Talking Shop with Comptroller Brad Lander

In the first of the Star’s interviews with the 2025 mayoral candidates, Lander discusses his plans to make CUNY free, reveals where the letters of the Kentile Floors sign went, and shares a surprising story from Brooklyn D.A. Eric Gonzalez, involving a murder, a pizza delivery guy, and a priest.

Comptroller Brad Lander stopped by the Star’s offices on Friday to talk about his campaign to become NYC’s next mayor. Photo: Mohamed Farghaly

By JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com

Last summer, as Brad Lander lay in his dentist’s office in Gowanus, the hygienist paused, holding the Novocaine needle in the air so that it glinted in the light. “Comptroller,” she said, “I thought every three-year-old was supposed to get a 3K slot.” Eric Adams had promised universal child care, but the city had since fallen 10,000 seats short of its goal, to the hygienist’s dismay. “I’m 140th on the waitlist,” she said, grimly. Lander quickly committed to seeing that the program covered everyone. But she may not have needed the needle — even when not under duress, Lander has styled himself, in contrast to Adams, as a sober reformer dedicated to fiscal responsibility and accountable governance.

Though a fixture of New York politics for decades, Lander’s rise has been relatively slow and steady. Born in St. Louis, MO, he moved to the city when he was 23 and began to work on affordable housing, eventually running two organizations that advocated for tenants’ rights. Next, he spent 15 years on the City Council, where he helped found the Progressive Caucus. Since 2021, he’s served as comptroller, a role he describes as being the “city’s watchdog,” managing pension funds and auditing government contracts. There’s only one rung higher in city government, and that’s mayor — a post for which Lander will be on the ballot, come November.

Yet roughly eight months out, the race is already crowded. Lander is one of nine candidates who have announced mayoral bids, and that’s not counting former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who leads the polls but has yet to officially enter the fray. To win, he would have to overcome the embattled incumbent, Eric Adams — Politico has called Lander the current mayor’s “archrival” — and distinguish himself from a pack of progressives with similar policies, including state Senator Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. In the process, he’ll have to navigate two hot-button issues for New York Democrats: affordability and public safety.

“People are pissed off with government that’s not working for them,” Lander told the Brooklyn Star during a recent roundtable. “People feel like the cost of living is going through the roof: the rent’s up, home prices are up, child care costs so much that I can’t afford to live here. It doesn’t feel safe and secure, and I don’t see government fighting for me.”

Subway crime in particular has been a flashpoint for conversations around safety, and left-leaning candidates like Lander have taken note. In an interview with the New York Editorial Board last December, he acknowledged that “progressives, including myself, were slow to respond to the growing sense of disorder coming out of the pandemic,” and at the roundtable he reaffirmed his support for more proactive security measures, albeit with a caveat.

“Sometimes you do still need involuntary hospitalization,” Lander said, adding that as mayor he would expand law enforcement’s ability to require people perceived as “‘dangerous” to undergo medical examination, a proposal that was seen as fraught in 2022 when it was rejected by state Democrats, yet which now has broad approval. “And I support more officers in the subway, especially at night, which is what the governor is doing,” said Lander. “But the real answer is getting people connected to housing with the services they need.” That response dovetails with Lander’s background as a housing advocate, which continues to inform his approach to the city’s problems writ large. 

But the issue of subway security had recently become more personal. Midway through the roundtable, Lander paused to take a call from an NYPD officer. The eight-year-old daughter of one of Lander’s friends was pushed to the ground by a homeless person with a mental illness on the subway, and the officer was following up with Lander. “I’m just trying to make sure the dots get connected and that guy can get care,” he said. “And then she also wouldn’t have to see [her attacker] there [in the station] every day.”

Lander’s elevator pitch to New Yorkers is that he’s less corrupt than the big-name candidates, and more proven than the small ones. In that sense, he’s positioning himself as a foil both to Cuomo and Adams — who have a track record of getting things done, but also skeletons in their closets — and to his fellow progressives, whom he portrays as honest yet less battle-tested.

Based on the latest polling, that narrative seems like it could be a winning formula. A survey last week by the Manhattan Institute simulated ranked choice voting and found that Lander survived until the penultimate round, where he was narrowly edged out by Adams, who then lost to Cuomo. Yet pollsters caution that early results like these are often a function of name recognition: over 70% of respondents did not know of Ramos, Mamdani, or state Senator Zellnor Myrie, and despite topping the simulation, both Cuomo and Adams also draw the highest unfavorable ratings. Only 55% knew Lander, placing him in a middle zone along with ex-Comptroller Scott Stringer, but time will tell whose cause is boosted most by greater attention as the race progresses.

A poll by the Manhattan Institute gives Lander the best odds of challenging Cuomo and Adams, the controversial heavyweights. Courtesy of the Manhattan Institute

The deeper issue, one not unique to Lander, is that New Yorkers haven’t been voting. Turnout in the 2021 mayoral election was an abysmal 21%, the lowest in seven decades and a drop from the 26% of 2017 and 2013. To be fair, New York is not an outlier: Dallas saw a shocking 7% turnout in its last mayoral contest, making double digits seem like a blessing. But in an age of bombastic, social media-oriented populists, can a relatively measured, scandal-free white liberal policy wonk like Lander, preaching a message akin to “eat your vegetables,” energize voters enough to reverse that course? 

