Thursday’s Headlines: Get Your Tickets to Honor Public Space Heroes Edition

Our friends at Open Plans — the policy shop with which we share a parent organization — asked us to remind you that tickets are going fast for their annual “Public Space Awards” party on May 1.

As it has been in its prior two years, the event honors the people behind our city’s defining public spaces, those citywide stewards, school street stalwarts, and local lions who make the city better every day.

And Chelsea and Hells Kitchen pedestrian advocate Christine Berthet will finally get that long-overdue lifetime achievement award.

Tickets to this year’s party, at Brooklyn Winery, can be purchased here. (Extra selling point? I will be there with my paint pen if anyone wants to do some criminal mischief after.)

In other news:

• The big story was the formal arraignment of wigmaker/influencer/reckless driver Miriam Yarimi. Everyone took an angle:
  • The Daily News played up how fast she was going when cops say she struck the Saada family.
  • Streetsblog played up how our political elite have done little to hold repeat reckless drivers like Yarimi accountable.
  • The Post played up Yarimi’s alleged cursing.
  • Gothamist emphasized Yarimi’s bizarre not guilty plea.
• Speaking of reckless drivers, a drunk-driving mom in Jersey will at least pay the price, albeit after the fact. (NY Post)
• Say goodbye to yet another bid to generate electricity without burning fossil fuels. (NY Post in fanboy mode, NY Times, pointing out that President Trump is being hypocritical on the sudden need for environmental review)
• Make America Healthy Again? How? On Friday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission will stop collecting data on injuries from motor vehicle crashes, which experts say will make it harder to prevent them. (Reuters)
• We like the new biker-eye-level traffic signals on Third Avenue in Manhattan. (amNY)
• And, obviously, the Post hates the city’s effort to get garbage off the sidewalks and into the parking lane where all the garbage (including parked cars serving no public benefit) should be. Somehow, brand new garbage bins are “ugly,” but lines and lines of parked cars fit in with the historic aesthetic of Hamilton Heights. Come on.
• We really wish public agencies would not buy into the toxicity of car culture so blatantly, but the Taxi and Limousine Commission has become the latest to fall victim to the bromance of macho muscle cars. (NYDN)
• And, finally, mayoral hopeful Jessica Ramos is the latest candidate to sign the pledge to finish the McGuinness Boulevard safety redesign, which Mayor Adams truncated. Prior signatories include Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, Michael Blake, and Scott Stringer. Notably, front-runner and “car guy” Andrew Cuomo has not signed.