Eric Adams in 2021 – but wouldn’t again. He “disappointed so many Black people” like herself. She plans to vote for Mamdani, she said.
“You want to support your own people, and you think that they’re for you, you think that they’re progressive, but then they get there, and they’re corrupt,” she said. “They want to serve the people that are putting money in their pockets.”
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Recently visited the Bay Model in Sausalito: a physical scale model of San Francisco Bay, the size of two American-football fields, built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1957.
“The Bay Model was constructed […] to study the circulation and flow characteristics of the water within the San Francisco Bay estuary system and related waterways. The Model was used to reproduce (to the proper scale) the rise and fall of tide, flow and currents of water, mixing of salt and fresh water, and indicates trends in sediment movement. Assessments could be made regarding the impact of human activities such as dredging navigation channels, filling portions of the Bay, diverting water, and introducing wastes and oil spills.” (Quoted from the Bay Model’s Master Plan document, from their website.)
In particular, it was originally constructed to test the viability of the late-1940s Reber Plan: one of several proposals to install dams and turn the Bay into freshwater lakes. The test demonstrated that the Reber Plan wouldn’t work.
The Bay Model’s simulation goes through a full tidal cycle every fifteen minutes.
In 2000, the research group switched over to using a computer model, but the physical model is still available to be visited.
Thanks to Jim M for introducing me to the Bay Model and going there with me!
Back in the days of analog phones and fax machines, I used to get asked
to come up with solutions to random problems that people were having
with them. One of them involved a single phone line, a "fax switcher",
an actual fax machine, and not wanting to wake other people up when a
fax was involved. Here's how that went.
Friends of the family had a good-sized house and they ran some kind of
business that had started getting faxes at all hours. They had a single
phone line and didn't feel like getting another one for whatever
reason. They wanted to be able to get a fax without having all of the
other house phones ringing at all hours of the day and night when it's
"meant for the machine".
The dad of the family bought this "fax switcher" box, but couldn't
figure out exactly how to tie it in. Somehow, they found out that I had
done some small-time phone wiring adjustments and called me over to
help.
The box worked like this: it would pick up the phone and would just
listen to it for a few seconds. If it heard the CNG tone from a calling
fax machine (beeeep!), then it would punch the call through to the "FAX"
port on the back. It did this by putting the right flavor of voltage
jazz on that port to make the machine see it and pick up. Then it
connected the line port to the fax port and just hung out until the
call was over.
This same box had a "VOICE" port on the back, and in the event it didn't
hear the soothing tones of a calling fax machine, it would time out and
would push its locally-generated ring voltage down that port instead.
If you had some phones plugged into that, they'd ring, and you'd know to
pick them up.
(I should note that the box played a nasty fake ringback tone to the
caller during this phase... and yes, since it answered, it supervised,
and the caller was going to pay for the call, even if nobody was home!)
The question was: how to get the rest of the house (regular phones)
"behind" this box so they wouldn't ring when the call actually came in?
Their 1960s house had all of its phone jacks wired in a way that wasn't
unusual for the time but which made it ugly for this problem.
One very long length of cord came from the demarc box out back and
stopped off at every jack. The installer actually just stripped back
the outer insulation, then the inner insulation on the primary pair
(red/green), and looped the now-bare copper around the terminal screws
on the jacks. They did all of this without ever cutting the wire.
Very clever.
I suggested we could just cut it in half at the first jack (in the
kitchen), so the box would be the first thing on the line and the whole
rest of the house would sit behind it. That didn't fly, since it meant
the switcher box (and probably the actual fax machine) would have to go
in the kitchen, too. They wanted all of the mess out of the way in the
big bedroom on the first floor, and wouldn't you know it, that was the
*last* jack on the line. That seemed like a pain but it turned out to
be rather helpful.
The solution ended up being something kind of nasty, but it did work.
That one long cord actually contained two pairs in case the residents
ever wanted a second line. That is, in addition to the red/green, they
also had a yellow/black pair in there, just hanging out, not doing
anything. It didn't "stop off" at any of the jacks, but it was in fact
present and ran interrupted from end to end.
I figured, okay, let's "cut the line in half" in the kitchen jack, but
do it in such a way that it bridges the incoming line (from the outside
box) to the yellow/black. Then it'll travel all the way around the
house, untouched, until it lands at the last jack in their bedroom.
Then I just wired up that jack to have the yellow/black on line 2, and
bought a goofy little splitter thing from Radio Shack to make sense of
it. This was a six dollar plastic piece that would split a two-line
jack into two single-line jacks and a pass-through.
So, position 1 on this thing had line 1 as primary. Position 2 on this
thing had line 2 as primary. Position 3 on this thing was another "four
wires, two lines", just like the jack it plugged into.
The fax switcher's LINE jack was connected to position 2 (yellow/black,
being fed from the bridge behind the kitchen jack) and its VOICE jack
was connected to position 1. In so doing, the box itself drove the rest
of the house "backwards" and allowed those other phones to operate.
The best part of doing it this way is that I didn't have to go around to
open up the other jacks in the rest of the house. They were just fine
staying on red/green.
This worked and they loved it, but I was mildly concerned. Their whole
telco setup was now reliant on this dumb little box staying plugged in
and working exactly as I had set it up. If it came unplugged or
something else bad happened to it, they'd have no phone service anywhere
in the house. (I'm not sure if it was smart enough to short together
the VOICE and LINE jacks on power failure. It was random consumer-grade
plastic junk.)
For that reason, I also brought them a tiny little "patch cable" thing
(that Radio Shack also sold for some reason) and told them "if you ever
remove this box, you HAVE TO connect positions 1 and 2 with this little
cord". I sure hope they remembered that.
I can't even imagine what happened if they ever sold that house. I'm
sure someone came along later and screamed at the maniac that rigged it
up that way.
Well, uh, hi, I'm that maniac, I guess.
Knowing what I know now over 30 years later, I think I would have left a
note in the wall for the next person to find it. "Hey, this is why we
did this, and you just need to patch red & green back together in this
one place and you'll be back to where Ma Bell left it originally". The
person who came along later would still be miffed, but at least they'd
know why someone went and did something that bizarre.
I love to make paper maché piñatas and recently have been working on some cardboard and paper mache furniture. It is relaxing because it isn’t writing and isn’t a computer, hurrah! The furniture is a large cardboard box that my parents had been using as a patio table after moving into their new condo. My mom liked it because it is super light weight and the perfect height for her morning coffee. But guess what, someone complained to the HOA that it looked trashy!
Thus my giant plan to paper mache this 2 and a half foot square box. I added some extra cardboard inside for structural support, but unfortunately only along the edges. Now I wish I’d folded a piece zig-zag and taped it into the middle so the middle wouldn’t sag. Oh well! The two saggy sides just shouldn’t be the ones facing up and there are other flatter bits to be the surface of the table. To add a little extra smoothness I am going to experiment with a thin layer of drywall stuff (left over by our contractors). Then, sand it lightly by hand, then seal it with some spar varnish (against mice and damp), then spray paint, then probably I’ll do another layer of spar varnish.
If all goes well, it will look classy as fuck but we will know that inside, it’s still the same damn box!!
Meanwhile on the collage and decoupage front! I used to make collages for zines and flyers and have an old clippings file somewhere in the basement, but I thought I’d make a new one file and run a drop-in workshop at the SF Disability Cultural Center in a couple of weeks. I have a call out on the neighborhood free exchange group for magazines but in the meantime I cut up an old New Yorker that someone put into my little free library. and then figured I would write a little how-to for decoupaging. It may not be the 100% best way, but here is what I do!
The basic idea is you are going to make a collage, but are going to utterly saturate and cover it with tough clear glue, to form a durable coat on top.
Supplies to gather
* scissors
* glue – school or wood glue is ok but Mod Podge is great!
* paper (see below for tips on gathering paper)
* scrap newspaper or sheets of scrap paper (to protect your table)
Optional supplies that will make your life easier
* a glue stick
* a repositionable glue stick! (special !)
* an exacto knife
* Bandaids (hahahah oops)
* wax paper (very useful for putting under your object while gluing)
* a brush, small bits of sponge, a rag, a wet rag
1. Get some colorful or interesting bits of paper
This can be magazines, colored tissue paper, origami paper, wrapping paper, newsprint, napkins, concert programs, flyers, ticket stubs, or other ephemera. Anything is good. Thick glossy cardstock can even work. You can print things from the internet, or draw something yourself.
2. Get a file folder or envelope or two to hold your clippings.
This doesn’t have to be anything special. I like big flat mailer envelopes, which I save sometimes from mail I get, but you can also just grab one free at the post office. A manila folder or two will fit inside it! Or you can use smaller mailing envelopes or just a piece of paper folded in half to hold your clippings inside the big envelope.
3. Cut up your magazine(s)
Cut out anything colorful. A big advertisement may have areas of interesting color. I generally cut around the bits that have people and words, and snip out the scraps of plain colors or patterns. Words can be fun too but you really want to build up a variety of colors and shapes! Put it all in your clippings folder and envelope!
It took me maybe 10-15 minutes to cut everything nifty out of this New Yorker — and here it is:
4. Start your layout
You might have a look at your clippings and the thing you are going to decorate, and pick out a few colors, patterns, or decide on some kind of theme. Then start with large pieces first, and add smaller pieces afterwards. You can tack paper down with a little bit of glue stick to start with.
I used some scrap printer paper underneath my project to avoid getting glue all over the table but then switched to wax paper so that my table-protecting layer wouldn’t stick to the project. Wax paper works really well (or parchment paper).
5. Saturate and cover with ModPodge!
Once you get a bunch of it done or have covered one surface, slap on your Mod Podge or other clear glue. If your paper is lightly tacked down, or is thick, then re-glue its underside. If it is already nicely attached or it’s very thin paper like from a magazine, slather the glue on top and let it soak through.
I actually use my fingers for this because I don’t mind being grubby and I like the sense of fine control and being able to smooth it all down. (Do wash your hands or clean them off on a damp rag after the glueing!) But you can also use a small bit of kitchen sponge (tear or cut it up ) or a bit of rag, or an actual paintbrush to apply the glue.
5. Let it dry completely
Don’t touch it while it’s drying or the color might come off onto your fingers!
After it is dry, you could add another layer of Mod Podge or glue if you like, or coat it with some other clear stuff. If you want it to be super tough and weatherproof, look into different kinds of top coats!
Or, you might need to flip it over (onto wax paper!) and decoupage or decorate the other side.
The actual decoupaging step for one side of this envelope was about 10 minutes. I decided to stick to a few colors and big pieces for the background and then slap a little crossword puzzle solution on top. (An unsolved puzzle design will go on the back of the envelope later!) I opened the flap of the envelope to cover it too, which meant putting wax paper inside the envelope was crucial so the flap wouldn’t stick to things it shouldn’t.
I like how it came out!
I may add a fastener to the flap, or leave it open and use it as a sticker pouch in my wheelchair side pocket.
Small envelopes like this are also great if you decorate the “open” side and then glue the “front” side (undecorated) into the back cover of a journal or blank notebook for a nice little pocket.
State Sen. Mike Gianaris presented Queens Public Library (QPL) with a $100,000 in state funding last week to help support programming and resources at four branches across the borough.
Gianaris made the presentation at QPL’s annual back-to-school event at its Elmhurst branch on Tuesday, Aug. 26.
Photo courtesy of State Sen. Mike Gianaris.
The funding will go toward community programming and other services at QPL’s Elmhurst, Woodside, Ridgewood and Maspeth branches, with previous funding initiatives going toward improving the library’s collections, music and dance performances, cultural events, health and wellness workshops and other programming.
Gianaris described QPL as the “backbone” of communities across Queens, particularly for immigrant communities who rely on access free programming and resources provided by their local libraries.
“It is a privilege to continue supporting the Queens Public Library and provide the support needed to ensure our libraries offer exceptional services,” Gianaris said in a statement.
QPL President and CEO Dennis Walcott said the funding will allow the four branches to enhance their programming and resources in “meaningful ways.”
“We are deeply grateful to him for this investment and for reaffirming his continued commitment to the Library and the communities who depend on us,” Walcott said in a statement.
Hundreds of local residents attended QPL’s back-to-school event outside its Elmhurst branch at 86-07 Broadway, which included free backpack and school supply giveaway in addition to magic shows, face painting and snacks for attendees.
I do these occasional posts about science papers. Some are just for fun. But sometimes — honest! — there’s an underlying connection to the greater Crooked Timber project.
This post is one of that sort, because it’s about the limits of understanding. Unsurprisingly, it involves biology.
So we all learned back in high school that our nerves are sheathed in a coating, like insulation on a copper wire. The coating is made of a special substance called myelin. If your tenth grade biology text mentioned myelin, it probably said something like “myelin allows impulses to flow along the nerves faster and more efficiently”. Which is true! It may also do some other things, but “myelin = faster and more efficient transmission” is what we all learned in sophomore biology back when, and it’s basically correct.
Occasionally something goes wrong, and either the myelin sheath doesn’t form right, or the body’s immune system gets confused and attacks it. This can lead to serious problems, conditions like multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. Also, newborn babies haven’t finished forming their myelin sheathing yet. That’s why newborns are so very weak and uncoordinated. That magic moment, around the three month mark, where the kid suddenly starts holding up their head, looking around, and intentionally reaching for stuff? That’s when “myelinization” is complete.
Myelin itself isn’t alive. It’s an “extracellular material” made of a complicated mixture of fats and proteins. But it’s not a passive, inert coating. It does stuff, and it’s manufactured and maintained by special cells that hang out around your nerves. You have hundreds of millions of these cells, and they spend a lot of time, effort and energy creating and maintaining your myelin. In fact, the whole system is metabolically quite expensive to build and then to maintain. So, your body conserves resources by putting more myelin on important nerves, and less or none on nerves that are peripheral or only used rarely. This includes some nerves for sensing pain.
You might think this is a bad idea: surely you want to respond to sudden pain quickly? Well, evolution has a hack for that: the “spinal reflex”. That’s where a subroutine hardwired into your spinal cord will yank your hand away from the hot stove before the pain has time to reach your brain. This is why, when you stub your toe, there’s the initial sensation of stubbing followed by the “AAHHH” wave of pain half a second later: that particular subsystem includes some unmyelinated nerves.
[first he bites, then he grinds]
Myelin plus its network of builder / maintainer cells together make up something like a third of the total mass of your nervous system. You’re probably carrying around a couple of kilos of the stuff, several pounds, and it’s burning a non-trivial proportion of your body’s energy budget. But if some Department of Metabolic Efficiency were to magically make your myelin disappear, well… it wouldn’t be great. You’d probably drop dead on the spot. Maybe you could survive on a ventilator, but you’d have severe muscular dystrophy forever. All that metabolic energy is being spent for a reason.
Okay so: For a long time after it was discovered, scientists used to think that myelin was unique to vertebrates.
Invertebrates have nerves, obviously. But most invertebrates are small. A housefly has much faster reflexes than you, but that’s not because its nerves are fast. They’re not fast. Insects don’t have myelin, so the fly’s nervous impulses travel actually travel more slowly than yours do. Quite a bit more slowly. But the fly’s entire body is just a centimeter long, so those impulses don’t have to travel very far. So the fly’s reflexes are a lot faster than yours. The fly may have a slow nervous system, but it can still avoid your slap.
And the fly doesn’t have to spend scarce metabolic resources on building and maintaining expensive myelin.
There’s some evolutionary history here. “Primitive” vertebrates like hagfish don’t have myelin. And here’s a thing: hagfish are scavengers, rather sluggish, and they don’t grow very big. So a slow nervous system isn’t a huge handicap for them.
There’s some evidence that early vertebrate fish may have evolved myelin back in the middle Paleozoic, allowing some fishes to suddenly get much bigger, much faster, or both. You know how there was a page in your childhood paleontology book that was just trilobites and whatnot, with a few small, simple jawless fish derping along in the background?