Lander is banking on it. “To me, this campaign is about who can lead a safer, more affordable, and better-run city,” he told the Star, “and get people excited about a [local government] that has their back.” He touted his work on the Gowanus rezoning, which has paved the way for over 8,000 units, with 3,000 earmarked as affordable, as a model for tackling the housing crisis — and the Interborough X (IBX), a proposed light rail line connecting Brooklyn and Queens, would be another opportunity to build homes, he said. He would make CUNY free, he noted, and institute a scheme for teachers and city workers that would leverage pension funds to double their purchasing power when searching for housing. 

While leftist candidates are increasingly accepting safety as a paradigm, many of their underlying policies haven’t changed so much as the framing around them has. Explaining his stance on immigration, Lander offered a story Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez had shared earlier in the day. He knew that Gonzalez had joined law enforcement after his brother was murdered. But he hadn’t known about the sole witness, a pizza delivery person who hesitated to come to the police precinct because he was undocumented. Five years after the shooting, a conversation with his priest sparked a crisis of conscience, and he finally told the NYPD what he had seen. Yet, sure enough, the defense counsel had him deported before he could testify.

“Downstairs, there are ICE flyers on the doors of the buildings. People are reporting raids, they’re terrified,” Lander said at the Star’s office, casting Gonzalez’s story as a parable of how targeting migrants can backfire. “The city gets more dangerous if you don’t protect people and keep them safe.”

As the roundtable came to a close, talk shifted to local Brooklyn lore. After the legendary Kentile Floors sign was taken down in 2014, Lander’s office saved the letters, but he couldn’t convince the owners of any nearby structures to display them. “We should try again,” he said. “On top of one of those new buildings, maybe!” The light was reddening on the table, and the conversation started to rove across the other boroughs. “This city is so incredible,” Lander said. “During the pandemic, we worried whether people would want to be in this diverse place, but they really do. It’s the most amazing city on the planet — you have things like Shakespeare in the Park, and Diwali at Richi Rich Palace. But,” he noted, growing serious again, “you’ve got to have a place to live that’s affordable.”

At least eight other candidates would agree — there’s consensus that making New York City cheaper and safer is the job at hand. The race is young, but the open question will be whether Lander’s bona fides as a housing activist and resume as comptroller will persuade voters that he’s the one to do it.

Mohamed Farghaly contributed reporting.

Luka to Lakers Shocks NBA ahead of trade deadline

What would it have taken a team like Brooklyn to pry the 25-year-old superstar from Dallas?

By Noah Zimmerman

The Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. Even after a handful of days there is little sense to be made of the blockbuster trade that shook the NBA and sports world to its core late Saturday night.

Los Angeles also received Maxi Kleber and Markieff Morris in the deal. Alongside Davis, the Lakers sent Max Christie and a first round pick to Dallas, as well as Jalen Hood-Schiffino to the Utah Jazz. 

Following the trade, a dejected Mavs team was forced to take the floor against the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of the best teams in the league. The Cavs scored 50 points in the first quarter en route to a 144-101 trouncing, a foreboding sign for the future in Dallas.

Despite bringing Anthony Davis to Texas, the Mavs departure from their franchise player confused fans and risks going down as one of the worst trades in sports history. Only time will tell if this deal damages the Mavs as much as Billy Kingís trade for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce crippled the Nets.

To defend his move, Mavs GM Nico Harrison echoed a well known sentiment that defense wins championships. There were many concerns with Dallas regarding Luka’s apathy on the defensive side of the court, as well as his conditioning and injury issues. With Luka due for a max contract extension at the end of the year, Harrison decided it was too risky to pay up.

As a result, Dončić is no longer eligible for the $346M/5-year contract Dallas could have given him. The most he can receive from LA is $229M/5-years.

Another young superstar, Minnesota’s Anothony Edwards had trouble making sense of the deal. “At 25 they traded, probably the best scorer in the NBA,” the 23-year-old guard lamented. “He just went to the finals.”

“I still feel like there is something, some facts that are going to come out over time,” said Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. “I can’t really comprehend how that makes sense to be honest.”

What would it have taken other teams to land a player as coveted as Dončić? It’s clear that the Mavericks’ priority was to land a dominant two-way center in Davis, but it’s hard to see any long-term benefit with their new center turning 32 in March. Their inability to fetch more than one first round draft pick is baffling considering the modern trade market.

Other centers like Rudy Gobert netted four first round picks on the trade market. The Nets were able to fetch five first round picks from the Knicks in exchange for Mikal Bridges. 

Brooklyn was able to transform their return for a 34-year-old Kevin Durant into 9 first round picks, two first round pick swaps, a handful of second rounders, Cam Johnson, and Zaire Williams. Dallas turned a 25-year-old Dončić into Davis, Christie, and a single 2029 draft pick.

For a rebuilding team like the Brooklyn Nets, young centers and draft stock were aplenty. Surely if Harrison had shopped Luka around the league he could have netted a haul of picks from the Nets alongside younger centers with upside like Nic Claxton or Dayíron Sharpe.

Regardless, whatís done is done. The NBA has been forever changed by the arrival of Luka in LA. With the trade deadline on Thursday afternoon, teams will finish making tweaks to their rosters while carefully eyeing the future.

“I thought I was gonna stay my whole career there. Loyalty is a big word for me,” said Dončić in his Lakers press conference. “But I got the ocean here. I get to play for the Lakers. Not many get to say that.”

Luka also expressed his love and admiration for the late Lakers legend Kobe Bryant. After landing in LA he made sure to mention Bryant and his daughter Gigi, who tragically passed in 2020.

