Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at how the federal government shutdown is playing out in New York. We’ll also get to the bottom of a rumor that the Yankees kept Red Sox fans out of Yankee Stadium during Game 1 of the American League Wild Card series.
Ana Maria Carreño, a 21-year-old Colombian who is spending a week in New York City, arrived at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site on Wednesday hoping to learn more about the 26th president. Her friend Juanita Corredor said that Carreño had described the Rough Rider chief executive as “one of the best presidents the U.S. had” on their way there. “And the teddy bear,” Corredor said, mentioning the stuffed toy that was inspired by a presidential hunting trip. But the lights at the birthplace site were off and the doors were locked, the result of a government shutdown. A few miles away, Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that one of the country’s best-known symbols, the Statue of Liberty’s torch, could go dark in the shutdown. Proposals to end the stalemate failed in the United States Senate on Wednesday, and Democrats and Republicans dug in for what could be an extended fight — and an extended shutdown. In New York, the Statue of Liberty, which like the Roosevelt birthplace is run by the National Park Service, is expected to close next week once its federal funding runs out. The statue stood in the distance as Hochul appeared at a news conference in Lower Manhattan, blaming Republicans for the shutdown. “It sucks,” she said when she was asked to summarize her feeling about the shutdown before mentioning “the moral responsibility we have as New Yorkers, as protectors of this Statue of Liberty and all she stands for.” There were other signs of the shutdown: Asylum seekers who showed up for scheduled appointments found that their hearings had been canceled as the pace slowed at the federal government building in Lower Manhattan that has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Hochul warned that the torch could go dark, “not because of an act of God or a horrific storm or a flood or hurricane, but literally because Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington forced a government shutdown.” She said that thousands of federal workers would be furloughed while those considered essential — like air traffic controllers and employees of the Transportation Security Administration — work without pay. During the last shutdown, in December 2018 and January 2019, T.S.A. agents called in sick at higher-than-usual rates, leading to long lines. And while travelers worried about flight delays on Wednesday, tourism officials worried that visitors would simply stay home. A spokeswoman for New York City Tourism + Conventions, the city’s tourism arm, said that “a prolonged shutdown would have wide-ranging and disruptive effects.” She said the timing was “especially concerning” because the fourth quarter of any year is “historically” the busiest, with the biggest crowds and the most spending, “meaning the impact of a shutdown could be even more severe.” City officials said that nearly 65 million visitors arrived in New York last year and spent more than $51 billion before they went home. Hochul suggested that the state would not pay to keep the Statue of Liberty — one of the most popular tourist sites in New York — open, as her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, did during a shutdown in 2013. That shutdown, resulting from a standoff over funding for the Affordable Care Act, lasted 16 days. Cuomo arranged for New York State to pay the Park Service $61,000 a day for its personnel to operate Liberty Island and the statue. This time, Hochul warned of other disruptions, including delays in processing applications for Social Security and veterans’ benefits. She also said supplemental nutrition programs could run out of funds. At the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace, Carreño and Corredor could do nothing more than snap photographs of the building from the sidewalk. Carreño said she had followed news of the negotiations in Washington and had assumed that differences could be worked out without a shutdown. “This is shocking,” she said. WEATHER Today will be sunny with a high near 66. Tonight, the sky will be partly cloudy with a low near 53. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended today (Yom Kippur). The latest metro news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Did the Yankees try to keep Red Sox fans out?
Before Game 1 of the American League Wild Card series on Tuesday, a rumor circulated: Red Sox fans would be barred from Yankee Stadium. My colleague David Waldstein writes that the truth was less conspiratorial. Ticketmaster, the Yankees-sanctioned ticket seller, allowed sales only to credit cards with billing addresses in four states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or Pennsylvania. The implication seemed clear to some. Red Sox fans were not welcome. But some Boston fans bought tickets on several resale sites, some for $200 or more, and cheered loudly, as they usually do in the Bronx. For many years, teams in various sports have sought to restrict fans from opposing cities from getting inside their stadiums during big games. They hope to have only their loyal fans in attendance, to ramp up the home-field advantage. But the Yankees said that was not the case on Tuesday. Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ vice president of communications and media relations, said the team had had the restriction since 2018 to stymie automated purchasing bots and mass resales and jacked-up prices, not to boost the decibel level for the home team. METROPOLITAN DIARY Familiar face
Dear Diary: My son, James, and I walked into Milady’s on Prince Street in May 1988. We sat down at a two-top and ordered chicken sandwiches and a couple of beers. My back was to the door, so my view was all interior, with a pool table and jukebox in my sight line. A very familiar figure was chalking a cue. I had seen him before, but only in huge arenas where I had to watch him on screens because I was so far from the stage. Once, I won two front-row seats in a radio call-in contest to see him at Kiva Auditorium in Albuquerque when he was doing an acoustic tour. He was a musical beacon who guided me through tough years of single motherhood, the reason I spent money on concerts I couldn’t afford in Denver and Oakland. I bit at my sandwich slowly, surprised I could eat at all. When we had finished the food and downed our beers, we ordered another round. James had chalked our names on the board, and when it was our turn, we picked up our bottles and walked toward the pool table. (He walked; I felt like I was floating.) We shot a game of pool, and we all played poorly, even him. We laughed at our ineptitude, and he gave me a sort of shy hug at the end. Other names were called, and we sat back down. A loud guy came in with his kid and put money in the jukebox, and “Jungleland” came on. — Marla West 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. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Hannah Fidelman and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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