[copyright G. Paselik, Humboldt Museum]
and then you turned the page and, wham, there were big damn predatory fish with terrifying bear-trap jaws?
Current thinking is that’s the moment when early vertebrates developed myelin. Because without myelin, it’s really hard for a vertebrate to grow big. Your nervous impulses move too slowly for your large body to react to threats or prey. With myelin, though — well, it’s expensive stuff, but it lets vertebrates grow large (dogs, horses, humans) and sometimes ridiculously huge (elephants, dinosaurs, whales). And it also lets large animals coordinate large bodies and move quickly.
Okay, so vertebrates got myelin so they could grow big. And for decades this was the paradigm: vertebrates are large, so they have myelin. Invertebrates are small, so they don’t.
But then, problems arose.
1) There are large invertebrates. What about octopuses and lobsters? Heck, what about the giant squid? 2) There are small vertebrates. Shrews, newts, guppies… lots of little vertebrates are no larger than large insects. 3) And… it turns out a bunch of invertebrates /do/ have myelin. And the ones that do, aren’t necessarily large.
In short, it’s a hell of a mess. Let’s just tick a few points.
Octopi and squids
This one is relatively easy. If you want to make nerve impulses travel faster, but you don’t have myelin, there is an alternative: you can make the nerve axons longer, and you can make the nerves themselves thicker. You might remember that electrical resistance in a wire decreases as the cross-section of the wire gets bigger? It works that way with neurons too. And this is the option that octopi and squids have chosen. These large cephalopods have some extremely long axons — like, inches to feet long — and also some extremely thick nerves that are very large in cross-section.
Furthermore: large cephalopods seem to have relatively decentralized nervous systems. You and I have spinal reflexes. Well, an octopus takes that to the next level. Each individual arm has complex nerve ganglia that let it do all kinds of actions and reactions on its own, without the central nervous system getting involved. Presumably the brain can override when needed. But much of the time, the octopuses’ arms are autonomous systems. This dramatically cuts down on the need for long-distance nervous communication, and thus on the need for myelin.
Giant axons pop up in some other invertebrates too, most notably in crayfish — relatively large, fast-moving invertebrates that rely on quick reflexes both for predation and escape.
Okay, so that’s sorted. But now we jump right off the tracks.
Small vertebrates
We have no goddamn idea.
Seriously. A small guppy is the same size as a large spider or beetle. The guppy invests in myelin while the spider and beetle don’t. Why? The guppy is only a few centimeters long. The boost to its reaction time is going to be very modest, and it’s paying a metabolic price for this. It’s not giving the guppy an obvious advantage. At this scale, guppies and other small fish are regularly captured and eaten by water spiders, diving beetles, dragonfly larvae, and other predatory invertebrates. So why does the guppy bother making myelin?
We don’t know.
But then it gets worse.
Some invertebrates have myelin
This post is already running long, so I’ll keep this short: myelinization has evolved independently at least four times outside of the vertebrates. But it has evolved in invertebrates that aren’t very large and that don’t seem to have a compelling need for fast reflexes. The myelinized groups include several species of marine invertebrates, including copepods and tiger shrimp, and also a number of worms and wormlike creatures, including earthworms.
First off, here is the occasional paper. It dates from 2007, but the field hasn’t really advanced much since then. If you want a TLDR short version, this page is pretty good.
*Now when I first went down this particular rabbit hole, I hit a point where I stopped for a reality check. Was this stuff as bizarre as it appeared? Or was I just missing something obvious? Eventually this led to an e-mail correspondence with a very pleasant emeritus professor of invertebrate physiology. This distinguished senior academic took the time to politely explain to me that, yes, this whole thing was every bit as weird and mysterious as it seemed. It wasn’t an artifact of my poor research skills or limited understanding. The evolution of myelin is — they cheerfully reassured me — some authentic Deep Science WTF.)
Right, so. Some invertebrates have myelin, like tiger shrimp. You know tiger shrimp? Sure you do. Remember the last time you had dinner at an Asian fusion place?
Tiger shrimp are large-ish crustaceans that, by pure evolutionary accident, are delicious with soy sauce. Morphologically they’re pretty similar to crayfish. They’re both about the same size, and they’re both predatory clawed aquatic crustaceans.
But they’ve independently evolved completely different ways to speed their nerve impulses along. The crayfish uses giant axons, while the tiger shrimp uses myelin. Oh, and the tiger shrimp appears to hold the record for fastest nerve impulses in the animal kingdom. It runs at about 200 meters / second, which is over 400 mph or 600 kph. That’s several times faster than human nerve impulses. Since the shrimp is only about 15 cm long, this means a nerve impulse can go from its brain to its tail in a fraction of a millisecond. Why does the shrimp need literally lightning reflexes? We don’t know.
Keep in mind here that most crustaceans have neither large axons /nor/ myelin. Crabs don’t. Most shrimp don’t. Lobsters are predatory clawed aquatic crustaceans just like crayfish and tiger shrimp. But they’re much larger. A big Maine lobster can get up to almost a meter long and weigh over 8 kilos or 18 lbs. That’s the size of a large house cat. You might think an animal that size would invest in speeding up its nervous impulses. Nope. Lobsters don’t bother with either big axons nor with myelin either, and they seem to do just fine.
And then there are copepods. Copepods have separately evolved myelin. But copepods aren’t large! They’re tiny.
They’re nicknamed water fleas. They range in size from “smallish insect” to “barely visible speck”. They’re basically plankton.
Copepods might need good reflexes to avoid predators, but at that size scale, having myelin is going to make almost zero difference. So why are they investing in coating their teeny tiny little nerves with expensive myelin? There are thousands of species of invertebrate plankton animals that don’t bother with myelin. Why did copepods go to the trouble of evolving myelin, and why are they keeping it?
And then there are earthworms. Which… what the hell? What in god’s name does a blind, nearly brainless worm need with myelin? Earthworms aren’t large, they aren’t predatory, they don’t have very complex nervous systems. Yes, earthworms need to avoid predators —
[copyright 2025 False Knees — go check out False Knees, it’s great]
— earthworms need to avoid predators, but so do caterpillars and beetles and spiders and a million other kinds of small invertebrate, and they do it without myelin. Why are earthworms spending precious resources on an expensive tissue that they don’t seem to have any use for?
We don’t know.
So here’s the mystery: myelin has evolved a bunch of different times, in widely separate lineages all across the animal kingdom. But since it’s expensive to create and maintain, it must be serving some function. In the case of large vertebrates, that function is obvious: it lets us be large. And in the case of a few not-large invertebrates, you can maybe squint and say well… I guess that guy needs especially fast reflexes, because reasons? But that still leaves a bunch of creatures, several different sorts of invertebrates and small vertebrates, that are investing in myelin and we just don’t know why. Remember, most of these guys have close relatives or niche colleagues that don’t bother with myelin, nor large axons either.
Maybe myelin is doing something else, in addition to insulating your nerves? Biology loves to do that sort of thing. But what possible Something Else would unite earthworms, tiger shrimp, geckoes, copepods and guppies?
It’s a mystery. And since this is an area of study that sits awkwardly at the intersection of some unrelated sciences — neuroscience, cladistics, evolutionary biology, invertebrate physiology — it’s not attracting large amounts of research money at the moment. So it’ll probably remain a mystery for some time to come.
In October 2023, Mayor Eric Adams showed up for the opening of a new office of a big personal injury law firm, Morgan & Morgan, smiling and posing for selfies in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport. The firm made sure to post photos of the mayor’s seemingly random visit on social media.
The visit, however, was anything but random.
A few months earlier, Adams himself had recruited one of the firm’s lawyers to raise campaign donations for his re-election bid and had granted the lawyer an exclusive in-person sit-down arranged by his chief fundraiser. The lawyer then bundled $21,000 worth of contributions for the mayor.
None of this was in the public eye.