Dončić is nursing a calf injury that has sidelined him since December. He is currently slated to make his Lakers debut this Weekend as LA plays two games against the Jazz ahead of the All-Star Break.

PORCELLI: CTE & Black History Month

By Mike Porcelli

During a previous Black History Month, I wrote about how this annual celebration had its origins in education. Today, CTE provides tremendous opportunities for Black people, as well as people of every race, gender, and ethnicity. Black History Month has been around since 1926, with a different theme each year. This year’s theme, African Americans and Labor, is intended to encourage reflections on intersections between Black people’s work and their workplaces. The good news for young Black people today – There’s never been a better time to acquire abilities that lead to good, high-paying careers in the skilled trades, regardless of who you are – NEVER!

The creator of Black History Month, Carter G. Woodson wrote how educational opportunities determined the life people create for themselves. He believed the ability to make a living is determined by how well people use their educational alternatives. He argued, vocational schools in his time only focused on training Black students to develop a set of technical skills and not on developing all their abilities. He would be pleased that – developing students’ natural abilities and interests are fundamental to today’s CTE, for every race.

Woodson’s philosophy of nurturing critical & creative thinking is central to CTE. That’s why he would recommend it to help his people succeed today. One of the reasons often stated for the low numbers of Blacks in the skilled trades is the lack of notable Black tradesmen as role models, even though there are famous African Americans who’ve done exceptional work in every field – including the skilled trades. For example, Alexander Miles invented a new way to open and close elevator doors. How about Charles Vernon Stewart, who become the first African American admitted into Greer College, a trade school for electricians. After graduation, he founded the Taylor Electric Company.

These pioneers, and countless other African American men and women in the trades have paved the way for young Blacks today to take advantage of the unlimited skilled trade career opportunities with a CTE program. Since the industrial revolution, Blacks have always played a key role in advancing skilled trades. Their contributions deserve recognition.

Through Career & Technical Education, the skilled trades offer endless opportunities for African Americans to become highly successful tradesmen, business owners, or BOTH. Being a tradesman is no longer about race or gender. Countless African Americans are at the top of their field in every industry. The need for skilled workers today is greater than ever before. That’s why CTE is now the best path to successful careers for most people. Is it for you?

I train people of every race and gender to become highly paid professional mechanics. Similar opportunities exist in all
trades. Employers don’t care about your race – only your skills and your work- ethic! They will pay a lot for both. Take advantage of CTE today!

Unlock career doors with CTE!

Penner the Penman

When we meet an individual who is courageously unapologetic about using his unique insight helping the average New Yorker it’s difficult not to take note. Larry Penner; transit guru, letter writer, was that kind of person; curious, insightful and filled with empathy for the working man, and he know transit ridership from the supply and demand ends. And he was not afraid to write about it. Larry had a varied career in government, working for city planning as well as the board of elections. But his love was transportation, serving most of his working career managing and studying transit and transportation programs, working on projects within the MTA, NJ Transit and rail lines throughout New York.

With the knowledge gained throughout his decades of experience, Larry had become a prolific letter and op-ed writer to our newspaper for the past twenty years. He just loved the melodic proficiency in which the trains, busses and automobiles carried people with varied needs, through the city. His knowledge of the system, the movement of transit riders and the wants and needs of transit officials gave our readers the unique perspective few could.

Larry passed away last month after a battle with cancer. There are truly few who could replace the lens in which he saw transportation in New York City. He was born in Bay Ridge and lived most of his life in Great Neck. He was 71.

Pol Position: When There’s No Path, Move The Goal …. And Cuomo Still Leads

The red dress, who had been seemingly inserted in every photo
with Mayor Adams prior his legal troubles, announced a run
for city comptroller in November. Woodhaven Assembly
member Jennifer Rajkumar announced then, with great
fanfare, that she could turn the city around. Her blanket
political promises, of course, covered little specific substance,
just outlined that she fixes things and NYC needs to be fixed.
When others saw she was running, they thought she was quite
vulnerable. Senator Kevin Parker was in the race early. The
political playbook says, ‘raise a lot of money and you scare
people away from running against you.’ Well, it didn’t work
here. Seeing Rajkumar had raised a significant amount of
money entering the race, our sources tell us that Councilman
Justin Brennan and Mark Levine didn’t flinch, saw a path to
win the Comptroller race and joined in on the fun. After all,
Rajkumar’s claim to fame, according to legislators we speak
with, is appearing wearing a red dress, in nearly every photo
op. with the mayor. And as soon as he, and those around him
got caught up in probes and cell phone confiscation, she was a
ghost.

It’s not really her fault though. We were the first to talk to her
when she announced she was running for the Assembly and
faced incumbent Mike Miller in a primary in Woodhaven &
Richmond Hill. Our Leader Observer newspaper has been the
weekly paper of record in that area since 1909. She admitted
she moved here from Manhattan, specifically to run against
him in a district that had a low voter turnout. It’s a great story.
We loved her honesty and gave her a bunch of credit for
wanting to get into the political game any way she could.

