Today is Monday, November 2nd, 2026
The forecast calls for a sunny, pleasant day, with a high of 67. The mild temperatures should continue for the rest of the week, but clouds are expected to roll in on Thursday, with the possibility of late afternoon thundershowers, followed by more rain and possible thunderstorms on Friday.
On this date in 1993, Rudy Giuliani defeated incumbent David Dinkins in the city’s mayoral race, becoming the first Republican elected to that office since 1965. The former federal prosecutor would serve two terms, and would be dubbed “America’s Mayor” and Time’s 2001 Person of the Year for his leadership in the aftermath of 9/11. But his post-mayoral career was rockier, with an aborted presidential campaign in 2008; he later joined President Trump’s legal team and was disbarred by both New York State and Washington D.C. in 2024 after a court ruled that he made false and misleading statements while challenging the 2020 election results. Now 82, he currently is reported to be in poor health and living in Florida.
Notices
Our calendar has lots of local events. Click on the link or the lady in the upper righthand corner to check.
Tomorrow is Election Day, and most city, state, and federal offices will be closed. Information on voting hours and how to find your polling place is — HERE.
There will be NO trash, composting, or recycling pickup tomorrow, in observance of Election Day. If your normal pickup day for those materials is Tuesday, you can put them out tomorrow evening, for collection that will begin on Wednesday. However, sanitation department officials caution that there is always a backlog of materials that need to be picked up after holidays, and delays sometimes occur.
The American-Italian Cancer Foundation’s Mammogram bus will be parked outside City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s district office (563 Columbus Avenue at West 87th Street) on Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Any woman between the ages of 40 and 75, who is a city resident and hasn’t had a mammogram in the last year, is eligible to receive one with no fees or co-pays. For an appointment, call 877-628-9090.
On Sunday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the Animal Care Centers of NYC will be outside Brewer’s office (address above) providing microchipping and vaccinations free of charge for dogs and cats. Proof of NYC residency required, and owners must be at least 18 years of age. No sick, feral, or outdoor animals. Limited appointments available; register — HERE.
News Roundup
Compiled by Laura Muha
Armed with handheld stop signs, members of an e-bike safety group rallied in Central Park last week to bring attention to the dangers that scofflaw cyclists and e-bike riders are creating on the redesigned park roadways.
The protestors, who belong to the E-Vehicle Safety Alliance (EVSA), lined the road near the West 72nd Street entrance to the park, urging the cyclists to stop as they sped downhill toward a pedestrian crossing, reported the website W42st.com.
“Some riders complied, while others continued through the intersection despite the volunteers’ warnings and official stop signs already posted along the roadway,” reported the website, adding that “[f]or EVSA Director Janet Schroeder, the fact that volunteers felt compelled to remind riders to stop illustrated the problem they were there to highlight.”
“If you’re not going to stop, we’re going to tell you to stop,” Schroeder said. “And is it really our job to do that? No, we shouldn’t have to do that.”
The city banned cars in the park in 2018, but a pilot program implemented in 2023 opened its roadways to e-bikes and other “micromobility” devices. In addition, traffic signals were adjusted last year, so that many of them now blink instead changing from green to yellow to red to tell cyclists to stop. Schroeder told the Daily News the switch has been a disaster. “When they [cyclists] see yellow, they see green,” Schroeder told the Daily News. “When they see red flashing, that’s like yellow. … Why are bikes being prioritized over pedestrians?”
But, while acknowledging the concerns of e-bike opponents, Central Park Conservancy President Betsy Smith wrote in an op-ed for cityandstateny.com that banning the vehicles is easier said than done. “Increasingly, we hear from visitors that people can feel anxious about their safety in the Park because speeding bikes, e-bikes, and a fast-growing fleet of other e-mobility devices are moving with too much velocity and too little regard for anyone else,” she wrote. “… It’s initially tempting to say that e-bikes should simply be banned. But that fails to recognize that bikes and e-bikes have become a legitimate mode of clean, efficient transit for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers every day.”
Smith proposed that, instead of banning e-bikes, Central Park “serve as a proving ground for new strategies and ideas that can be applied far beyond our 843 acres.” Her proposals included zero tolerance for violations; more and safer bike lanes on the roads surrounding the park so cyclists can take alternate routes, and crossing guards stationed at the most dangerous intersections.
Read the W42St.com story — HERE, the Daily News story — HERE, and Smith’s op-ed — HERE.
Work has begun on a $35.7 million water management project at the north end of Central Park that, when completed in 2028, should keep 132 million gallons of stormwater out of city sewers every year.
The project will connect three bodies of water in the northern part of the park— the Harlem Meer, the Loch and the Pool — via a recirculating system that will divert water from the Meer and pump it south of the Pool, reported the construction industry website constructconnect.com. From there, “[w]ater will then flow back through the system by gravity,” the site said.
The loop serves a number of purposes. It will keep stormwater out of city sewers because it will enable park to drop water levels in the Meer and other bodies of water as storms approach, creating more capacity for runoff. It also will reduce the park’s reliance on the drinking-water supply to replenish those same bodies of water when levels get too low, something that will help to conserve a projected 175 million gallons of drinking water every year. And the movement of water through the recirculating system water should help prevent algae blooms that often plague bodies of water in the park in warmer months.
