Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll find out why some business improvement districts are worried that time to plan events around the World Cup games is growing short. We’ll also get details on a campaign to ban cars from city parks.
The kickoff of the first World Cup soccer match in the New York area — Brazil vs. Morocco, at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey — is now a little less than two and a half months away. Some small-to-medium-size business improvement districts are concerned that they won’t get the necessary city permits in time for World Cup-themed events that they want to hold. Alexandria Sica, the president of the Dumbo Improvement District in Brooklyn, is planning watch parties for crowds that would gather around monitors set up under the Manhattan Bridge. Her group has staged similar events during World Cup games as far back as 2010. This time around, she said, she filed applications for permits months ago but does not have “any assurance it’s going to happen.” “We need to be making concrete plans at this juncture or, quite frankly, a few months ago,” she said, adding that she wished there would be “a date certain when we would get a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down.” Jeffrey LeFrancois, the executive director of the Meatpacking District Management Association, the B.I.D. for the area between Chelsea and the West Village, said he had approached the companies behind World Cup sponsor brands and other potential corporate event sponsors. But he said that they had been unable to schedule dates for events through the city’s online portal. “We hope a lot of folks are going to choose New York for their World Cup experience, because New York has so much to offer,” he said, “but it’s unclear at this point what we’re going to be able to pull off, given how close we are.” Officials from the Mamdani administration offered “guidance” to B.I.D.s last week, a City Hall spokesman said, “encouraging them to submit applications for their proposed events.” But LeFrancois said the clock was ticking. “The city continues to tell us that they’re going to figure out a way for these things to happen, but we’re going to be 60 days out in another week,” LeFrancois said. “That’s very little time for brands and organizations big and small to execute big things.” For some B.I.D.s, money is an issue. Sica said she had spent “probably upwards of $10,000” on deposits to line up the monitors and equipment for the watch parties. “You have to order screens,” she said. “You have to hire people. We’re at the point that we have deposits down on equipment and tech people hired but no assurances.” The money, she said, “could end up being for naught.” Trey Jenkins, the executive director of the 161st Street Business Improvement District in the Bronx, said he was not sure he could pay for the monitors for a watch party a short walk from Yankee Stadium. He said the city’s Department of Transportation had asked him to schedule one watch party, and he wants his B.I.D. to arrange another on its own. “But I don’t know what the next steps are,” he said. A City Hall spokesman said that “the city will make every effort to approve events that we have adequate public safety resources for.” He said that “the administration’s top priority is, and will continue to be, public safety.” He said the city had “adjusted” the review process for permits to use streets, sidewalks and pedestrian plazas “to ensure that the city has adequate public safety resources to meet the increased demands from these major events.” Permits are usually approved one to two weeks before an event to give officials time to work through the review process, he said. Tom Harris, the president of the Times Square Alliance, one of the largest business improvement districts in the city, said that “we seem to be finding paths to getting the permits done.” He said the city had managed big events before, mentioning a month with “a papal visit, a Billy Joel concert, the United Nations General Assembly, the U.S. Open and countless Mets and Yankees games.” He said the Mamdani administration had been in office only 100 days. “They seem to be finding their way through to the process of getting to yes,” he said. WEATHER Today will be mostly cloudy with showers likely and a possible thunderstorm. Temperatures will near 76 before dropping to 47 tonight, as rainy conditions continue. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Thursday (Holy Thursday, Passover). QUOTE OF THE DAY “We didn’t want to lay an egg and fail.” — Matt Stone, a creator of “The Book of Mormon.” Quite the opposite: “Mormon” has now been on Broadway for 15 years. The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Do cars belong in parks?
Central Park is car-free. So is Prospect Park. What about other parks with roadways? A new citywide campaign is calling for a ban on personal cars in all city parks. “Parks are for people, not for cars,” said Ben Furnas, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, one of the groups behind the campaign. Traffic in parks cuts across open spaces and generates noise and pollution. Adam Ganser, the executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, the other group involved with the campaign, also said that allowing cars is unsafe and creates a fear factor because families with children and older people are afraid to cross the traffic lanes. The campaign to keep cars out of parks builds on a global movement to remake car-clogged streets for pedestrians and cyclists, an effort that accelerated during the pandemic as cities scrambled to create more outdoor spaces for urban dwellers. But cars — and traffic — have increasingly returned as cities have moved past the pandemic. In Queens, a road called Freedom Drive runs through Forest Park. It’s a shortcut for drivers, connecting Myrtle Avenue to Park Lane South at the park’s edge. It had been car-free for years. But some Queens officials, including City Councilwoman Joann Ariola, whose district includes Freedom Drive, said that residents had seen the road closing as “a constant headache” for drivers who had to take detours. In November, the local community board voted to reopen the drive, and in January, cars were allowed back for the colder months. Park-goers were not happy. “ “We really kind of fell in love with this new stretch of open space,” said Andy Smith, who lives a few blocks away and started a petition to keep cars off the road. As of today, it will be closed to traffic — again. Smith said that it was used by park-goers year-round. “There’s space to move around,” he said. “And we can let go of some of that cramped feeling we all get as New Yorkers.” METROPOLITAN DIARY Rooftop party
Dear Diary: A friend from work invited me to a rooftop party on lower Lexington Avenue. I met a charming, funny guy and was disappointed when his girlfriend arrived and joined us. A few minutes later, he introduced me to his sister Elise, who had just moved back to New York from California. We hit it off and exchanged phone numbers. It turned out she lived not far from me on the Upper East Side. We became fast friends and were almost inseparable for the next several years, hitting the city’s bars in search of boyfriends and usually ending up at a place midway between our apartments for a nightcap. Years later, we remain close and now live near each other in the suburbs. What was a minor disappointment at the party that night turned into a treasured friendship. — Bo Argentino Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