It was brilliant. But early success, as we all know, sometimes leads to
a false sense that it’s going to be easy to move up in the
political world. By the way, not every legislator wants ‘to move
up’ as they say. Being an Assemblyman, Council representative
or Senator is a pretty successful thing – and many we report on
here see their service in these positions as a goal. But no doubt
some feel the need to move ‘up.’ But we digress.
The ‘Red Dress’ thing is a great prop. It’s a good way for people
to remember you. But people aren’t easily fooled. These days
they want substance. It’s too easy to run for office now, so we
are getting people who are movers and shakers, civic leaders
and business leaders. They don’t solely come out of democratic
clubs any longer. She happens to be sort of an outcast in the
Queens Assembly Caucus. Why? Because she wants more and
her colleagues see it. There’s time, one Queens Assembly
member told us. You can’t just move up because you are smart,
or because you have a brand. Getting elected takes work. It
takes going door-to-door to talk to the people. “… it takes
proving you can get things done.”

Cuomo Still On Top

Case in point … Andrew Cuomo. This week another poll came
out showing he still has a 25-point lead in a run for mayor ….
and he didn’t even announce. You have Stringer, Williams,
Ramos, Landor, Mamdani and Adams, each under 10%.
Cuomo has a track record of getting something done. Whether
you like it or not.

As of last week, the path to the next level for Rajkumar is in the
Public Advocate office. Moving The Goal… brilliant with
unapologetic moxie.

Jennifer Rajkumar

Is Bushwick Inlet Park on Track at Last?

After a recent demolition, the city now has access to the land it needs to begin the remediation process for the 27-acre park that Greenpoint and Williamsburg residents were promised back in 2005. Local organizers were elated, but wondered: what took so long? 

By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com

The year is 2021, and former Mayor Bill DeBlasio is apologizing as he holds up a $75 million check, flanked by local leaders from Greenpoint and Williamsburg. “A promise was made to this community a long time ago for this park,” he says, pulling down his mask, “and the city of New York did not keep the promise.”

The promise referenced by DeBlasio was made back in 2005 by his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, who included plans for the 27-acre Bushwick Inlet Park as part of a massive rezoning of the two neighborhoods that year that paved the way for the frenetic development currently reshaping the borough’s northern tip. The condos have come up, but the full stretch of green space — the announcement of which was already perceived as ‘a long time ago’ in 2021 — has yet to materialize.

Now, in 2025, real change seems to be afoot. The demolition of the enormous CitiStorage building on Kent Avenue wrapped last week, putting an end to a land struggle that had prevented the Parks Department from moving forward with construction. As with many other local sites, the grounds will still need to undergo a significant remediation process, but officials praised the progress nonetheless.

“This has been a long and drawn-out fight, but the Citi Storage facility is finally down, making way for our long promised Bushwick Inlet Park,” said Council Member Lincoln Restler. “Our community has waited for far too long to see this promised park space, and I’m thrilled that this milestone means we can finally realize the full potential of our waterfront.” 

Demolition began in summer 2024. Photo: a still from Stephen McFadden’s time-lapse.

The demolished CitiStorage building was one of two structures owned by the company that had posed problems for the park’s development. The other, a nearby warehouse, was damaged by a fire in 2015. Though it was earmarked for the park, CitiStorage attempted to sell the 7.5-acre property to private developers before the city swooped in to make a $160 million purchase. The promised park’s planners now have access to land spanning from the North 9th Street soccer field all the way across the Bushwick Inlet, leading community organizers to believe that the 2005 designs may be feasible at last. 

“The CitiStorage building sat on some of the most beautiful land in our district, and that land was held hostage for a decade since the fire, while the community fought for this outcome. The fact that the building has finally been torn down, and the park design process can move forward, represents a tremendous victory for the community,” said Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, celebrating the demolition. “This didn’t just happen — it is the result of decades of tenacious organizing from the Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, past and present local representatives, and so many community members who came together to demand that the land be used for public good, not luxury condos that would drive up prices in our district.”

Greenpoint and Williamsburg continue to have among the lowest number of parks per capita in the city, leaders say, and that gap is becoming more urgent as thousands of new residents pour into freshly-unveiled apartment complexes. There’s a climate angle, too: “As New York City increasingly becomes hotter and more expensive,” Gallagher noted, “it is essential that we fight for parks as free spaces where our neighbors can gather, find shade, and build community.”

One of the main forces pushing for the 27-acre green space to be realized has been the organization Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, which launched a campaign nearly two years ago called “Where’s Our Park?” to pressure the city into action. Its president, Katherine Conkling Thompson, said the sudden view of uninterrupted coastline afforded by the demolition was “astonishing,” and thanked her fellow organizers for their efforts.

January 2025, and the demo is complete! Photo: a still from McFadden’s time-lapse.

“Over 150 years ago, the birth of the fossil fuel industry began here,” Thompson said in a statement. “As we begin to remediate this land, restore the riparian shoreline, plant native species to create precious public open space for all people to share, we can acknowledge that this is not only an investment in the future of our beloved Brooklyn but a symbol of the victory of the people coming together to demand environmental justice and [for] the city to fulfill its rezoning promises.”

You can watch a time-lapse of the demolition here, courtesy of Stephen McFadden.

BK Hospital Celebrates Two ‘Milestone’ Heart Surgeries

The cardiac surgery team at NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn poses with hospital leadership following the successful completion of the hospital’s first Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) procedure. Photo courtesy of NYU Langone

By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com

NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn completed two open heart surgeries last week, marking a significant milestone for the borough’s healthcare system. Both patients were Brooklynites who received the procedures near home and have been recovering well, according to the surgeons.

