It is widely known that I am boycotting Hell Gate's "battle of the journalist rock bands" show on Wednesday night for the pettiest of reasons: I was not invited to perform.
Sure, Hell Gate has gathered the "best" bands comprised of city journalists — Lost Dog, Ghost Rodeo, The Monotone Assassins, Sui Moto and Reggie Mids & Friends — yet somehow managed to ignore Jimmy and the Jaywalkers, which is Streetsblog's house band by dint of its six albums of original music currently burning up Spotify (18 monthly listeners can't be wrong!).
(And this isn't just about me; while we're on the subject of snubbed journalists, Hell Gate could have also included My Friend Frank — a band led by David Shenk, author of at least six non-fiction books.)
All kidding front and center, Jimmy and the Jaywalkers is the only one of the aforementioned bands scheduled to appear that has a bona-fide hit, "Criminal Mischief," which has cracked the 1,000-streams threshold on Spotify. Not to brag, but if "Criminal Mischief" gets just 1.6 million more listens, Jimmy and the Jaywalkers will be in "Crazy in Love" territory. Look out, Beyoncé, the Jaywalking Legion is coming for you.
I reached out to one of the worker-owned Hell Gate's worker-owners and was further blown off regarding Wednesday night's show, which, if I was charitable, I would point out will be at Trans-Pecos at 9-15 Wyckoff Ave. in Ridgewood and that doors open at 7 and that tickets are only $15 in advance and can be bought here.
"We initially had Jimmy and the Jaywalkers on the bill, until an unnamed city official handed us a bag of Funyuns with $14 inside it and gave us explicit instructions to bump them," said worker-co-owner Christopher Robbins. "That said, we hope everyone who appreciates local journalism will be at Trans-Pecos on Wednesday night to watch some of their hometown heroes cut loose onstage."
Yeah, OK, sure, go with your friends to Wednesday night's boisterous and fun Hell Gate event if you want. But remember, there will be one journalist missing from the mirth. Being snubbed at the Grammy's is one thing, but being snubbed by your fellow ink-stained wretches is quite another.
In other news:
- Activists are demanding that Mayor Adams let the DOT do its work because when the agency is allowed to do good work, it generally does. (NYDN)
- Meanwhile, in a letter to the editor of the Daily News (wait, there is an editor of the Daily News?), suburban-living Bronx NIMBY Peter Madonia cheers efforts to defeat daylighting.
- It's time for the annual school bus delays story. (City Limits)
- You can set your watch by the new bikelash timetable: Nowadays, the paint doesn't even dry before some yahoo Council member makes an outrageous claim, spurring a petition drive by the "longtime residents" of "the community," which soon gets picked up by the New York Post (which never interviews anyone except two drivers who complain about traffic that is usually just the result of someone double-parking), which often leads to the Adams administration rethinking the whole thing. Well, on Monday, we hit phase two of that cycle on Court Street in Brooklyn. Council Member Joann Ariola (whose Queens district is like 10 miles, and 100 years, away from Cobble Hill) made an outrageous claim that the bike lane restricts emergency vehicles (it doesn't because they can go in the bike lane!), which was followed by a petition drive that flat out ignores the fact that Court Street has long been a dangerous traffic-choked roadway. Your move, Rupert.
- On the plus side, the Post did cover Lincoln Restler's report on Monday that Downtown Brooklyn, including parts of Court Street, are choked by illegally parked cars, most of them belonging to the placard class. Let's hope the Paper of Wreckage remembers that small little detail when it does its bikelash article about Court Street later this week. (We also covered; Gothamist got the handout.)
- It's "Trick or Streets" time with 137 car-free events beginning Oct. 17 through Oct. 31! (Patch)
- There was a horrible crash on the Flushing Avenue bike lane, which haters will claim shows that e-bikes are unsafe, but the reality is that the crash is just evidence that the Flushing Avenue bike lane has successfully induced an expansion of sustainable mobility and now needs to be widened to accommodate more carbon-free and carbon-light transportation. (Gothamist, NY Post)
- So long, Chief Chell. Don't let the door hit you on the way out (but only because it might increase your disability pension). (NYDN, NY Post)
- Riders Alliance offered bus service advice to incoming Mayor Mamdani on how to make buses even better.
- Hell Gate examined why Mayor Adams is in Albania this week. Wait, wut?
- U.S. DOT Sec. Sean Duffy defended his indefensible block on vitally needed infrastructure funding to the most important region in the country. (NYDN)
- Remember stories like this one from amNY when people say that the MTA just wastes money when, in fact, it uses money to maintain and build the kind of essential infrastructure that Duffy doesn't seem to care about.
- In a related story, MTA CEO Janno Lieber blamed Amtrak for delaying the Penn Access plan to give Bronx residents direct access to Penn Station. (Gothamist, Streetsblog)
- And, finally, the New York Times wanted to shame its readers who don't know what the letters in the MTA's name stand for ... but only ended up embarrassing itself when none of the choices was correct (the answer, obviously, is Metropolitan Transportation Authority):
did the Cuomo campaign write this?
— Ted Mann (@whereisted.bsky.social) 2025-10-06T17:22:15.008Z