More details — HERE.
The NYPD announced that it has stepped up its presence in Central Park in response to the rape reported near the East 66th Street entrance last month. However, the department released no details of the new deployment plan, and in a statement reminded park goers “to always be aware of their surroundings and to remain vigilant.”
The rape, on October 24th, was the fifth reported in the park this year — suspects have been arrested in three of them — and the latest in a recent rash of crimes that has raised concerns about the park’s safety, The New York Times reported. A homeless artist who lived in the park was killed there in September, and two weeks ago, a woman riding her bicycle was hit on the head and robbed by three men who took off with her AirPods.
The cyclist, Katherine Marroquin, told the Times that police needed to do more to make the park safer. “They’re not doing a good job if that happened to me on a Sunday night and somebody else got raped on a Saturday,” she said.
Read the full story — HERE.
While politicians and animal rights activists are congratulating one another over the passage of a law that will phase out horse-drawn carriages in Central Park by 2028, New York Magazine columnist Errol Louis took a deeper and more critical dive into what it really means, and concluded that “things get a little murkier when you try to define exactly what the Council accomplished.”
The bill directs Mayor Zohran Mamdani to develop a program to assist owners of horses “that includes consideration of whether to establish a program to compensate horse-drawn cab owners for the value of their horse-drawn cab businesses, horse-drawn cab licenses, and equipment,” Lewis wrote. “That iffy-sounding ‘consideration of whether to establish’ fair compensation for the medallion owners and the bill’s lack of any money for compensation, retraining, or job placement almost guarantee the matter will end up in court.”
He quoted from a Daily News editorial that placed the value of medallions for the operation of horse-drawn carriages at about $400,000 apiece: “Once the medallions are voided, the value is zero. That is a theft of property. Theft is still illegal even if wrapped up in a City Council bill,” the editorial said.
Louis asked City Council Speaker Julie Menin — a leading proponent of the bill — how exactly the Council planned to address this. “We’re going to do a working group, where we want to have some of the drivers, TWU medallion owners, and of course the administration so that we can properly have almost two years to work on that plan,” she told him.
Read the full story — HERE.
In Other UWS News
- The YouTube design channel Homeworthy recently featured the UWS apartment of Annie Taylor, an arts philanthropist and collector. See the video — HERE.
- One person was injured in a fire that broke out in a four story building at the corner of West 70th and Columbus last week, Patch reported. Read the full story — HERE.
- Lightstone, a real estate development and investment firm is buying the 174-unit rental building at 323 West 96th Street (between Riverside and West End) for a reported $88 million, with acquisition financing handled by JLL Capital Markets, reported the real estate website connectcre.com. Read the story — HERE.
ICYMI
E bikes in the park: just block lanes and roads with heavy plastic construction barriers requiring riders to stop and /or slow down.
Just block park bike lanes with walls, stones or construction barriers as is done on Brooklyn Prominade.
Horse carriages are hardly the scourge that pedicabs are. Regulate them, severely, and enforce those regulations.
What’s really needed in the park are raised platform-type speed bumps at major crossings, which would force riders to slow down. And I don’t have sympathy for Tour de France rider types who want to race in the early hours and would object to these bumps. The park drive is not a velodrome.
PS: The continued conflating of all e-bike types doesn’t help the conversation around the problems speeding riders pose in the park and on the streets.
Electric-assist bikes (like e-Citibikes) require riders to pedal. The kind ridden by deliveristas, which require no pedaling, are really mopeds. Granted, both are dangerous when the operator speeds or otherwise breaks road rules, but mopeds can go fast without rider effort and are often ridden recklessly because the deliveristas are trying to make a buck.
The other e-bike story: people are dying in house fires triggered by e-bike lithium batteries. This is your wonderful green revolution.
I don’t buy that eBikes shouldn’t be banned in the park because they are clean and efficient forms of transportation. So are Teslas and thise are banned.
A few years ago after a crime at night in Central Park, police officers were stationed along some of the major pedestrian paths. As I remember, that lasted a few nights and then back to the way it was.
For a long time, a ban on horse carriages was easier said than done and the Central Park Conservancy did it and have no real solution for lost union jobs! We legalized e-bikes in 2019 and opened Pandora’s box, now close it. Politics is about fear and the bike freaks at TransAlt and Open Planning Project have mastered this and the Central Park Conservancy is afraid of them!
They want to make a case for a bike lane on 5th Avenue which would also make it worse for hundreds of our union brothers who drive buses there!
I just returned from 10 days in London. Never once did I see an e bike or scooter on a sidewalk. Never once did I see an e bike go the wrong way up a one way street. I looked carefully at lights and the bicyclists were observing the lights. As well I saw only one scaffold on my miles of walking London Streets. We can do better on all fronts here.
I don’t understand why the city can act quickly to ban horse drawn carriages in the park after the tragic death of a tourist but nothing is being done to egregious and dangerous bike riders after several deaths of pedestrians