Whereas several hospitals in Manhattan perform a particularly difficult type of heart surgery called coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), the options in Brooklyn are scarce. Mount Sinai offers CABG at its Manhattan locations, for example, but not in Brooklyn; New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital in Park Slope is one of the few borough-based sites for the surgery. 

That scarcity exists for good reason: the surgery is incredibly complicated to pull off. “[CABG] involves working on tiny coronary arteries, or blood vessels, to bypass blockages in the heart,” said Mathew R. Williams, MD, chief of adult cardiac surgery and co-director of NYU Langone Heart. “It requires extreme precision as it involves creating new ‘plumbing’ by using a graft to form a new channel for blood to flow to the heart. Unlike other heart surgeries, CABG focuses on restoring blood flow to the heart by rerouting blood around clogged arteries.”

In America, heart disease has been the leading cause of death since 1950 and over 3,000 people undergo CABG annually. The procedure, also known by the name ‘open heart bypass surgery,’ can take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours to complete, and the average life expectancy for patients after receiving the treatment is around 18 years. In fact, over 80% of people who require CABG are still alive 5 years afterwards.

“It was exciting,” said Dr. Williams, when asked about the two recent procedures. “What made it even more rewarding was seeing the patients go home just three days after surgery, feeling well and knowing they now have an improved longevity.”

A spokesperson for NYU Langone Hospital — Brooklyn explained that the successful surgeries were a “coordinated effort” by NYU Langone Heart’s experienced cardiac surgeons, specialized cardiologists, and dedicated advanced practice providers and nursing staff. The hospital announced in December that it was expanding cardiac services, and has made great strides since then. On top of the two CABG surgeries, the center’s cardiologists have also successfully performed more than 40 advanced atrial fibrillation ablations, something hospital representatives said was not available in Brooklyn previously.

Telling ‘NYC-Scale’ Stories with the MTA’s Open Data

The Subway Stories team (from left: Jediah Katz, Marc Zitelli, Julia Han) and Lisa Mae Fiedler (far right), head of the MTA Open Data initiative. Photo: Jack Delaney

By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com

“What a wonderful group of nerds we’ve put together in one room!” 

It was true: on a dismally cold Thursday night, a sold-out crowd had come to the NYC Transit Museum to listen to panelists — led by Lisa Mae Fiedler, manager of the MTA Open Data program and the evening’s first speaker — talk about maps, graphs, and charts. 

But their passion was infectious, even for a layperson. A central motif of the night was how data visualizations and more personal modes of storytelling, such as interviews, can inform each other. Fiedler illustrated this point with a particularly timely case study: subway crime. 

“My dad is here with his girlfriend,” said Fiedler. “And if anyone here has family from out of town, I think you are very familiar with the conversation — how could you possibly ride transit? It’s so dangerous on the subway, all of this crime is happening!” Anecdotes often seem to support this conclusion, she noted, but the data tell another story. She gestured at a slide showing that in the past few years crimes have hovered around one per million riders, and are trending downwards. 

A Shift Within the MTA

The concept of ‘open data’ has roots in the 1940s, when Robert King Merton advocated for the free dissemination of scientific research. The phrase was formalized in 2007, riding a wave of crowdsourced software and calls for a more democratic internet. That ethic steadily seeped into conversations about government, and in 2021 Governor Kathy Hochul signed the MTA Open Data Act, requiring the agency to make its datasets publicly available. “New Yorkers should be informed about the work government does for them every day,” Hochul said at the time, “but we have to make it easier for them to get that information.” The bill also established the role of a data coordinator, a position Fiedler has held since 2022. 

The law’s lasting result was a website, intuitive to navigate and accessible by anyone. (“As a public agency, we want our data to be usable by more than just people who are extremely tech savvy,” explained Fiedler.) That portal now boasts over 150 datasets, ranging from hourly ridership at every subway station since 2020, to which stops have Wi-Fi, and even a catalog of the MTA’s permanent art collection dating back to 1980. Eventually, the team hopes to make the site itself open source, meaning that users can contribute code to beautify it.

The MTA, which was established in 1965, provides around 2.6 billion trips per year, encompassing an enormous number of commuters and correspondingly large batches of data. It’s technically an independent entity run by a 17-person board of governors, with members recommended by the governor, New York City’s mayor, and executives from counties in the exurbs. However, its datasets are kept on the state portal (data.ny.gov), rather than the city’s analogous site (opendata.cityofnewyork.us).

When it’s not preparing data, Fiedler’s team does outreach: collaborations with media outlets such as the New York Times, blog posts, and public events like the Transit Museum talk. Another initiative is the MTA Open Data Challenge, a competition that incites citizen data enthusiasts to create projects based on the MTA’s data. The winning entry for the inaugural installment last fall was “Art off the Rails” by Stephanie Dang, an interactive map that allows New Yorkers to explore which stations have art installations.

Sonder, Storytelling, and the City’s ‘Splendor’

The event’s next presenters — Jediah Katz, Marc Zitelli, and Julia Han — were finalists in the competition, who had created an interactive map of their own called “Subway Stories.” Judges voted the project the ‘most creative storytelling,’ and it was boosted by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.

Echoing Fiedler, Katz argued that some stories about New York are too wide-ranging to be told without data. “As tempting as it is to take our own personal experiences and apply them to this city of 8 million people,” he said, “we need to resist the urge to do that.” But a tension exists, Katz conceded, because individual accounts often resonate in a way that statistics can’t. “While data is really powerful for uncovering the truth of what’s happening,” he concluded, “narrative is much more powerful for actually convincing the public.”

