Our old man editor finally gets his wayward clavicle put back into place today at the Hospital For Special Surgery. Frankly, we'll be glad when this is all over. For the last five days since his "cat"-astrophic crash, all his emails, and half of his published stories, have been filled with the most bizarre typos, mostly because he is dictating everything on his iPhone — and Siri doesn't speak Grizzled Tabloidese (admittedly, a dying language).
The doctors gave him 100 percent chance of making a full recovery, which, for Kuntzman, means he'll be back at 75 percent in no time.
In an unrelated journalistic injury, we were remiss in not pointing out that Second Avenue Sagas blogger (and Streetsblog contributor) Ben Kabak suffered his own bike-related fall a few days ago, injuring his hands. We wish Kabak a quick recovery.
NYU Langone was an unplanned stop on my ride but the guy on the ebike who clipped me was going fast. Probably a broken wrist and excruciating pain.
— Second Ave. Sagas (@2AvSagas) June 20, 2020
Ow. pic.twitter.com/lbJmFIEdIA
— Second Ave. Sagas (@2AvSagas) June 20, 2020
Now, to the news:
- Everyone covered the start of the phase 2 reopening yesterday. The Daily News called it, "a taste of normalcy" (because the story mostly focused on the outdoor dining element, get it?). The Post focused on the return of barbershops (with a "letting our hair down" pun that did not really scan), though the Tabloid of Record also did a story about the reopening of restaurants. The Times led with how few office workers actually return to work. The Wall Street Journal and Politico's staff did broad overviews. Our angle, of course, was how Mayor de Blasio considered all the car traffic a good thing — which, fortunately, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer took down on Twitter.
There's nothing reassuring about pollution, slower buses, wasted time, scarier and deadlier streets for cyclists and pedestrians. Need I go on? But this does explain why Mayor has failed to act to avoid this problem amidst all of our calls to do so. https://t.co/T9p5F65sni
— Gale A. Brewer (@galeabrewer) June 22, 2020
- Finally: no MTA workers have died of coronavirus in the last two weeks. But 132 employees died during the pandemic. (NYDN)
- Here's something funny (and by "funny," we of course mean completely horrifying government action): after the Tri-State Transportation Campaign put out a report detailing what other cities did to bring back ridership after the pandemic (we covered here), Gusuh of the Newsuh reported that the MTA spent $100,000 on its own study! The agency defended the expenditure in the Post. And before anyone calls the report a total waste of money, the Wall Street Journal focused on some best practices from overseas that may be implemented here, including temperature checks.
- A Queens pedestrian was killed by a bad driver on Monday. (amNY)
- Finally, the MTA released a new "Welcome Back" video that, unfortunately, did not feature John Sebastian's classic song — but it did make stars out of Sarah Meyer (the agency's much-liked Tweeter-in-chief) and its cool digital content director Joseph Chan.
