BK Reader: New Online Rolodex Spotlights Minority-Owned Small Businesses This Black Business Month. “A new rolodex of Black, Brown and women owned small businesses in New York City is being launched online this National Black Business Month. The Big Black Book NYC, a social media directory collating and promoting minority owned businesses, is launching its new website to celebrate local entrepreneurs, coinciding with the directory’s third anniversary.”
New York City
NY1: Mayor: City Schools Won’t Reopen if Coronavirus Infection Rate Rises Above 3 Percent
NY1: Mayor: City Schools Won’t Reopen if Coronavirus Infection Rate Rises Above 3 Percent. “New York City’s tracking indicators have remained below 3 percent since June 10, but de Blasio said an increase, measured on a seven-day rolling average, would trigger a delay in public schools reopening. This standard is two points lower than the 5 percent baseline set by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.”
New York Times: Transit Workers Were N.Y.C.’s Pandemic Lifeline. These 3 Paid a Price.
New York Times: Transit Workers Were N.Y.C.’s Pandemic Lifeline. These 3 Paid a Price. “When the coronavirus engulfed New York, it pummeled the transit workforce: So far, 131 transit workers have died from the virus and over 4,000 have tested positive, making the Metropolitan Transportation Authority one of the hardest-hit government agencies in New York.”
New York Times: These Businesses Lasted Decades. The Virus Closed Them for Good.
New York Times: These Businesses Lasted Decades. The Virus Closed Them for Good.. “Nearly 3,000 small businesses in New York City have closed for good in the past four months, blaming falling revenue, vanished tourism and ballooning debt, especially for overdue rent. Some older businesses pointed to their failure to develop robust online commerce that might have carried them through the tough times.”
New York Times: The Virus Turns Midtown Into a Ghost Town, Causing an Economic Crisis
New York Times: The Virus Turns Midtown Into a Ghost Town, Causing an Economic Crisis. “7,500 workers are missing from a famous building. A food cart sells 10 hot dogs a day. The virus’s effect on one block could be an omen for the city’s future.”
The MTA has a porn problem: Metro-North station websites feature X-rated search titles (Queens Daily Eagle)
Queens Daily Eagle: The MTA has a porn problem: Metro-North station websites feature X-rated search titles . “The website titles for at least 16 Metro-North stations contain an X-rated message in the Google search results — quite a surprise for anyone looking up Hudson Line train times…. The same dirty description — Flirtatious An*l D*ldo For C*ck Hungry Blonde Sl*t — accompanies 13 stations along the Hudson Line, including Metro-North platforms in Riverdale, Greystone, Hastings-on-Hudson, Dobbs Ferry, Irvington, Tarrytown, Scarborough, Ossining, Croton Harmon, Cortlandt, Garrison, Cold Spring and Breakneck Ridge. That’s one way to get page views. But the MTA says the issue is actually Google’s fault.” Asterisks NOT mine for once, but I’m certainly fine with leaving them there.
ProPublica: We’re Publishing Thousands of Police Discipline Records That New York Kept Secret for Decades
ProPublica: We’re Publishing Thousands of Police Discipline Records That New York Kept Secret for Decades. “In releasing the information included in our database, ProPublica is not publishing all complaints against officers. As we’ve noted, we’ve limited the data to only those officers who’ve had at least one substantiated allegation. And every complaint in the database was fully investigated by the CCRB, which means, among other steps, a civilian provided a sworn statement to investigators. We’ve also excluded any allegations that investigators concluded were unfounded, meaning investigators determined the incident did not happen as the complainant alleged. There were about 3,200 allegations listed as unfounded in the data we were provided, about 9% of the total.”
Politico: City sustains low infection rates amid attempts to expand testing
Politico: City sustains low infection rates amid attempts to expand testing. “New York City has not yet seen a spike in new coronavirus cases after moving through all the scheduled phases of its reopening, city officials said Thursday. The city began to roll back its Covid-19 lockdown on June 8 and moved into the fourth and final reopening phase this week. But it has taken a cautious approach, nixing several planned reopenings like indoor restaurants and bars, museums and malls to avoid the spikes seen in other parts of the country — leaving a big chunk of its economy shut down indefinitely to control the spread.”