Katz and his co-designers envisioned “Subway Stories” (subwaystories.nyc) as a marriage of the two modes. Their map tracks five separate narratives, exploring questions such as why many Chinese-Americans take early-morning trips from South Brooklyn to Manhattan’s Chinatown, and what the heavy evening traffic on the L train says about the city’s current most popular neighborhoods for nightlife. In each case, the trio said, the starting point was some aspect of the MTA’s ridership data, which they then illuminated with an interview.

For the Chinatown story, for example, Anna Lee of Bensonhurst emphasized that many people in her community travel to Chinatown to play volleyball or basketball, work in boba shops, or call on elderly relatives. The conversation revealed a hidden angle to the data: it would be rude, Lee said, to ask older family members to travel all the way to Brooklyn, which is partly why the northbound F train spikes when it does.

The designers also solicited bite-sized anecdotes, along the lines of the NYT’s Metropolitan Diary or the Subway Creatures account on Instagram. “When reading these glimpses into [people’s lives],” Han said, “we couldn’t help but feel a profound sense of sonder,” a term for the “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.” She turned to the crowd, and asked if anyone wanted to share their own impromptu subway story. One man raised his hand — he had once spotted a high school acquaintance on the train, and texted them to ask where they were living now. They got out at his stop, and it turned out that their brother had been working in his office building, at his same company, for months: “Small world!”

During the Q&A, audience members were curious about how data collection could respect privacy, how long the project took to make, and (inevitably) the latest on congestion pricing.  For Katz, the central lesson was about storytelling. “If there’s anything I want you to take away from tonight,” he said, “it’s that data is so powerful because it’s the only way to measure New York City in its massive and chaotic splendor. But divorced from context, it can just become another sea of meaningless numbers. Only by tying data back to its source, by making it feel relevant to people’s everyday experience, can we ever hope to convince anyone of what we have to say.”

And as the event wound down, there was a shared excitement about new tools that could be crafted using the portal. “I hope that after tonight’s talk you’ll feel inspired, if you haven’t been already, to check out MTA Open Data,” said Fiedler, closing things out. “Play around with one of our datasets, and build something cool.”

Mayoral Hopefuls Vow (Mostly) United Front Against Adams and Cuomo

… and 4 more takeaways from the first major forum of the year, held last week at Brooklyn Law School.

State Senator Zellnor Myrie. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Law School

By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com

It’s shaping up to be a crowded mayoral race, and a forum in Brooklyn on Thursday gave candidates an early opportunity to set themselves apart from the pack.

Recent polling suggests that if the election happened today, voters would choose someone who hasn’t even joined the race, at least not officially: former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Per Politico, the embattled Cuomo — a pugilistic figure who has faced both sexual harassment allegations and questions over his failure to divulge the true scope of nursing home deaths during the pandemic — is supposedly weighing a February launch date for his campaign, and has been building his team behind the scenes. 

A poll from last October had Cuomo beating current Mayor Eric Adams handily in a head-to-head contest, and the latest survey was no different. Thirty two percent of respondents cited Cuomo as their top choice, versus 10% for ex-Comptroller Scott Stringer, 8% for current Comptroller Brad Lander, 7% for state Senator Jessica Ramos, 6% for Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani — and only 6% for Adams. 

But campaign ads have yet to start running, and most voters aren’t focused on the race. Analysts caution that polling this far in advance of an election is often simply a test of name recognition, which is borne out by the fact that Cuomo and Adams also drew the highest negative ratings of the pool. And since neither attended the NYC Democratic Mayoral Candidate Forum, it offered five of the lesser-known candidates a prime time slot to throw shade at the absentees while raising their own profiles.

The event, hosted by Brooklyn Law School, included Ramos, Lander, and Mamdani, along with state Senator Zellnor Myrie and former Bronx Assemblymember Michael Blake. The group agreed on many policy questions: they would each uphold the original timeline for climate goals, stop Adams from shifting retirees to a Medicare Advantage plan, and build tens of thousands of new housing units. Yet in subtle ways, the forum also revealed fault lines that may prove influential once the campaign starts in earnest. Here are a few takeaways:

*

Takeaway 1: An Olive Branch to Trump

The elephant in the room was the president-elect — all five candidates ribbed Adams relentlessly for flying to Mar-a-Lago, but were also circumspect about the need to establish a working dialogue with a figure who has long been anathema to most Democrats.

For Ramos, the closure of five hospitals in Queens in recent years demonstrated that the healthcare system was in ‘dire straits,’ and would probably need resources from the new Trump administration. 

“I’m known for being a fighter. I’m very loud, and I like to take names, right? But we also have to maintain a very professional relationship and know how to pick our battles,” she conceded. “The reality of the matter is that we depend on the federal government for a lot of funding when it comes to our infrastructure, including our transportation.”

Be that as it may, Ramos did lay out a bright line on sexual and reproductive health. “If [President Trump] tries to attack those things,” she told the audience, “you better believe I’m gonna fight.”

A packed crowd. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Law School

The state senator’s comments track with a larger trend sweeping the nation: Democrats in nearly every state are cautiously scaling back their scorched-earth approach to Trump in the wake of his inauguration, instead emphasizing collaboration. In fact, Ramos’ statement was remarkably similar to that of Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who said, “I won’t go looking for fights. I won’t back down from them, either.”

Myrie, Lander, and Blake expressed variations on this theme. But one notable counterpoint was Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who initially broke ranks with his colleagues.

