In a Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Mayor Zohran Mamdani pressed for higher taxes on New York’s wealthiest, arguing the real exodus to worry about is not the rich but the steep decline—20% since 2010—of Black you…
New York City readies for its first proper snowfall of 2026, with up to four inches forecast from Sunday’s storm and Jay Engle at the National Weather Service promising “rock solid frozen” streets in its wake. The city’s Winter Weather Emergency Plan is active, 700 salt spreaders are on perpetual patrol, and plows lie in wait—though sleet and a Code Blue alert may yet outpace our best-laid gritting.
Barry Cooper’s B.R.O. Experience Foundation, a Bed-Stuy outfit devoted to guiding over 1,000 young Black and Brown men through emotional literacy and leadership programs, has won $300,000 in grants, including the 2025 David Prize. Cooper will heap the cash back into his safe-space mission—proving that in New York’s nonprofit jungle, the most radical tactic may simply be listening and letting people play video games.
Kayla Santosuosso took the oath as District 47’s first female council member in Brooklyn, after claiming 59% of the vote over Republican George Sarantopoulos in a closely watched race spanning Bay Ridge and Coney Island. A lawyer and former chief counsel to Justin Brannan, she pledged to streamline small business rules and expand child care—proof, perhaps, that breaking glass ceilings leaves us picking up both inspiration and the odd bureaucratic shard.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, several hundred New Yorkers marched from Cadman Plaza across the Brooklyn Bridge, rallying at 26 Federal Plaza to demand an end to ICE operations and protest a perceived rise in authoritarian tendencies—galvanised by the recent fatal shooting of Renee Good, a Minneapolis mother. We note the event honored King’s legacy while demonstrating that, even in January, New York manages to combine brisk weather with brisk protest.
Police in Brooklyn are seeking an unknown assailant who shoved a 35-year-old man onto the subway tracks at 36th Street in Sunset Park before dawn on January 18th; the victim climbed to safety with only scrapes, and EMS took him to NYU Langone Hospital. The attacker, last seen in tan pants and a blue jacket, vanished—an all-too-New York version of hide and seek.
UNIQLO, the Japanese retailer famed for frills-free basics, will soon open its first permanent Williamsburg outpost at 187 Kent Avenue—taking over a space once home to the eccentric Showfields store. Locals are reportedly split between lamenting further chain encroachment and praising the brand’s pocket-friendly wares, including the cultish HEATTECH line. Three more Manhattan branches are due by 2026, suggesting we’re all due for another layer of competition.
More than 1,000 young Jews from around 30 countries gathered in New York City last week for the Chabad Young Professionals Encounter, swapping stories and strategies against a post–October 7 backdrop. Amid workshops, lectures, and, inevitably, candle-lighting, survivors and financiers shared the stage with startup hopefuls, while virtual tributes from Australia lent a poignant international touch—suggesting that solidarity, if nothing else, can traverse both continents and Zoom screens.
New York police say Elquan Tillman, 26, was fatally shot late Saturday near his Bed-Stuy apartment, taking city crime statistics from abstract to all-too-personal on Stockton Street. Emergency crews brought him to Kings County Hospital, but to no avail; the culprit remains at large—a reminder that, in America’s largest city, some neighbors are more elusive than others.