Spectrum News New York: Business Sector Calls for Partnership in Economic Recovery, but de Blasio Focuses on Federal Bailout
Spectrum News New York: Business Sector Calls for Partnership in Economic Recovery, but de Blasio Focuses on Federal Bailout. “New York City is at the edge of a fiscal precipice: a multibillion-dollar budget hole thanks to the coronavirus and a still-undefined economic recovery effort from City Hall. George Arzt, who served as Mayor Ed Koch’s press secretary and is now a political consultant, recounted the early days of the Koch administration, with the crisis of the 1970s still in full swing and the city not yet recovered from near bankruptcy.”
New York Times: Online Map Collection Provides a Peek at New York Over the Centuries
New York Times: Online Map Collection Provides a Peek at New York Over the Centuries. “Thanks to a collection of nearly 1,500 maps introduced online today on the Brooklyn Historical Society’s website, modern Brooklyn residents can now locate their homes and apartments on an 18th-century grid of fields and farmland. They can track the evolution of their neighborhoods and use old subway maps (which used to be laid out horizontally rather than vertically) to trace which 20th-century subway routes they could have taken from their homes to Ebbets Field, where Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers once played.”
NYC Bar, Restaurant Owners Say It’s Unfair To Make Them Enforce Social Distancing, Mask Wearing: ‘I Got Into The Business Of Hospitality’ (WLNY)
WLNY: NYC Bar, Restaurant Owners Say It’s Unfair To Make Them Enforce Social Distancing, Mask Wearing: ‘I Got Into The Business Of Hospitality’. “Friday marked the first full day of new regulations for bars and restaurants in New York. They must now require customers to social distance, wear masks and purchase food with alcohol, but some of those new rules were quickly broken in Astoria, CBS2’s Cory James reports.”
Vogue: Mask Wars? New Yorkers Will Sit This One Out. We’ve Already Seen Enough Death.
Vogue: Mask Wars? New Yorkers Will Sit This One Out. We’ve Already Seen Enough Death.. “Historically, New Yorkers are not known for their patience or their politeness. But that was before the tent hospitals in Central Park and the refrigerated trucks parked outside of hospitals throughout Manhattan, or the commandeering of the Javits Center and the U.S. Open for overflow COVID-19 patients. March was a demarcation line for many of us New Yorkers. The weeks of silent streets regularly punctuated by the sound of ambulance sirens changed all of us who stayed in the city. We saw early on the frightening implications of this coronavirus pandemic and when the government told us to put on our face masks, we obeyed.”
NBC News: Gun violence is surging in cities, and hitting communities of color hardest
NBC News: Gun violence is surging in cities, and hitting communities of color hardest. “Over 1,500 people have been shot in Chicago, almost 900 in Philadelphia, and more than 500 in New York City so far in 2020 — all up significantly from the same time last year (1,018 in Chicago, 701 in Philadelphia and 355 in New York). The surge in shootings has been particularly painful for communities of color, which have disproportionately endured the weight of the COVID-19 crisis, the economic recession and social unrest following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis in May.”
NBC New York: Rats Plague Outdoor Seating at NYC Restaurants
NBC New York: Rats Plague Outdoor Seating at NYC Restaurants. “With indoor dining put on hold indefinitely due to COVID-19, outdoor dining is the only other option, aside from takeout and delivery, restaurant owners like Giacomo Romano have to keep their business afloat. But the owner of Ciccio, an Italian restaurant in SoHo, says the sanitation of a nearby park is contributing to a recurring problem of rats. Father Fagan Park is small and inviting to skateboarders and people who want to relax outdoors, but it’s also attracting huge rats. Romano says he has appealed to city leaders for help.”
CNBC: Empty Manhattan apartments reach record levels, landlords slash rent
CNBC: Empty Manhattan apartments reach record levels, landlords slash rent. “The number of apartments listed for rent in Manhattan reached record levels in June, as brokers remained unable to host showings amid the coronavirus pandemic and more renters left the city, according to a new report. More than 10,000 apartments were listed on the market in June, an increase of 85% over June 2019, according to a report from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman. The official vacancy rate hit a record 3.67% but is far higher in many buildings, according to brokers.”