“We cannot allow ourselves to be held hostage by a federal administration,” he said. “We will have to find the funding within our city and our state, and I’m confident that we can as opposed to trying to curry favor [with Trump].”

Yet roughly ten minutes later, even Mamdani softened his opposition: “I would make it clear that New York values and laws are not up for negotiation. That doesn’t mean that I would reflexively say no to each and everything.”

Takeaway 2: Mamdani Means Business

Mamdani has been cast as the socialist candidate, the furthest left in a field with its fair share of progressives. Yet top members of the Democratic Socialist Party have criticized him for running as a ‘spoiler’ who might divert voters away from other leftists like Lander, Myrie, and Ramos, who are perceived as having broader appeal. These aren’t just murmurs of discontent, either: in October, Assemblymember Emily Gallagher said in a statement that Mamdani’s campaign was “unfair to [NYC-DSA’s] project as a whole and could be ruinous.”

At the forum, however, Mamdani made a point of stressing his caché with moderates, using very few buzzwords as he laid out a slate of policies that largely resembled those of his opponents. 

“Any candidate running for mayor,” he said in his opening remarks, “has to run with a platform that speaks to all 8.3 million people who call this city their home.”

Yet Mamdani did take a hard stance — aligning with NYC-DSA — on reforming the police department.

“I would treat the NYPD like every other city agency,” he said, explaining that he would place the department under civilian control, crack down on overtime, and reduce what he viewed as staffing bloat. “[It] does not need to have an 80-plus person communications department. I didn’t need to see a five minute video shot by drones of how the NYPD invaded Columbia University. We need one to two people to be able to share the basic facts.”

The bottom line is that Mamdani is hoping to be more than a spoiler, and his robust fundraising and social media presence may help. His campaign is almost neck-and-neck with Lander and Ramos in the polls, an early sign that other candidates may have to take his bid seriously as the race wears on. 

(Cold) Takeaway 3: Rikers Isn’t Closing Soon

In November, a judge held the city in contempt for its handling of the Rikers Island jail complex, threatening to turn jurisdiction over to the federal government. New York is legally required to shutter the facility by 2027, but a plan to replace it with a distributed array of  borough-based jails has stalled. Just last week, the judge held a hearing on how a receivership might work, though the takeover is still up in the air.

So when moderators asked the candidates whether they would commit to closing Rikers on time, it was a question with newfound urgency. The response was the same across the board: yes, it would be shut down, but not by 2027 — and no one shared a specific plan for when and how they would accomplish a feat that has evaded city officials for over a decade.

State Senator Jessica Ramos. Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Law School

“I would love to uphold the deadline,” said Ramos. “The truth is, I don’t know if I can, because nothing has been done by this current administration for the past three years.” 

The rest of the mayoral hopefuls were of similar minds. “We are facing some real administrative obstacles,” Myrie added, “and we have to be honest about that. But I’d be doing everything possible to get it closed on as close to that timeline as possible.”

Takeaway 4: Ballot Maneuvers Are on the Table

As is tradition, each candidate claimed to be uniquely qualified for the job. A former Obama staffer and small business owner, Blake said he alone had the local, state, and federal experience required to negotiate with Trump; Lander asserted that he was the only candidate in the race who was not taking contributions from real estate developers, and touted his track record of fighting corruption. Yet despite this jockeying, there was a consensus that infighting would have to be set aside if it detracted from the larger goal of defeating Adams and Cuomo. 

New York’s 2021 elections used a new system, ranked-choice voting, which was employed again for the second time in the 2024 cycle. The name says it all: instead of choosing one candidate, voters can rank up to five options. If a candidate takes more than half of first-choice votes, they win outright. If not, the voting continues through several rounds to decide a winner. The system was proposed as a solution to low turnout, but it also opens the door for candidates to benefit from higher rankings through alliances. 

Although no assurances were made — ”I am still willing to be swayed by my fellow colleagues,” said Ramos, “so I don’t have an exact order yet” — most of the candidates at the NYC Democratic Mayoral Candidate Forum seemed open to a concerted ballot strategy if it would topple the incumbents. 

”We have to get this right, because if Maya Wiley and Catherine Garcia had cross-ranked and cross-endorsed each other [in 2021], one of them would be mayor right now,” said Lander. “And our mayor would not be flying to Mar-a-Lago.”

A Dust Cloud Blows in Brooklyn

Residents of the Columbia Waterfront District say a nearby cement operation is making their air purifiers go ‘berserk.’ The DOT claims it’s under control.

After the rally, Amanda Zinoman and fellow residents block a DOT vehicle from entering the cement recycling facility. Photo: Jack Delaney

By Jack Delaney | jdelaney@queensledger.com

What you need to know:

  • Columbia St residents are calling for the closure of a cement recycling facility run by the city, which they say is causing both noise and air pollution.
  • The DOT says that the recycling is critical to reducing emissions, and claims it has introduced safety measures. However, local leaders have posted footage that suggests these measures have not been implemented consistently.
  • City officials reiterated that the site will remain open during a meeting last week, but area pols said they would visit soon to ensure that dust mitigation efforts are occurring.

Read on:

I’m shivering as I peer down at the man in the beanie’s phone, which shows a dramatic scene —it’s a video seemingly taken by a drone around sunset, in which a roughly fifty-foot tall cloud of dust blows off a mound of concrete rubble by the docks and billows ominously inland, toward the homes of Red Hook — when the rally takes a turn.

