It’s Tuesday.
Weather: Chilly and clear, high of 39. Likewise tomorrow, then a chance of flurries Thursday.
Alternate-side parking: in effect till Christmas.
“Gender equity” on the City Council
In politics, 2018 has been called the Year of the Woman.
Nationwide, more women ran for office this year than in recent memory, helping Democrats win control of the House of Representatives.
But women on the New York City Council are a shrinking minority. Only 11 out of 51 council members are women. That’s down from 18 in 2009.
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“Our voice is completely missing from the Council’s oversight mission in these key areas,” said Carlina Rivera, a councilwoman from Manhattan. Another dozen committees only have one female member.
Go beyond the headlines.
What’s new: The City Council’s Women’s Caucus, led by Ms. Rivera and Margaret S. Chin, is working to correct the imbalance.
For the first time, the caucus has hired an executive director paid out of the Council’s general budget rather than an individual lawmaker’s staff budget: Julie Kim, a former program manager at the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.
“At a time when reproductive, immigrant and gender rights are being challenged every day, the work of the caucus needs to be felt throughout this city,” said Ms. Kim, who also founded the Asian American Feminist Collective. “My role is to be the person who is focused on gender equity at the City Council.”
Suspension for guards after baby was yanked from mother’s arms
Nikita Stewart and Ashley Southall of The Times report:
Friday scandal: This weekend, video of security guards and police officers forcibly prying a 1-year-old from his mother’s arms inside a Brooklyn food stamp office surfaced on social media.
The video shows the mother, Jazmine Headley, sitting on the floor with her baby because there were no seats. After a verbal dispute, security guards called the police. Officers surrounded Ms. Headley and pulled the child away. Ms. Headley was later arrested.
Monday fallout: Two security officers were placed on leave for calling the police.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called the incident “disturbing.” Borough President Eric Adams of Brooklyn likened it to families being separated at the Mexican border.
Ms. Headley, 23, was charged with resisting arrest, acting in a manner injurious to a child, obstructing governmental administration and trespassing.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Jewish, too?
The congresswoman-elect, who describes herself as a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx, said at a Jackson Heights synagogue this weekend that she has Jewish ancestry, Shane Goldmacher reports in The Times.
“As is the story of Puerto Rico, we are a people that are an amalgamation,” she said. “We are no one thing. We are black; we are indigenous; we are Spanish; we are European.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Mr. Goldmacher reported, “provoked some outrage earlier this year when she referred to Israel’s ‘occupation of Palestine,’ in an interview with PBS, citing Israeli settlements. As she was asked to expand on her thoughts, she added she was ‘not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.’”
Best of The Times
Kennedy Airport’s food gets upgraded: The chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten is in charge.
Amazon’s addition to Long Island City: “25,000 Amazon workers will produce 2.5 million gallons of wastewater per day,” which isn’t much by city standards.
Inside job at Bloomberg L.P.: A former executive is said to have paid kickbacks to a construction company.
Every step you take: Personal location data — including a trip to Gracie Mansion — was sold to companies throughout New York City.
Moving tribute: A new MoMA piece honors the dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton.
What we’re reading
Atticus Finch, reimagined: What is Aaron Sorkin’s Broadway play doing to the Harper Lee character? [The New Yorker]
SantaCon, pictured: Images from the annual pub crawl. [Gothamist]
Big tent: A circus performance for children with visual, hearing and other impairments. [WSJ]
Human dreidel: He wants you to know happiness is your birthright. [Jewlicious]
Pic of the day
The Times’s J. David Goodman reports:
The image above shows what the Citicorp building in Long Island City might look like with Amazon’s logo on it.
It’s from a collection of documents detailing how New York successfully lured the company to Queens, released yesterday by the city’s Economic Development Corporation.
Among New York’s arguments for opening an office here: Amazon could use Governors Island as a kind of inside-the-city retreat for employees.
Coming up today
Vogueing pioneers show how it’s done at BRIC in Brooklyn. 7 p.m. [Free]
Fashionable New Yorkers at the Museum of the City of New York talk about personal style. 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. [$15]
Live ice carving of an animal menagerie at the Grace Building in Midtown. Noon to 1:30 p.m. [Free]
Remember Napster? Reflect on media innovations that failed and succeeded at the Prospect Heights Brainery. 6:30 p.m. [$12]
Tango lessons and a live tango quartet at the Django in the Roxy Hotel. 7:30 p.m. [Free with two-drink minimum]
The authors Keith Gessen, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Hannah Lillith Assadi read at LIC Bar in Long Island City. 8 p.m. [Free]
— Elisha Brown
Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.
And finally: Mandarin duck eats the news cycle
The Mandarin duck is an icon. He’s been drawing crowds to Central Park since his mysterious arrival there just over a month ago. Now, his face is on jackets and sweatshirts.
So I wondered: Just how famous is he?
I asked a New York Times researcher to count the number of articles that mention the Mandarin duck.
Using search engines like Google, Nexis, Factiva and TV Eyes, we found nearly 300 news stories and mentions of the Mandarin duck from Oct. 31 to Dec. 7.
But search engines aren’t perfect, so we may have missed a few. (Some broadcast outlets had transcripts that referred to the “Mandarin Dock.”)
Quick and totally not-biased results: The New York Times had 12 mentions of the duck (you’re welcome), Gothamist had 11 (take that!) and The Washington Post had four (nice try).
F.Y.I., the researcher who compiled this information had one note to add: “I didn’t include Jezebel in the tally, but they had my favorite headline: ‘We Thought About Eating the Hot Duck but Apparently He Tastes Bad.’”
Make Tuesday your news day.
Metropolitan Diary: Rain’s playing a jazz concert
Dear Diary:
Jazz Street. Rain playing streets
like grand pianos. The horns blow
hot & cool. The melody a jiggly
fish caught in the Hudson River
My favorite street in Manhattan.
Around Forty Third and Lexington.
The wet shoes sing like Billie Holiday.
The beat of the rain a jazz concert
in the street. The ears of pigeons
listen to the wind suggest shelter.
A building with an arm holding
up a large umbrella.
The coos of the pigeon
jazz pianists who enjoy tickling
the ivories. Count Basie,
Duke Ellington jumping
over fireplugs and never
looking back. Ornette Coleman
getting into a taxi. John Coltrane
eating a bag of chestnuts.
Traffic lights humming along.
The sound of the subway
stumbling the stairs
to hurl their riffs under
the feet of pedestrians’ feet.
Turning a lunch hour
into a dessert, jazz
very sweet. The beautiful face of music.
Every rain puddle a blue lake.
The ears of the street
bearing the drums, piano and horns.
Every sound a slice of cake.
— Ernest Slyman
by nytimes.com
