Good morning and happy Thursday. Just confirming with you, that it is mid-February. However, with the mid-morning temperature being 60 degrees and the afternoon feeling a little humid, you might feel it’s mid-May! There’s some rain around for the next couple of days, so pack an umbrella.
Thanks to Sarah and Naty for being W42ST’s boots on the ground — and yesterday the sneakers on the court — while I continue my exile in London.
Pick up a paddle, pickleball is moving indoors! The trendy tennis-badminton-racquetball hybrid taking over the city’s recreational spaces will come to new, state-of-the-art courts in Hell’s Kitchen starting next week. Read more…

Uber, Lyft, taxi cab or…helicopter? Luxury local air transport company Blade is testing out new electric passenger vertical take-off and landing aircraft that may soon be heading for New York’s skies. Read more…

What we’ve been reading
The rise of Emmy Squared pizza chain. (Commercial Observer)
Check the progress of this new Hell’s Kitchen building, winding from Boxers on 9th Avenue around to W50th Street. (New York Yimby)
The stats are in… defaced license plates really are a scourge in NYC. (Streetsblog)
Here’s how clinicians are being taught to implement involuntary removals of the homeless. (Politico)
We’re checking with Catie Savage to see if there could be a samurai division of the Litter Legion… (Toru Uchikado)
Freeze Frame

We recommend following the Instagram account of Michael Young. He’s the photographer and writer behind the many New York Yimby stories we repost in “What We’ve Been Reading”. The picture above of W42nd Street at rush hour he describes as: “The Loudest Picture In New York City”.
Happy birthday to Juli Oliver and Julia Cunico Gardner.