The law firm Morgan & Morgan touted in a social media post about Mayor Eric Adams dropping by the opening of their new South Street Seaport office. Credit: Via LinkedIn
That’s because of a loophole in the law that says campaigns do not have to disclose bundlers as intermediaries — money-raisers who choreograph multiple donations to campaigns — if they’re doing this fundraising in connection to an event paid for, in part or whole, by the campaign. In this case, it was a performance of the musical “New York, New York” the Adams campaign had arranged at the St. James Theater off Broadway, forking over some $75,000 for seats.
The personal injury lawyer was hardly alone. An investigation by THE CITY has found that Adams did not disclose an army of these secret bundlers to the city’s Campaign Finance Board — a lapse that is legal, but ethically dubious, campaign finance experts say.
Hundreds of pages of texts with Adams’ chief fundraiser Brianna Suggs covering both the 2021 and 2025 campaigns that were released recently reveal the identities of these apparent bundlers as they exchanged detailed lists of potential donors they had identified for her and, in some cases, promised to raise six-figures worth of donations.
They include John Sampson, the once top leader in the state Senate who was sentenced to five years prison time after his conviction on obstruction of justice charges; Scott Sartiano, the founder of Zero Bond (the mayor’s favorite NYC hotspot), the lobbyist George Fontas and Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar (D-Queens), a supporter who for a time made frequent appearances at the mayor’s press conferences.
Mayor Eric Adams leads a Bronx press conference about the city and state’s efforts to seize illegal cannabis products, July 31, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The court filings also reveal a more prominent fundraising role than previously known for Winnie Greco, the longtime Adams volunteer aide and fundraiser, who served as his Asian affairs director at City Hall from January 2022 through October 2024 — and who recently attempted to hand a CITY reporter $300 in cash stuffed in a bag of potato chips.
In each case, the texts document these avid Adams supporters gathering multiple checks, often for the maximum allowed ($2,100), to shower the campaign with tens of thousands of dollars — much of which Adams then used to claim matching public dollars. None were disclosed because their money-raising was connected to a campaign-sponsored event — a workaround election experts say happens on occasion, but not to the degree the Adams’ campaign employed.
“These people are clearly bundlers,” Susan Lerner of the non-partisan watchdog group Common Cause said after reviewing hundreds of pages of Suggs’ texts. “If there is some discrepancy in the definition of bundlers that doesn’t allow for them to be disclosed because it’s a campaign-sponsored event, that needs to be closed. They’re bundlers. Period. And bundlers need to be disclosed.”
Under city law, campaigns are required to disclose the identities of intermediaries who raise cash at non-campaign-sponsored events. Disclosing the identities of bundlers lets voters actually see who is trying to gain extra influence with candidates by pulling together multiple donations well above the maximum amount individuals are allowed to give.
One Hour With the Mayor
In the case of the personal injury lawyer, the arrangement started with the mayor.
It began in the heady days of late spring 2023, before Suggs’ home was raided by the FBI, before the mayor’s phones were seized, before he was indicted by federal prosecutors, before the taint of corruption triggered by sweeping investigations and indictments that would force the resignations of much of the top tier of his administration. At the time, he was viewed as cruising to a second term and was on the prowl for campaign dollars.
That May, Suggs texted Reuven Moskowitz, at the time a lawyer at Morgan & Morgan, informing him that the mayor had sent her his contact information “in regards to the fundraiser he [Adams] is hosting on June 16th.” How the mayor obtained this information is not clear. Neither Moskowitz nor Todd Shapiro, the mayor’s campaign spokesperson, responded to THE CITY’s questions about the genesis of their relationship.
While Suggs and Moskowitz were discussing fundraising for the Mayor, she set up a meeting between him and Adams at one of the mayor’s favored restaurants, Osteria La Baia in Midtown Manhattan. In this text exchange, Moskowitz asked Suggs, “How long do I get to sit with the mayor?” She responded, “one hour.”
After the meeting, Moskowitz texted Suggs, thanking her and stating he was “still on such a high from the evening with you and the Mayor.” Then, in the same text, he asked for information about “helping” with the June 16 fundraiser.
Brianna Suggs attends a Mayor Eric Adams reelection rally at City Hall, June 26, 2025. Credit: Katie Honan/THE CITY
Subsequent texts with Suggs show the two discussing his efforts to scare up contributions. At one point, she sent him a list of his donors that had “come in from your names so far who’d given.” He immediately responded, “I am going to check in on the others.”
Campaign finance records show 10 donations of $2,100 each from Suggs’ list who gave to Adams, all on June 7. They include Moskowitz and six other lawyers at Morgan & Morgan.
“It sounds like they could be bundling,” said Sarah Steiner, a lawyer who vetted contributions for Kathryn Garcia’s 2021 mayoral bid. In that campaign, Garcia disclosed more than 40 intermediaries, while Adams claimed only four. In the 2025 campaign, he’s claiming 12, but Moskowitz isn’t on that list because of the campaign-sponsored event loophole. (Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani has 15, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo has 76, and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa has zero).
“To the best of my knowledge that was not done in the 2021 campaign where I represented Kathryn,” Steiner said. “Kathryn ran a very careful, dotting-your-Is, crossing-your-Ts campaign. That’s not something that was done. The scale that you’re describing is also more than I am used to seeing, even if you scale it down for smaller campaigns.”
She said the discussion about Moskowitz getting one-on-one time with the mayor while also discussing fundraising raises other ethical questions about potential pay-to-play.
“It’s a really fine line because we don’t know what was discussed at the meeting in the restaurant,” Steiner said. “There’s no quid pro quo in the segue from, ‘Gee we had a great meal’ to ‘What do you want me to do next?’ But it would be fair to assume that there is a connection between the meeting and the fundraising.”
Regarding Adams’ appearance at the Morgan & Morgan office opening, Steiner noted, “I think it’s untoward to do a law office opening as the mayor of New York. It’s not illegal. It’s just kind of de classe’.”
Adams’ campaign spokesperson did not respond to THE CITY’s questions about Moskowitz, his meeting with the mayor or the mayor’s appearance at the Morgan & Morgan office opening. Instead, he issued a brief statement noting that Moskowitz and several other would-be bundlers referenced in Suggs’ texts “did not have to be disclosed because the event was a campaign-sponsored event.”
‘Will Raise 100k’
Newly released court filings reviewed by THE CITY also reveal a fundraising role for former state Senator John Sampson, an ally of Adams since they both served in Albany together starting in 2006.
In one July 20, 2021 text to Suggs, he wrote, “Need dates after Labor Day to host a fundraiser with my boss Julio [Medina] and hotel owner. Will raise 100K.”
The text was written within months of Sampson’s release from federal prison and shortly after he was hired by Julio Medina, CEO of Exodus Transitional Community, to serve as the nonprofit’s site coordinator.
Exodus at the time operated a social services program for formerly incarcerated individuals at a Queens hotel owned by the developer Weihong Hu, where Sampson was helping to organize the fundraiser for Adams.
On Sept. 24, 2021, as THE CITY previously reported, Sampson, Medina and Hu joined Adams and eight others at a private VIP dining table in Hu’s hotel in Fresh Meadows for lobster and purple potatoes, while a larger group of donors mingled in a room nearby.
Former State Senator John Sampson walks near his Midtown office, April 26, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
After his initial text to Suggs, Sampson lowered the fundraising goal for the event to “50-100k.” But he also tried to get two additional fundraisers on the books, which he said could bring in up to an additional $50,000. In one text from July 2021, Sampson wrote “my goal is to raise mini 250 before Nov.”
As he helped organize the fundraisers, Sampson asked Suggs to schedule a zoom call between Medina and Adams to discuss an initiative he referred to as the “Rikers Cultural Community.” The texts don’t show whether that meeting occurred.
Sampson went on to work for Hu as president of a company that managed some of her hotels starting around January 2023. As THE CITY previously reported, his work included committing to helping Hu land a migrant shelter contract, according to a former city government official. One of Hu’s Long Island City hotels scored a $7.5 million migrant contract in 2023 with the city’s Department of Homeless Services.
In May 2023 Sampson once again pitched in to help raise funds for the campaign, texting Suggs on the 31st to “Send me a link to the event ASAP.”
She sent him an invite to the St. James performance, and Sampson texted back, “Who to make the check out to?”
