Christopher Alvarez
The mayor is backing a bill that would replace ‘Brooklyn-Queens Day’ with Diwali on the school calendar.
The mayor has vowed many times to Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain families that kids would get a day off from school to observe. So far, they’ve seen no light.
Hugs and hopes for a tourism boom greet the arrival of the first flights following the reopening of U.S. airports to visitors from 33 countries, from China to Brazil to the U.K.
Mayor-elect Eric Adams has vowed to give a public school day off for the festival of lights, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney is proposing a national holiday. But this year, Diwali falls on a parents-teacher conference day for hundreds of thousands of students.
Queens BP Donovan Richards pleads with de Blasio to “step up” as swamped homeowners deal with slow and small aid. He’s pushing for a version of the Sandy-inspired program to repair — and possibly elevate — flooded homes.
New York City’s party bus owners are looking to get on their “discotheques on wheels” rolling again after a prolonged pandemic pit stop. But a comeback is far from assured.
Police booted passengers 21 times for refusing to mask up, the lowest level in nearly a year. Meanwhile, the number of riders who complied with warnings jumped — even amid complaints that some cops are going maskless.
“Ramps are failproof,” declared Quemuel Arroyo, the MTA’s chief accessibility officer. But installing the slopes isn’t as easy as it might look, and in some cases elevators better fit the bill, some advocates say.
A national alliance of Temporary Protected Status holders sees New York and its politicians as a pressure-point in the fight for citizenship for immigrants temporarily allowed to live and work here due to turmoil in their home countries.
Work has dragged on for nearly a decade in a Brooklyn neighborhood still recovering from Superstorm Sandy. The city Parks Department recently shuttered a local track, basketball courts, soccer fields and more for 18 months.
The mayor vowed to overhaul nearly 90 shuttered play spaces at public housing developments after THE CITY revealed dire conditions. But the $7 million he’s earmarked won’t come close to covering the major job ahead.
“We need these playgrounds fixed,” he said after THE CITY reported more than one in 10 NYCHA playgrounds are shuttered because of unsafe conditions. Mayoral candidate Eric Adams called for swift repairs. But residents remained skeptical.
More than one of 10 NYCHA playgrounds is closed, while others are in dire need of fixes. One national expert shown pictures of some battered structures by THE CITY said the equipment should be buried at sea.
Colombians and other South Americans with ties to New York and the ability to scrape up enough money to travel are coming here amid vaccine shortages in their home countries. One man even got to finally meet his father.