Now he's just snowing off.
By most accounts, Mayor Mamdani handled the second blizzard of his short tenure with greater aplomb (and numbers of paid emergency shovelers) than the first one. By the time the storm finally faded in the afternoon yesterday, more than a foot of snow (a lot more) was piling up all over the place.
But the buses were mostly getting around. Some bike lanes were even being plowed (much to the chagrin of Williamsburg News). And no one had died (as of 1 p.m.) from the preventable death of exposure.
So it's no wonder that reporters peppered Hizzoner at his update press conference with questions about whether he had "learned" from the first storm (in fairness, a very different storm, but still ... this is Lindsay's New York, after all).
Most of the papers — the Daily News, Streetsblog, amNY, Gothamist — gave the mayor good grades. Even the Post found a silver lining in the public school snow day (but then took it back so it could return to its normal outrage). The Times tossed in a tribute to our hard-working deliveristas. And Hell Gate did a great photo spread.
Not to be outdone, we sent Max White into the teeth of the superspreader event and he was ... not outdone:
Speaking of the mayor's performance, Streetsblog used the Monday press conference to try to shift the Overton Window, like we always do. But, seriously, we were impressed by the ban on private cars on the public roadways during the emergency — aka the "travel ban" — so I asked the mayor if he would consider doing it again during other events or circumstances when public safety is jeopardized by the presence of fast-moving, heavy autos. Sure, other members of the car-centric press corps may groan, but the question was a good one:
Also, I once again anchored Streetsblog's snowpocalypse video coverage. Come for the hard snow, stay for the soft core:
In other (mostly) non-snow news:
- New York Magazine noticed what we were chatting about in the Streetsblog newsroom the other day: Mayor Mamdani, so far, is doing the simple socialism.
- The West Side Rag had it last week, but the Times finally cottoned onto the beginning of fines for failing to compost.
- On a personal note, I can't even look at pictures of the Polar Bird. But I take great solace in the words of noted philosopher Darryl Strawberry. (amNY)
- New York will spend $1 million researching how New Yorkers living on the west side of the Hudson River can reach Manhattan faster. (The Journal News)
- Yellow cab ads raising awareness about antisemitism are also taking shots at Mayor Mamdani's plan to make buses free. (The New York Post)
- The LIRR will be running on six of its 11 branches Tuesday morning. (Newsday)
- Finally, Lyft obviously felt chastened by its poor response to last month's storm because the company put its back into digging out Citi Bike racks yesterday, as Vin Barone pointed out on Twitter.