On June 8, he sent Suggs a list of seven $1,000 donors and wrote, “will have more to send once I confirm.”
In an interview with THE CITY, Sampson said his campaign assistance involved linking people who came to him wanting to hold fundraisers or make donations with Suggs.
“They reached out to me because they know that I know him,” Sampson said when reached by phone Friday. “I pass the information along to the campaign people and make sure everything is above board.”
‘Money Talks’
Winnie Greco, who was recently suspended from the Adams campaign after handing a CITY reporter cash in a potato chip bag, also played a larger than previously known role in the campaign’s fundraising efforts. Text messages Greco exchanged with Suggs show that Greco was behind a June 9, 2023 fundraising event hosted by Hu, the hotel developer, which was detailed in a prior investigative report by THE CITY.
A day earlier, Greco had organized a fundraiser at Chinatown restaurant Hakka Cuisine that was attended by numerous donors affiliated with a group vying to take over a city lease for the financially struggling East Broadway Mall, an event that was first reported by Documented.
The main bidder was an entity known as Broadway East Group (BEG) LLC, and it was supported by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New York, whose head, Wade Li, owns Hakka Cuisine.
The court filings reveal that Greco helped directly secure donations to Adams’ campaign from individuals connected to the BEG group, even as she was meeting at the time with bidders on the East Broadway Mall lease as part of her government job. Greco sent screenshots to Suggs of eight donations made the night of the Hakka Cuisine fundraiser on June 8, five of which were from contributors connected to BEG members.
Winnie Greco, left, stands near then-mayoral candidate Eric Adams during a Long Island fundraiser in 2021. Credit: Screengrab via YouTube/Jerry Wang
Terry Chan, whose family built and operated the mall since construction was completed in 1988, said he met with Greco and the head of real estate for the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Jesse Hamilton, a number of weeks ahead of the June fundraiser.
DCAS is the city agency that oversees the East Broadway Mall lease, which Chan’s family was trying to renew under more favorable terms after filing for bankruptcy.
Chan told THE CITY that at his meeting with Greco and Hamilton, which also occurred at Hakka Cuisine, Greco effectively told him that “money talks” when it comes to winning the bid.
“Winnie basically says you have to come up with more money,” said Chan.
He said at the end of the meeting Greco stayed behind at Hakka Cuisine to meet with another bidder. Greco didn’t immediately respond to a detailed text message seeking comment.
The city announced a tentative deal with the BEG group for the East Broadway Mall lease in August of 2023. But that deal began to fall apart in early 2024 following FBI raids of Greco’s two homes in The Bronx.
A June 2024 article in the New York Daily News reported some jittery investors had jumped ship from BEG, while a letter filed in a bankruptcy proceeding by the Chan family alleged that one of the group’s investors was a former gangster.
But last month, the deal still went to BEG group, which DCAS officials say now consists of just two members.
‘Trip Wire’
In a past statement to THE CITY, Adams campaign lawyer, Vito Pitta, has contended, “It is not always immediately apparent when individuals are acting as intermediaries because campaigns largely rely on contributors to identify themselves as intermediaries after informing them of the rules.”
In the case of Scott Sartiano, co-founder of Zero Bond, the Noho private club the mayor frequents, it would be impossible for the campaign not to know.
Adams put him on his transition team after winning the election in 2021, then gave him a coveted appointment to the board of the Metropolitan Museum the next year. Plus Adams’ frequent late night appearances at his exclusive venue helped pump up the celebrity vibe of the place.
So it would appear Sartiano repaid the favor in the weeks leading up to the June 16, 2023 event at the St. James Theater. Suggs’ texts show Satriano sent her a list of 46 potential donors. Three days before the event, he texted her, “Can you send me updates of donors so I know who to call and remind etc.”
Two days later Sartiano texted Suggs that he was still chasing more money from the list of donors he’d sent her “who either said they would donate or didn’t donate. Please let me know who gave (and who didn’t) so I can reach out to them today.” Sartiano did not return THE CITY’s calls seeking comment.
Campaign finance records show Sartiano was able to raise at least $37,000 from the list of potential donors he sent to Suggs, a collection of donors he referred to as “my list”.
The campaign also paid Zero Bond more than $7,000 to hold events there, including a reception preceding the St. James Theater event.
Art Chang, a former member of the Campaign Finance Board, said Adams’ reliance on hidden bundlers goes to the broader issue of what he sees as the campaign’s flaunting of CFB rules to prevent voters from seeing individuals seeking undue influence with City Hall by raising big bucks for the mayor.
“The record keeping is so sloppy that it verges on impropriety,” Chang said, “but the idea that somebody who may have interests in front of some aspect of city government would be negotiating what kind of time, what kind of implicit arrangement the mayor might have with some donor – that is exactly the reason why the campaign finance board has these rules about the disclosure of intermediaries. It’s just plain wrong.”
Adams has sued the CFB over its continued refusal to award him matching funds. The board has moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that it is justified in denying him the funds because he appears to have already violated CFB laws and he has failed to adequately respond to the board’s requests for documentation about suspected intermediaries and possible straw donations.
John Kaehny, director of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany, noted that illegal straw donations — contributions that mask the true identity of the donor — are usually gathered by intermediaries, disclosed or not.
“Almost all straw donor scams are done by bundlers,” he said. “Bundler disclosure is like a trip wire for straw donors. If the bundler is disclosed, it’s easy to review who they raised contributions from. If the bundler is not reported, but campaign officials detect a cluster of straw donors, it gives campaign finance officials probable cause to issue subpoenas to find out what’s going on and a specific legal reason to deny a campaign public matching funds.”
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“On Wednesday night, a man held at Rikers Island died—the fifth death in city custody in the last two weeks, and the 12th this year alone. These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a system in collapse.”
A 2023 rally demanding the closure of Rikers. (John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)
On Wednesday night, a man held at Rikers Island died—the fifth death in city custody in the last two weeks, and the 12th this year alone.
These are not isolated incidents; they are symptoms of a system in collapse. For decades, New York City has been trapped in a cycle of failure at Rikers. The sprawling, decaying jail complex isn’t just a humanitarian disaster—it’s a direct threat to public safety.
A commission tasked with evaluating the closure of Rikers recently made clear what so many of us have long known: the current system is broken, dangerous, and unsustainable.
Rikers doesn’t rehabilitate. It destabilizes. According to the Blueprint to Close Rikers report released by the Independent Rikers Commission earlier this year, 84 percent of people in Rikers are held pre-trial, waiting for their court date, presumed innocent under the law. This number includes over 500 people who have been held in Rikers for over two years. And yet, whether detained pre-trial or serving a sentence, people leave Rikers worse off than when they entered. That alone makes our city less safe.
Rather than preparing people to return to their communities and live successful lives, Rikers breeds trauma, violence, and despair. It’s a place where brutality is routine, committed by and against staff and detainees alike. Court delays are rampant, and many are forced to languish behind bars for months or even years without a conviction.
Rikers has also become a de facto mental health facility—one that catastrophically fails at providing care. Nearly half of those incarcerated at Rikers live with mental illness, yet the facility only exacerbates these conditions. That’s not just inhumane. It’s counterproductive. Every day spent at Rikers can worsen serious mental illness, turning an already difficult situation into a crisis.
These missed opportunities for care represent missed chances to break the cycle of incarceration—and to connect people with support in their home communities.
And the cost? Staggering. As of 2021, it costs over $500,000 per year to jail one person at Rikers, many times more than it would cost to provide housing, health care, and treatment. We’re paying a premium to perpetuate harm.
Even corrections officers are suffering. They’re burned out, working excessive overtime in unsafe, chaotic conditions that lead to trauma and absenteeism. This system doesn’t work for anyone—not for the people jailed, not for the people working there, and not for the people of New York City.
Rikers’ remote location, an island in the East River, only deepens the dysfunction. It isolates those inside from the communities to which they will return. It limits access to attorneys, delays court appearances, and makes family visits difficult or impossible. That separation reinforces the worst tendencies of our justice system: neglect, abandonment, and indifference.
