It was just a bloody, bloody day in a bloody, bloody year:
- Multiple outlets — including the Daily News, Streetsblog and amNY — covered the death of a 78-year-old pedestrian on highway-like West Street.
- And multiple outlets — including the Daily News and Streetsblog — covered the teen Camaro driver who gravely injured a pedestrian in Bushwick while allegedly high on speed.
- And the Daily News covered the death of a woman who was hit by a city garbage truck driver last month, but whose death was only reported by police on Thursday.
- The day ended with a police stop on the Belt Parkway that led to a fatal police shooting. (NY Post, NY Daily News)
In other news:
- In case you needed more evidence that you can't spell toxic masculinity without the letters "Cuomo," the disgraced former governor was also a speed freak (NY Post). Speaking of the disgraced Excelsior Big Dog Car Guy, Gothamist got a second day out of the deposition transcript released by Attorney General Letitia James — and ran it under the headline, "Denial, Fuzzy Memory, And Obfuscation: Andrew Cuomo’s 11 Hours With AG Investigators." (Note to self: "Denial, Fuzzy Memory and Obfuscation" is a great title for your book of love poems about senior citizens.)
- The best story of the day was Justin Davidson's piece for Curbed that was a clarion call to reform New York City's streets, just as they were reformed 100 years ago for the car: "Virtually every street and avenue became a river of moving steel, flanked by banks of immobile steel. We need to adapt again, this time to the long-obvious reality that cars are too plentiful, too big, too polluting, and too murderous to stampede a crowded city," he wrote (truth be told, the multi-part, multi-strategy story was like a Streetsblog Greatest Hits album!).
- Chinatown is getting money to rehab several key plazas. (Gothamist)
- This super-slick Post "How to survive..." video about what to do if you end up on the subway tracks is just unspeakably terrible and offensive. Its tone is all BS "New Yorkers are tougher than pigeons who eat steroid-addicted rats while getting dumped by text message during a Nor'easter" crap.
- Gothamist did a second-day job on the "Tear down the BQE!" story.
- Thankfully, Mayor-elect Eric Adams broke with his supporters at the New York Post and agreed with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (and many many others) that Robert Moses's legacy is one of racism (NY Politics). Meanwhile, Buttigieg stands to become a new power broker, thanks to the passage of the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill (amNY).
- The bus lane cameras will start issuing tickets on Merrick Boulevard, which should please Council Member Daneek Miller. (QNS)
- Car culture can't be broken: A company that has made all of about 150 cars is now one of the most valuable car manufacturers (which should tell you something about our system). (NY Post)
- Equally important: "How To with John Wilson" will return. (Gothamist)
- And, finally, after the renovation disaster of the Cherry Walk, we gave the Parks Department a second chance regarding its latest detour on the Hudson River Greenway — and newsboy Peter Frishauf filed this report:
