New Yorkers honored the essential workers who kept the city alive during the pandemic with a "Hometown Heroes" ticker-tape parade through the iconic "Canyon of Heroes," a stretch of Broadway in lower Manhattan that by our lights should be pedestrianized. (One day...)
"We're celebrating ourselves," crowed the Daily News. The Post led with the "scorching" temperatures. The Times emphasized the discordant note that some unions boycotted the festivities, citing "low pay among other complaints." The City added the detail that this was our 207th ticker-tape parade. Gothamist went big on photos.
In other news on a scorching, somnambulant day:
- The City's invaluable interactive map showed the latest tallies in the City Council races.
- Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams talked policing as Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley conceded. Don't expect any honeymoon between City Hall and Albany: Adams took an opening shot at Gov. Cuomo. (NYPost, Politico, NYT)
- Beep Adams, supposedly a proponent of density, also voted against an 18-story tower at Atlantic and Vanderbilt avenues in Prospect Heights, citing its density, Curbed reported.
- Speaking of Big Dog Excelsior Car Guy, he just boosted the al fresco dining movement by codifying his pandemic order allowing restaurants to use sidewalks and curbs. (Journal News, NYDN)
- Registration for the 2021 TD Five Boro Bike Tour will open on Friday. The 40-mile tour, which was canceled last year because of COVID-19, usually takes place in May but will happen August 19. Hurry: The longstanding cap of 32,000 riders was reduced to 20,000. (Bike New York)
- The Parks Department will get $620 million in the new budget, a jump from the $503 million in last year's pandemic-sapped budget, allowing it to hire more than 200 rangers and patrol officers cut last year. (City Limits)
- Weird doings on the Rock: Somebody set some trucks on fire. (SILive)
- In more weird doings on the Rock, its likely new beep got some help from Trump-loving Newsmax, The City scooped.
- Open-space legend Tom Fox registered his distaste for the Barry Diller-funded Hudson River attraction Little Island, a "contemporary symbol of noblesse oblige" that feel less like a 'public' space and more like a museum." (Village Sun)
- Our friends at the Placard Corruption Twitter feed published the page of the NYPD patrol guide which enjoins cops against parking in all the illegal spots in which we documented them parking during Streetsblog's "Parking Madness" tournament. They also spotlighted a sanctimonious warning about two-wheeled vehicles from one of the worst-offending precincts in the city. (Via Twitter)
