Tuesday’s Headlines: And the Beach Towel Winner Is… Edition

It went right down to the wire, but in the end, there could only be one hero.

We’re talking, of course, about our stunning fundraising gambit to cap our “December Donation Drive” that we mentioned in yesterday’s headlines. The goal? A one-day contribution haul rivaling a GoFundMe page for lonely puppies, with the day’s single-biggest contributor walking off with the Parks Department’s COVID-19-themed “Keep This Far Away” beach blanket.

The result? Roughly a dozen contributions … with four gracious donors tied until about 11 p.m., when out of the blue StreetsPAC Executive Director Eric McClure broke the tie with a late contribution in the tens of thousands (of ways in which we thank him).

McClure will now be able to spend the summer lying at Riis Park (just a short bike ride from his Brooklyn home) with no one to bother him.

We’d also like to thank all of yesterday’s donors, whose contributions made Monday our most-successful fundraising day of the month — so, thank you, Samuel G., Michael D., Seth U., April S., Andrew B., Stanley G., Annette C., Luke N., Lucia D., and Justin R. We appreciate all your support.

There’s still three days left in our December Donation Drive, albeit without any gifts — except the gift of knowing you helped Streetsblog keep doing the work it does for another year. Thanks.

And now, the news:

• It was such a slow news day that even the reliable amNY, which almost always has some local story about a community board doing something ridiculous, had to run Reuters wire on drone deliveries.
• We mean, it’s such a slow news day that we’re going to consider the massive ceiling fan recall a street safety issue because if we can’t hang out in bars and restaurants, we’re likely to be home … where our ceiling fan is plotting its next attack. (NY Times)
• New York Magazine even did an oral history of its print coverage of the Moynihan Station project.
• Charles Komanoff reminded all the mayoral candidates that he and Streetsblog have challenged them to show us their campaign trip logs — so voters can know how they are getting around. (Via Twitter)
• The City looked at other ways the MTA might raise money for transit.
• And, finally, a hat tip to Orson Welles of the Streets, Clarence Eckerson Jr. of Streetfilms for first noticing the new residential loading zones that have just been installed in Jackson Heights — then capturing one of the car-free loading zones doing exactly what it’s designed to do: reduce congestion and make streets safer. (We asked DOT for more information about the program’s apparent expansion, but the agency has all but stopped answering our emails — is it something we said?)