Good morning. Did you know that Wednesday was the 10th day over 90 degrees this year? Apparently, we’ve reached that milestone more than 3 weeks earlier than a typical New York summer. HT to Erica Grow for that info!
Javits Center’s mass vaccination site will close this Friday — a victim of its own success, as the focus shifts to boosting COVID shot rates in communities with low take-up. The conference center will return to its normal duties. It was recently announced that the New York International Auto Show will return to Javits this summer, taking place from August 20-29. More details here…
My phone buzzed yesterday morning with readers sending me pictures of the buses arriving at the Skyline Hotel to take residents back to congregate shelters. I took a couple of trips over to record the scenes but wondered what to write, what to share, what to publish? For every resident causing their Hell’s Kitchen neighbors public safety and quality of life issues, there were 5-10 grateful residents quietly enjoying the months of having personal space, a home away from dormitory life.
If you want a perspective on how the hotels (not run by the city) worked for some during the pandemic — read this. If you want to understand why those with mental health issues did not get the help they deserved — read this — it was not about lack of money.
Just before 6:30pm, my phone buzzed again with a Citizen App alert (oh, how I hate that app!). I took one last trip to 725 10th Avenue, the Skyline Hotel. I bumped into a friend, she’d seen a shirtless guy loaded into a police car handcuffed. I watched as EMS attended to a fellow resident with blood streaming down his face. He was saying: “but he’s my friend!”
Hell’s Kitchen is relieved that these hotels will return to serving much-needed tourists. We will all be grateful for the slowdown in police activity and the loss of the real feeling of threat. However, let’s not forget that everyone just moved to another part of New York City. The problem of the homeless in the greatest city in the world has not gone away. We agree with Luke Tani’s words, which we shared on Instagram yesterday.
What we’ve been reading
Automania at MoMa is revving up for success. (TimeOut)
A call for cops to get on their bikes. (Streetsblog)
Hotels struggle to bring back staff without more tourists. (Gothamist)
The LGBTQ+ museum gets a space near Central Park. (New York Times)
The history of alligators in the New York sewers… (Untapped Cities)
Freeze Frame
I’m sorry, but the childish joy of this Englishman’s national football (soccer) team getting through to a final has to be shared. My son called me on FaceTime after midnight UK time last night to share the celebrations in the streets of London to the chants of “Football’s Coming Home!” The final is Sunday against Italy at 3pm — be there!