Tuesday’s Headlines: Farewell, DoorZone Edition

We were saddened to learn over the weekend of the death of Paul Vogel, a much-loved activist for street safety, best known to the broader public via his Twitter account, @D00RZ0NE (where the tagline was, “Driving ruins our cities and is killing our planet”) and, more recently on Bluesky.

Paul’s activism preceded my arrival at Streetsblog in 2018, and his was always one of the first opinions I considered when writing our editorials or planning our coverage. His impact burst onto the public scene in 2015 when he got WNYC to run a piece about his then year-long chronicle of all the examples of bad driving he saw on his daily bike commute.

The story also pointed out that Paul often submitted photos from his commute to 311 in hopes — which remain vain ones to this day, alas — that the NYPD would crack down on drivers behaving badly.

That commitment to reporting illegal and dangerous driving practices oddly earned Paul the wrath of some members of the so-called New York’s Finest. In 2021, Paul appeared in an award-winning Streetsblog story about the NYPD’s failure to address illegal activities by drivers that related to cycling. The story recounted how Paul, and others, received strange voicemails from blocked phone numbers after filing 311 complaints. In one message, a man said Paul’s name repeatedly without identifying himself. In another, the caller breathed heavily into the phone and hangs up.

“It just strikes me as clearly something that’s done to intimidate,” he said at the time. “It’s bizarre.”

Three years later, one of the cops was punished for the abuse, but our coverage revealed even more than we’d previously known (including crank calls with heavy breathing and, oddly, dolphin, seal and sheep noises) about the harassment of Paul.

More recently, he was involved in the seemingly endless fight to get law enforcement officials to stop parking in the Adams Street bike lane in Downtown Brooklyn.

“It’s absolutely heartbreaking,” War on Cars podcast co-host Doug Gordon said of Vogel’s death. “He was a great guy and an awesome advocate. … He absolutely loved cycling, both for transportation and for recreation.

“It’s a big loss to the safe-streets advocacy community,” he added.

Gordon also mentioned that other communities are suffering. Paul worked for nearly 20 years at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, first as a fundraiser and, later, as the head of the organization’s much-need direct response office.

After he got diagnosed, Paul’s wife, Sabina Hirshfield, said Paul wanted supporters to direct their donations to three organizations: Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Committee, and NPR.

Friends and allies of Paul will gather for a memorial service and celebration of the all-too-short life of Paul Vogel at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 26 at McLaughlin & Sons, 9620 Third Ave. (at 97th Street) in Brooklyn.

— Reporting from Gersh Kuntzman

In other news:

• Another New Yorker died at the hands of a hit-and-run driver over the weekend on the Harlem River Drive. (Gothamist, amNY, PIX11)
• A whopping 63 elected officials called out Mayor Mamdani for so far implementing 20-mile-per-hour speed limits on just 2 percent of city streets. (Politico)
• Bus lanes are coming to Lafayette and DeKalb avenues in Brooklyn. (Daily News)
• A Brooklyn judge ruled against Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte’s last-ditch power grab to thwart the party’s reformist wing after they won big at the ballot box this year. (The City Reporter)
• Half of the civil quality-of-life tickets NYPD issued in the last fiscal year got tossed out. (Gothamist)
• Tesla is trying to warm New Yorkers up for actual autonomous vehicles, according to Curbed.
• Monday marked the 127th anniversary of the first car crash death in New York City and American history. (Gus Saltonstall via X)
• Less traffic means less crime, according to a new study out of the UK. (University of Leeds)
• Set your calendars for Wednesday when our own editor, Gersh Kuntzman, will appear on a free panel on e-micromobility and the media hosted by the Regional Safety Task Force of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. The fun starts at 10 a.m., and you can register here.
• And speaking of Gersh Kuntzman, the old man will work his last-ever shift at the Park Slope Food Coop on Tuesday night, starting at 6 p.m. No, the old dog isn’t quitting in a huff — he’s finally reached retirement age at the members-only supermarket and NY Times whipping post. Members should feel free to stop by for treats and maybe even some kohlrabi (a reference to a couplet from his seminal 2016 Fringe Festival hit, “Murder at the Food Coop”: “Don’t move the body!” “But it’s blocking the kohlrabi!”)