The answer isn’t to pour more money into a failed institution. It’s to build a system that actually works.
That’s why, in 2019, the City Council voted to close Rikers and replace it with four borough-based jails—smaller, safer, and more humane facilities in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan. These new jails will be located near courthouses to facilitate legal access, reduce delays, and make it easier for families to stay connected—critical for rehabilitation and due process.
These new facilities must not replicate the culture of Rikers. They must represent a reset. That means training staff to address mental health needs with care and professionalism. It means building a culture rooted in dignity, not punishment.
One looming challenge is capacity. The new borough-based jails are designed to hold significantly fewer people than Rikers does today. If the number of people in pre-trial detention exceeds that limit, the Department of Correction may be forced to send detainees to facilities even farther away—undermining the very goals that the borough-based model is meant to achieve.
This is a serious concern that must be addressed with honesty and urgency. One key strategy lies in addressing the large portion of the current Rikers population made up of individuals with serious mental illness—people who should be receiving care in clinical settings, not languishing in jail. Expanding access to mental health treatment must be a cornerstone of the new system. But keeping Rikers open to solve a capacity problem is not an option. It is the problem.
The 2027 deadline to close Rikers is rapidly approaching—and we’re behind schedule. Construction delays threaten to push completion into the next decade. But the Lippman Commission’s latest report shows it doesn’t have to be this way. With urgency and leadership, we can accelerate the timeline and save lives in the process.
Every year we delay is another year of unnecessary suffering. Another year of preventable death, untreated mental illness, and wasted taxpayer dollars. Another year of injustice.
We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to break this cycle, and we must seize it.
Let’s close Rikers. Let’s build a system rooted in dignity, rehabilitation, and justice. Not only because it’s the moral thing to do—but because our safety and our humanity depend on it.
Erik Bottcher is the City Council Member representing District 3, which includes the neighborhoods of West Village, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and Time Square.
I was going to title this post “Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together”,
but I expect most of my readers are too young to get the reference,
so I’ll just dive right in:
Glitch gave literally millions of people a chance to build something on the web
without having to wrestle with NPM or webpack
or set up a server
or deal with any of the other crap that Sumana Harihareswara has dubbed
inessential weirdness.
It was beautiful and useful,
but it wasn’t profitable enough for Fastly to keep it alive.
But the idea of a low-overhead in-the-browser way for the 99% to build things
didn’t start with Glitch
and hasn’t died with it either.
Projects like Webbly (source here)
are still trying to let people use the web to build the web.
However,
someone has to host these things somewhere:
who’s going to do that, and where?
More specifically,
can we construct a hosting solution that isn’t tied to a particular company
and therefore doesn’t have a singular point of failure?
Well,
what about Mastodon?
Its authors and users are deeply committed to decentralization and federation,
and more people are running servers for particular communities every day.
What if (wait, hear me out)
what if Webbly was bundled with Mastodon
so that Mastodon site admins could provide an in-the-browser page-building experience to their users
simply by saying “yes” to one configuration option?
Why would they do that?
My answer is,
“Take a look at Mastodon’s default browser interface.”
It lets you add a couple of pictures and a few links to your profile,
but that’s less than MySpace offered twenty years ago.
I am 100% certain that if Mastodon came with an easy in-browser page builder,
people would use it to create all sorts of wonderful things.
(Awful ones too, of course, but Mastodon site admins already have to grapple with content admin.)
Greenspun’s Tenth Rule is that every sufficiently complicated program
contains a mediocre implementation of Lisp.
Equally,
I think every useful web-based tool is trying to be
what Visual Basic was in the 1990s
and WordPress was to the early web:
useful, right there, and a gradual ramp for new users rather than a cliff to climb.
I think the sort of people who built useful little things with Glitch
would do amazing things with Webbly
if it was married to their social media.
I also think that allowing people to create custom home pages
or tweak their feeds
would draw a lot of new users away from fragile, centralized systems like X and Bluesky.
I know that I’ve been wrong far more often than I’ve been right,
but this really does feel promising.
The Trump Administration reportedly had talks with Eric Adams about offering the sitting mayor a position at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in exchange for dropping out of the mayor’s race (Adams denied the story).
Mayor Adams at an event last week. (Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office)
It’s been a tough few weeks for Mayor Eric Adams. He’s trailing in every poll for the upcoming general election, a former aide was indicted on bribery charges, and another former aide handed a reporter a wad of cash in a bag of potato chips.
When Adams was facing his own indictment earlier this year, the Trump administration pushed the Department of Justice to drop the case, saying it needed the mayor’s cooperation on immigration enforcement. Now, it looks like the administration could fish Adams out of hot water again.
According to Politico, Adams was in talks with the Trump administration about securing a position with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in exchange for dropping out of the mayor’s race, clearing the lane for a head-to-head challenge between Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The New York Times first reported that the two parties were meeting about an administration position, adding that discussions also included finding a position for Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa to entice him out of the race as well. Then on Friday, the Times reported that the talks were focused on a possible ambassadorship for Adams in the Middle East.
The alleged conversations—and potential appointment to the federal agency overseeing housing—comes after Adams was indicted last year on charges that he interfered with real estate and construction deals, intervening to help the Turkish government obtain fire safety permits over the objection of the New York City Fire Department.
The news also follows recent allegations that his former top advisor Ingrid Lewis Martin took bribes to help developers jump up the city’s housing development pipeline, get permits, and secure lucrative shelter contracts. Both Adams and Lewis Martin pleaded not guilty.
Adams has maintained that he is staying in the race and denied the reports. “Although Mayor Adams has been the most pro-housing mayor in New York City’s history, at no time did he ask for—nor was he offered—a job at HUD,” said Adams campaign spokesperson Todd Shapiro in a statement.
Sliwa denied any contact with the White House and asserted his commitment to staying in the race in a statement.
Here’s what else happened in housing this week—
ICYMI, from City Limits:
The Adams administration is still fighting implementation of several City Council bills that would expand eligibility for the CityFHEPS housing voucher program.
Take a photo tour of the 54 blocks of Long Island City that officials want to rezone. The plan, if passed, would spur “the most amount of housing generated by a neighborhood specific rezoning in at least 25 years,” City Planning Director Daniel Garodnick said.
ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:
A city program launched more than two years ago to help landlords repair and re-rent vacant apartments has yet to get any takers, Gothamist reports.
The city’s Department of Environmental Protection made upgrades at NYCHA’s South Jamaica Houses to fortify the campus against heavy rain and floods, according to The City.
The City Council is asking the Board of Elections to block a series of ballot measures, proposed by Mayor Eric Adams’ most recent Charter Revision Commission, which would overhaul to city’s land use approval process to make it easier to build new housing—but would also reduce the Council’s role in development decisions, the New York Times reports.
After an appeals court ruled the mayor must implement a package of bills expanding eligibility for CityFHEPS housing vouchers, the Adams administration asked the court for permission to appeal the decision.
Housing advocates and City Council members at a 2024 rally calling for the Adams administration to implement the expansion. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit.)
Homeless New Yorkers who might be newly eligible for City Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) vouchers will have to wait a little longer to see if they’ll be able to secure a subsidy.
The bills expanding the program—which Mayor Adams vetoed in 2023, only to see his veto overridden by the City Council—would have made vouchers available to more people living outside of shelter and increased the income eligibility threshold for CityFHEPS, among other reforms.
A spokesperson for City Hall told City Limits the administration is awaiting the court’s decision on their appeal request before taking any action to implement laws.
The Legal Aid Society and the City Council, who sued to get Adams to implement the laws, condemned the move and filed in opposition to the administration’s motion.
“By requesting permission from the court to appeal this decision, Mayor Adams is once again prioritizing bureaucratic delay over the urgent needs of families facing eviction and homelessness,” said Robert Desir, staff attorney in the Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid Society, in a statement.
The Adams administration had previously argued that legislating voucher policy was not in the City Council’s purview, and were superseded by the state Department of Social Services’ authority. They also argued that expanding eligibility would further strain a CityFHEPS budget that grew five-fold between 2021 and 2025, and would increase competition for apartments among existing voucher holders.
