As predicted in yesterday's headlines, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams's "Go Back to Iowa!" rant on Martin Luther King Jr. Day provided everyone with a second day of racially supercharged, the "Rich Kill'd New York" excitement.
Most of the action was on Twitter, where Jeremiah Moss, of Vanishing New York fame, defended the Beep, prompting reminders of how narrow-minded he was from genuine New Yorker and Wall Street Journal reporter Katie Honan and the genuine New Yorkers at Streetsblog.
Bay Ridge-based reporter Ross Barkan also weighed in with an epic Twitter takedown of Adams, who never backed off (and, in fact, doubled-down as our own Dave Colon pointed out).
Also caught in the backdraft of his own racial arson was Rep. Adriano Espaillat, whose comments at the same MLK Day event were no less incendiary than Adams's. In fairness to Espaillat, he was willing to speak with our editor, but ended up not really tamping down the blaze. One of his constituents shared his disappointment.
All the media outlets jumped on the story for a second-day of coverage. The Post went with white people being angry at Adams; the News had that anger, plus black politicians defending Adams; the Times did the inevitable think piece (albeit with a great new definition of "true" New Yorker by Emma Fitzsimmons); Gothamist went with the irony of real-estate-industry pal Adams complaining about gentrification; and NY Mag, which is sort of the house organ of gentrification, called Adams intolerant. The Washington Post even covered it.
Was anyone talking about anything else yesterday? There is some scant evidence:
- Dana Rubinstein had a great story in Politico about how Gov. Cuomo may steamroll Mayor de Blasio on a key real estate parcel near Grand Central. It's a little out of our lane at Streetsblog, but Rubinstein's piece gets into larger land-use issues that obsess us daily.
- And double-duty Dana had an MTA story whose headline says it all, bidding readers to meet "the men in charge of running the new MTA." (Yes, they're all men.) Brian Howald offered the perfect takedown of Cuomo on Twitter.
- The Post's Woodward and Bernstein — Barone and Meyer — carried some water for the PBA in their coverage of the supposedly horrific graffiti-covered subway car. But the best details didn't make the story: 1. That the cops are responsible for policing the subway yard where the train was vandalized and 2. some editor cut the perfect tabloid lede!
- The Post, like Streetsblog, also covered LeBron James's Citi Bike announcement.
- We have a friend in central Brooklyn who is always complaining about Rep. Yvette Clarke. And here was this person's reaction when he heard that Council Member Chaim Deutsch was running to defeat Clarke in Congress: "Oh my God, I think I just found the only candidate to make me want to vote for Yvette Clarke!" (BuzzFeed's Kadia Goba via Twitter)
- Could this be why Gov. Cuomo wants more MTA cops in the subway — to stick it to his frenemy the mayor that he pays cops better? (WSJ)
- Mike Bloomberg put out his infrastructure plan this morning. Streetsblog played it straight. Clayton Guse of the Daily Newsuh focused on the former mayor's trains-to-the-planes plan
- The Big Dog is also very profligate with his many panels overseeing his many agencies. (City Limits)
- The Post chose to find a negative spin on a de Blasio administration effort to connect homeless subway riders to support they need. The program is still in its infancy and is helping many people, but the Tabloid of Record is skeptical, citing a letter by anonymous cops that makes some suspect claims.
- The Times offered a lot of words about a lost AirPod, but we did enjoy the story of how the MTA helps reunite people with their lost property.
- Also in the Times, should we start taking that massive sea wall seriously?
- And, finally, we can't stop loving this picture of Martin Luther King Jr. on a bicycle, which was tweeted by Erwin Figueroa of TransAlt yesterday.
