Wednesday’s Headlines: Melon Time Edition
The U.S. Open has arrived in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, with the main draw set to begin on Aug. 30. Mayor Mamdani on Tuesday said he’d secured one thousand $100 tickets to distribute to New Yorkers who can’t pay the significantly higher market price.
Now, we love tennis and we love the U.S. Open, but we also love parks — and the weeks-long sporting event is a major burden for its host park. It shuts down a huge chunk of the park, closes the Queens Museum and brings lots of cars onto what would otherwise be car-free paths. During last year’s tournament, an NYPD driver ran over and killed a man who was lying on one of those paths.
The Center for Urban Future last year called on the US Tennis Association to invest more in Flushing Meadows. None of USTA’s revenues go back to park upkeep, CUF’s report said. — “even though park staff is often in charge of cleanup before and after” the tournament.
The City Reporter’s Katie Honan, who has hammered USTA’s annual park takeover for years, wondered on X if Mamdani had won any financial commitments from the Open beyond lower tickets. We’ve asked City Hall the same.
In other news:
- Robert Moses is looking down “happily” on Mayor Mamdani’s plan to shore up the BQE triple cantilever. (Hell Gate)
- Jo Anne Simon on the mayor’s BQE scheme: “More questions than answers.” (NY1)The LIRR will run direct weekday service to Montauk year-round. (Gothamist)
- A tractor-trailer burst into flames on the LIE in Elmhurst. (QNS)
- NYPD said the woman killed by a hit-and-run driver in the West Village was holding onto the driver-side door of the vehicle before she lost her grip and the driver ran her over. (Daily News)
- The MTA’s struggling OMNY contractor is also making a lot of mistakes in the Bat Area. (KQED)
- Just 11,000 of New Jersey’s 300,000+ e-bikes were registered under the state’s new licensing regime as of Aug. 11. (amNY)
- City Council Speaker Julie Menin wants DOT to push Lyft to agree to facial recognition-based age verification for Citi Bike. (Daily News)
- The Times did its own version of our 2025 story about Park Slope’s $250,000-per-spot “car condominium” (also known as a parking space).
- Italy wants to make victim-blaming pedestrians the law with proposed fines for walking-and-texting. (The Guardian)
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