While a lower court initially sided with Mayor Adams, the appeals court unanimously disagreed last month, writing that the earlier ruling “should be reversed…respondent is directed to implement the Local Laws.”
It’s another jab in an extended fight between the City Council and City Hall.
“The Appellate Division unanimously affirmed the Council’s local lawmaking authority and instructed Mayor Adams’ administration to implement these reforms,” said Deputy Council Speaker Diana Ayala in a statement.
“New Yorkers experiencing housing insecurity shouldn’t have to be displaced as a result of the mayor’s failure to act and continued obstruction of the law. Our city and its residents deserve better,” she added.
The CityFHEPS program, which allows qualifying low-income voucher New Yorkers to pay 30 percent of their income in rent, is serving more than 60,000 households. More than 15,000 households moved into housing with a voucher in fiscal year 2025, according to data previously provided by the city’s Department of Social Services.
There are currently 13,000 voucher holders looking for apartments with CityFHEPS, according to City Hall and DSS.
Mayor Adams (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Housing advocates and the City Council cheered the court’s ruling last month, and lamented the further delays.
“Mayor Adams is essentially trying to run out the clock on his administration and not comply with the requirements of the law that the City Council enacted,” said Edward Josephson, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society. “Every month that goes by, vulnerable tenants are being evicted from otherwise affordable apartments because they can’t get CityFHEPS.”
With its decision last month, the court directed the city to submit a plan to implement the laws with the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA).
Because the mayor appealed, the case will be stayed—or held up—until the appellate division rules on the appeal request. There is not a strict timeframe for reviewing appeals, lawyers familiar with the process said.
If the Appellate Division does not permit the appeal, the administration could try a similar motion with the Court of Appeals directly.
“After all the appeals are exhausted, and if the mayor loses, then they would then start from scratch to prepare a plan submitted to OTDA, which would take even more time,” said Josephson.
“People are getting hurt, and it’s not going to be a quick determination,” he added.
To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org
Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.
Northern Queens experienced significant declines in several major crimes year-over-year during the 28-day period from Aug. 4-31, while southern Queens had sharp declines in robberies and burglaries over the same period of time, according to the NYPD.
In northern Queens, rapes, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries and grand larcenies each fell. The only major crimes to go up were murder, which rose from no cases last year to one case this year, and vehicle thefts, which went up from 239 cases in 2024 to 254 in 2025.
Grand larcenies had the sharpest drop in cases across northern Queens during the 28-day period. Reported cases went down 13.8%, from 557 in August 2024 to 480 in August 2025. The 110th Precinct, which oversees Corona and Elmhurst, saw the biggest drop, with grand larcenies there having gone down from 103 last year to 69 this year.
Felony assaults had the second-largest decline in northern Queens, having shrunk 24.7%, from 255 cases in 2024 to 192 in 2025. The 115th Precinct, which covers Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and North Corona, experienced the most significant drop. Reported cases there went down from 59 last year to 37 this year.
Burglaries had the third-highest drop in cases across northern Queens. Cases there fell 18.5% year-over-year, from 178 in 2024 to 145 in 2025. Both the 110th Precinct and the 111th Precinct, which spans Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Auburndale, Hollis Hills and Fresh Meadows, had the biggest reduction in cases. Reported cases decreased from 18 last year to 5 this year in the 110th Precinct and from 38 last year to 25 this year within the confines of the 111th Precinct.
Robberies fell 11.5% in northern Queens over the same period of time, from 148 reported cases in 2024 to 131 in 2025. The deepest drop was seen within the confines of the 115th Precinct, where robberies went down from 36 last year to 28 this year.
While rapes had the smallest decline among major crimes in northern Queens, the percentage drop was the largest. Cases there had a 25% decrease, from 16 in 2024 to 12 in 2025. The 108th Precinct, which covers Long Island City, Sunnyside and Woodside, had the deepest decline in cases, from 5 last year to 1 this year.
In southern Queens, robberies and burglaries fell at similar rates. Additionally, there was a large percentage increase in murders.
Robberies in southern Queens fell 15.4% year-over-year, from 123 in 2024 to 104 in 2025. The 103rd Precinct, which oversees Hollis Park Gardens, Hollis, Lakewood and Jamaica, had the sharpest drop. Reported cases there went down from 43 last year to 37 this year.
Burglaries had an 18.9% decrease in cases over this same period of time, from 95 in 2024 to 77 in 2025. The 103rd Precinct led the way in this field as well, with reported cases having gone down from 33 last year to 12 this year.
While most major crimes were down in southern Queens, murders were one of the notable exceptions. There was a 300% increase in these cases, from 1 in 2024 to 4 in 2025. This includes two such cases this year within the confines of the 100th Precinct, which covers Arverne, Belle Harbor, Rockaway Beach and Rockaway Park, after there were no such cases last year.
Across the 28-day period, the total number of major crimes, which include murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny and grand larceny of vehicles, fell by a large amount in northern Queens, with southern Queens experiencing a more modest decline.
In northern Queens, major crimes decreased 12.78% year-over-year during the 28-day period, from 1,393 in 2024 to 1,215 in 2025.
Major crimes fell in southern Queens by 2.59%, from 927 in 2024 to 903 in 2025.
Logins in the Firefox Password Manager are now encrypted using a more modern encryption scheme, switching from 3DES-CBC to AES-256-CBC. This change only affects the local encryption of logins on the disk; logins synced through Firefox Sync are end-to-end encrypted independently and have already been using a strong encryption scheme (AES-256-GCM) previously.
Open Plans NYC organized the week-long special, which runs Sept. 5 through Sept. 12. The promotion includes discounts and exclusive deals for customers dining outdoors. The grassroots advocacy group prioritizes a people-first street culture through various campaigns throughout the city.
Curbside Dining Restaurant Week encourages businesses to continue utilizing curbside dining while the weather is still warm and throughout the beginning of the fall season, while the weather is still pleasant throughout the day, and guests can still enjoy outdoor dining before the colder winter months.
The Inaugural Curbside Dining event features participating restaurants throughout the five boroughs, including an array of cafes and restaurants that have become favorites throughout the Western Queens community, including Mercato LIC, Soleluna, Sean Og’s Tavern, DiWine Natural Wine Bar and Restaurant, The Queensboro and The Barn Coffee Shop.
The weeklong promotion allows local residents to indulge in exclusive deals from their favorite restaurants and cafes in the area and try a restaurant they’ve never been to before.
From prix fixe menus to discounts, here is a list of specials and promotions for Curbside Dining Restaurant Week:
The Barn Coffee Shop is offering 10% off on orders. Photo credit: The Barn Coffee Shop
The Barn Coffee Shop
26-08 Hoyt Ave S, Long Island City
10% off the entire bill
Mercato LIC is another participating restaurant in Curbside Dining Restaurant Week. Photo credit: Mercato LIC
Mercato LIC
47-46 Vernon Blvd, Long Island City
Complimentary focaccia bread
The Queensboro has a two-for-one beer and house cocktail special for the promotion. Photo credit: The Queensboro
The Queensboro
80-02 Northern Blvd, Jackson Heights
Two-for-one beers and house cocktails
DiWine Natural Wine Bar and Restaurant is offering 10% off all wine by the bottle. Photo credit: DiWine
DiWine Natural Wine Bar & Restaurant
41-15 31st Ave, Astoria
10% off all wine by the bottle
Sean Og’s Tavern has a special prix fixe menu for the weeklong event. Photo credit: Sean Og’s Tavern
Sean Og’s Tavern
60-06 Woodside Ave, Woodside
$35 prix fixe Curbside Dining Restaurant Week menu
Soleluna is offering a complimentary dessert for Curbside Dining Restaurant Week. Photo credit: Soleluna
Soleluna
4001 Queens Blvd, Sunnyside
Complimentary dessert
To learn more about Curbside Dining Restaurant Week, visit @openplansnyc.
A short Friday post on an idea which I thought was much more ubiquitous on this ‘stack than it actually is; it’s always there in the background but I’ve only actually written about it once, two years ago when I had a lot fewer readers.
It was on my mind because of Wednesday’s Brompton post, because the single idea that’s probably stuck most in my mind over the last decade was something in a throwaway remark Will Butler-Adams made, when he was describing the problem of the “chain pusher plate boss”, a little lump of metal on a bicycle frame that has to be absolutely precisely positioned or the gears will stick.
That phrase was “respect for the problem”.
I think it’s a really important attitude of mind for anyone interested in management or policy to have. If the problem deserves your attention, it deserves your respect. It might turn out that it is simple, or silly, or easy to clear up, but you have to begin from a position of taking it seriously, and believing that it has the potential to be very deep or tricky. As it turned out, the problems Brompton had with the chain pusher plate boss involved stacked tolerances across three separate machines, one of which was at an external supplier. And the only way to solve it was to make huge changes to the organisation of the manufacturing process, to introduce a big program of preventive maintenance of the jigs and moulds, which were getting very gradually bashed out of shape by the manufacturing itself.
Not all problems – not even all problems at Brompton – are this complicated. Some things really are as simple as they look, and even some complicated problems are amenable to Gordian solutions. But everything ought to be treated as if it had the potential to be a symptom of something more much deep-seated and structural, until analysis has shown otherwise. Be very suspicious of people who don’t appear to be respecting problems, something which is usually evidenced by jumping to solutions without having put in the work to establish that the problem is what they thought it was.
[Envoi: I was reminded of a household version of Chesterton’s Fence the other day, when I found myself saying “if you don’t know why the bunnies have been shut out of the kitchen, you definitely shouldn’t be letting the bunnies back in the kitchen!”]
Florida Decided There Were Too Many Children. “Florida is the first state to take the courageous step toward decluttering itself of excess children, but under the inexpert guidance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., other states may follow.”
The MTA recently eliminated a bus stop in front of the Bulova Corporate Center in Queens, a misguided move, according to Queens Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Grech. Photo via Blumenfeld Development Group
By Tom Grech
When the Bulova Corporate Center in East Elmhurst prepared for the arrival of the Q47 bus line in 2019, it wasn’t just about building a bus stop. It was about building opportunities. The property owners invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to reconfigure the parking lot and accommodate bus access, with the clear understanding that this was a commitment to supporting the businesses at Bulova and the employees who power them. A smoother connection between one of our borough’s major employment centers and the rest of New York City would mean more commuters using mass transit and fewer cars on the road – benefits that would be seen beyond the 17-acre office complex.
Fast forward to 2025, and that investment has been effectively erased. The recently unveiled redesign of the Queens bus network eliminates the Q47 stop at Bulova altogether. For a corporate center that hosts more than a thousand employees every day — including staff at the Department of Corrections, Skanska, numerous firms and the headquarters of the Queens Chamber of Commerce — this change is more than an inconvenience. It is a step backward for our borough’s economy and for the city’s stated goals of reducing congestion and supporting sustainable transit.
Robust public transit is not a luxury — it is the backbone of Queens’ economic vitality. Companies decide where to locate not only based on rents and square footage, but also on whether employees and customers can reach them with ease. For Bulova tenants, many of whom draw staff from across the borough and beyond, the loss of a direct bus stop undermines that equation.
Public transit provides workers without cars a reliable, affordable commute, enables businesses to access a deeper and more diverse talent pool, and drives the local economy by connecting customers, clients, and partners. When transit access is diminished, the ripple effects are immediate and real – productivity declines, hiring becomes harder, and economic growth slows. It also means more cars on the road, increasing traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.
The intent of the bus network redesign — to modernize and streamline routes — is commendable. However, eliminating the Bulova stop ignores the everyday experiences of the thousands of employees and visitors who depend on it. Asking workers to walk three or four blocks may sound minor, but in practice it discourages transit use, especially for older employees, people with mobility challenges, or anyone commuting in harsh weather. Instead of taking the bus, many will default back to driving. That means more cars, more traffic, and more pollution — exactly the outcomes the city was trying to avoid.
Worse, this change sends a troubling message to businesses – that even when they invest heavily in alignment with the city and state’s transportation priorities, those commitments may not be honored. That erodes trust, and it risks discouraging future private-sector support for public initiatives.
That’s why the MTA must reconsider this decision. Restoring a Q47 stop at Bulova would not only honor the commitments made in the last decade but also send a clear signal that Queens businesses — and the thousands of workers they employ — matter in the city’s transportation planning. And in reconsidering this decision, the MTA will signal its willingness to listen to the commuters that it is bound to serve.
The Bulova Corporate Center is more than just an office complex. It is a hub of commerce, public service, and opportunity. Its tenants are critical to the functioning and growth of Queens. Leaving it underserved by transit undermines not only the companies and agencies that are stationed there, but also the broader economic and environmental health of the borough.
Tom Grech is the president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce.
Management at a Bronx pharmaceutical plant on strike since Sept. 2 announced it is hiring replacement workers “on a permanent basis,” according to a written notice posted near striking employees on the picket line Thursday morning, THE CITY has learned.
More than 200 factory workers at Perrigo, a company that manufactures private-label, over-the-counter medication, walked off the job after the Labor Day holiday weekend. The action followed the company refusing to negotiate its plans to roll back overtime protections and stop making contributions to their retirement plan, employees and their union said. The workers are represented by Teamsters Local 210.
Workers and Teamsters officials on Thursday said they were blindsided by Perrigo’s notice that the company intends to permanently replace striking workers. The two sides had their most recent bargaining session on Wednesday, and are scheduled to meet again on Sept. 10, union officials said. On Thursday evening, several red and yellow “now hiring” banners appeared at the facility’s entrance on Bathgate Avenue near East 173rd Street.
In a printed notice to their “unionized employees,” signed by Perrigo New York Management, the company wrote that it hired several replacement workers for first shift positions “on a permanent basis and will continue to do so,” with those words bolded and underlined.
“As such, the ability of a striking first shift employee to return to their position at the conclusion of the strike may depend on whether they have been permanently replaced,” the notice continued.
Union officials said the action could run afoul of federal labor standards and said they intended to file formal charges against the employer to the federal National Labor Relations Board.
“These are intimidation tactics. You’re trying to scare the people,” said Lydia Torres, vice president of Local 210. “It’s not like we’re not at the table, it’s not like we’re not talking, so what is the intent behind this?”
Brad Joseph, a spokesperson for the company, confirmed the company is hiring permanent replacement workers.
“To continue providing consumers with our important self-care products, we are taking the necessary steps to ensure product availability, including replacing workers on a permanent basis,” Joseph said in a statement.
Workers at Perrigo have been striking since Sept. 2. Alex Krales/THE CITY Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Ricky Guzman, a union shop steward who has worked at the Bronx facility for about 20 years, said the company’s actions were “totally unfair and not OK” and accused management of attempting to “humiliate” and “scare” workers.
“You want us to go back in? We’re willing to go back in, but we have to reach a reasonable agreement,” said Guzman. “But then again, you humiliate us while we’re out here on the street, and start putting up these signs to start scaring people.”
“They’re not really being as professional as they say they are,” added Guzman.
At the center of the bargaining dispute is a proposal by management to expand operations at the facility to seven days a week. Workers are currently scheduled for four 10-hour shifts per week, with the option of earning overtime on Saturdays and Sundays. But management wants to increase shifts to 12 hours with Saturdays and Sundays to the regular schedule, which the union claims essentially eliminates the workers’ existing ability to earn overtime pay.
Perrigo counteroffered to pay some existing workers an additional $2 per hour on Saturdays and Sundays instead of the existing overtime rate of time-and-a-half, according to Torres. The union refused that deal, in part, because they claim it creates a “two-tiered” system.
“I told them I’m not against the 12 hours,” she said. “What I’m against is paying them straight time,” instead of the existing overtime.
The Teamsters represent compounders, inventory clerks, mechanic line operators and technicians at the Bathgate Avenue facility, which produces arthritis topical gel, hemorrhoid suppositories, and other over-the-counter medications sold at Target, CVS, Amazon, Costco and other major retailers nationwide
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