The public statements are over, and a clump of elected officials hangs back to answer questions. But local resident Amanda Zinoman, wearing a neon orange beanie of her own, is leading a group of protesters to the gates of the cement recycling plant on Columbia Street. They’ve spotted two newcomers: a pair of Department of Transportation workers is pulling up to their site in a truck, and Zinoman’s cohort is determined to stop them.

“We need a real solution — no more air pollution!” the residents chant, standing shoulder to shoulder to block the entry. “Shut it down!” A TV cameraman swoops in; soon an NYPD car arrives on the scene, and two officers step out to appraise the situation. A small crowd of protesters, including a man in a luchador mask, a local named Luke, cheers from the sidelines. For their part, the DOT employees seem more mystified than miffed.

The energy swells, and then — in an instant — dissipates. The officers calmly usher the picketers aside, the truck rolls ahead, and soon most of the rallygoers head home.

Yet discussions with parents and tenants who lingered for hours in the 30-degree weather suggest that local opposition to the recycling facility, which opened approximately one year ago in what was originally billed as a temporary relocation, is unlikely to subside anytime soon. 

Local legend John Leyva, pictured above, was the rally’s MC. Photo: Jack Delaney

At issue is whether SIM Municipal Recycling, which was moved to the current site to make way for offshore wind infrastructure at the South Brooklyn Terminal, poses a significant pollution risk to those living nearby. 

In theory, concrete recycling is a step towards sustainability: cement production alone accounts for 8% of global emissions, and when a French firm unveiled the world’s first housing complex to be built with 100% recycled concrete in 2022, developers in the U.S. took note —  it seemed like a promising path to meeting lofty climate goals.

On the local level, however, the crushed concrete produced by recycling facilities is still crystalline silica, which can be hazardous to humans if inhaled. The DOT has previously said that the Columbia Street site uses safety measures — mainly keeping the dust wet with sprinklers — that prevent it from becoming airborne.

“Concrete recycling is an important part of NYC DOT’s safety and accessibility work, and this plant was relocated temporarily to accommodate the city’s critical, climate-saving offshore wind operations. We are taking all the necessary steps to keep the public safe—though in response to community feedback, NYC DOT has taken new measures to decrease the size of the recycled material piles in this plant and further reduce dust and noise.” 

But residents at the rally questioned whether these measures were being consistently implemented, and shared stories of how the facility was impacting their wellbeing.

“I’ve had grey dust in my home daily since February 2024,” said local Geraldine Pope. “I needed to install air purifiers in every room. I wake up in the morning with a dusty cough. I cannot open my windows anymore because the air is now toxic to me.”

Rob Petrone, a resident who lives directly across from the site, had similar complaints. “I can’t open my garbage pail or hold my stair rail without getting gray toxic dust on my hands, I can’t open my window without my air purifier going berserk,” he said, noting that no neighbors were given advance notice of the relocation. “So many of us have kids, and this is what they breathe daily as they walk to school, as they go to parks, as they play sports.” 

Corroborating their claims, a man quietly pointed to the roof of a nearby car, which was — sure enough — covered in the much-discussed dust. 

Zinoman was frustrated that the DOT was, in her view, refusing to recognize a reality that was clear to those on the ground. “Why are my lungs feeling so shit? I live right here — of course that’s it,” she said. “Look at his car! You can see it in the air, it’s not abstract.”

Like Petrone, resident Ivan Martinovic felt particular urgency as a parent. “We have a concrete plant three blocks away from our school,” he said, referencing PS 29. “Let that sink in. I don’t know if I would be here if I didn’t have a son, but I am here, and I’m inclined to speak. I’m here for his classmates. I’m here for the kids in next year’s incoming class, the future. The community deserves better.”

A truck eventually passes through, as residents continue to chant. Photo: Jack Delaney

Another sticking point is the noise pollution, which several protesters said begins around 6 a.m. and ‘shakes the foundations’ of their homes. In December, DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said that noise minimizers had been installed on nearly all of the site’s vehicles and equipment, yet concerns remain.

Local electeds have been taking note. Following a rally last November, Council Member Shahana Hanif, Congresmember Dan Goldman, Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, and state Senator Andrew Gounardes sent a joint letter demanding that the facility be shut down by the end of 2024. The DOT demurred, promising last year that it would suspend operations on days when winds exceed 30 mph, adopt further mitigation strategies and look for a new site. But “these commitments have not been fulfilled,” the letter alleged. “Dust emissions persist, and operations continue despite high winds.”

At the event on Wednesday, officials said that the DOT response had outlined a plan for more water trucks and other tools to keep the piles of recycled concrete aggregate, or RCA, wet and therefore contained. But like residents, they were skeptical that the measures were being enacted. “We’ve seen enough footage from when that letter was sent to us up until now,” said CM Hanif, “to know that that’s not true.”

The day after the rally, Hanif and her colleagues met with Rodriguez and Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi to demand the ‘immediate closure’ of the facility. The results were mixed: a spokesperson for Hanif’s office said that the the duo declined, citing potential delays to other city projects. Instead, they shared progress on mitigation efforts, such as an irrigation system that Rodriguez had previously asserted would be rolled out in February.

Residents aren’t appeased. “Anytime there’s a dangerous situation, it gets shut down until you can figure everything out,” said John Leyva, as Zinoman stared down the DOT truck. “This can’t go on for another six months.” 

 

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