Monday’s Headlines: Kill The Lawyers Edition

I got away for a few days to drop off my son at college (don’t hate me; the children are the future!), and I came back to find an in-box full of frivolous lawsuits! Here’s a quick roundup:

• Hartley Bernstein (“Losing Consistently Since 2020”) filed yet another lawsuit to stop the completely legal in every way 31st Street bike lane. (NY1)
• Council Member Frank Morano’s dad and several others sued the Mamdani administration over the so-called “pied-a-terre” tax. The argument? The administration’s reposting of a long-public list of people with expensive apartments “invited public scrutiny and ridicule” of the wealthy homeowners. (NYDN)
• OK, it’s not a lawsuit, but my social feed was full of Upper East Siders complaining that the Sanitation Department’s rat-proof garbage bins are ugly. Yeah? You want to talk about something that’s ugly in the curbside lane — now do cars!

In other news:

• The establishment Times has frequently gone full Post on Mayor Zohran “Soft on Crime” Mamdani, but this time, the Gray Lady at least has a legit beef about a political party tabling at Hizzoner’s recent bus forum. You know you’ve crossed into dangerous waters when you’ve pissed off John Kaehny!
• At least some media outlets (besides Streetsblog) know what vehicle is the greatest threat out there (hint, it ain’t pedal-assist bicycles). (North Shore News)
• Streetsblog gets action: The Chambers Street station — site of one of Dave Colon’s greatest videos — will indeed be renovated. (amNY)
• A TV traffic reporter was just trying to discuss congestion when all hell broke loose on a Cincinnati highway. (Facebook)
• Who knew that Staten Island would be the poster borough for “City of Yes” (well, not really, given that the local community board didn’t like this 14-story building with no parking)? (SI Advance)
• Speaking of frivolous lawsuits, this one definitely ain’t: a woman who was injured — and whose mother was killed — by a driver being chased by cops during the Adams-era push for high-speed police chases has sued the city. (Gothamist)
• Stars, They’re Just Like Us: “Late Fame” star Greta Lee loves her bike. (NY Times)
• Cops say they found the hit-and-run postal service driver who killed Chester Mazur on Saturday in Hells Kitchen. (PIX11)
• And there was a hit-and-run in The Bronx — and, yes, it involved a cop. (Gothamist, News12)
• Cops arrested a Hamptons man who killed a Queens man during a New Year’s Eve bender. (Gothamist, Newsday)
• Meanwhile, a cop was arrested upstate for driving drunk … with three kids in the car. (News10)
• And another cop — this one a veteran sergeant — was collared for driving with three times the legal limit of booze in her blood. (NYDN)
• Council Member Morano’s dad may be over-reacting to the pied-a-terre tax, but the lawmaker is right about City Hall’s addiction to chauffeurs and cars. (X.com)
• CBS2 likes the garbage bins.
• People ignored me when I said, “These new MTA ads are totally a story,” but Gothamist was obviously listening.
• Streetsblog doesn’t usually cover U.S. senators, and we certainly don’t cover home appliances, but when a U.S. senator’s vacuum cleaner finally dies after serving for 49 years, it makes me do my old man thing and openly mourn the loss of the durability and quality that I grew up with. That said, I am still using a hand mixer that my mother bought in 1971. So take that, Sen. Grassley! (NY Times)
• Streetsblog gets action, part II: Saturday’s Summer Streets — the second of three in Manhattan — was a bit better than the overpoliced first effort, as Streetsblog reported. And one Manhattanite has an idea for making it even better. (Streetsblog)
• And speaking of Summer Streets, check out Clarence Eckerson’s short video documenting just how popular the event was, with 1,000 people passing by his camera in just seven minutes. Eckerson, once again, makes the strong case that Summer Streets needs to be every Saturday in summer: