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It’s Monday.
Weather: Today will be mostly cloudy with a high in the mid-60s before dipping into the high 50s tonight.
Alternate-side parking: In effect until next Monday (Memorial Day).
Less than a month before the June primary election, the intensity of the New York City mayor’s race is ratcheting up. Passive exchanges between the contenders over Zoom are giving way to sharp attacks as candidates accelerate their campaign schedules and bombard voters with literature.
And many of the candidates appear to be taking aim at the two Democrats perceived to be leading the race: Andrew Yang and Eric Adams.
[Candidates still have significant war chests available to fuel a barrage of ads through the end of the race.]
The attacks
Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, recently criticized Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang, saying they were currying favor from “hedge fund billionaires.” Maya D. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer who served as counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, held a news conference last week to attack Mr. Yang’s knowledge of policing matters.
“Can you imagine a woman running to be the mayor of the largest city in the nation, not actually knowing or understanding how the Police Department works?” Ms. Wiley said.
Mr. Yang joined other candidates in criticizing Mr. Adams following a New York Times report about how he mixed money and political ambitions. Mr. Adams has also criticized Mr. Yang at campaign events recently.
The uncertainty
While Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang are seen as front-runners, there are reasons to believe the other candidates can gain momentum in the final weeks.
Public polling has been sparse. Ranked-choice voting, in which voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, has changed the dynamics of the race. And there are signs that many voters have not yet made up their minds about even their first choices.
Looking ahead
Still to come are two more Democratic debates that may help voters decide. Some high-profile party leaders have also yet to endorse a candidate.
“I was leaning toward not endorsing, I’m leaning more toward it now,” said Jumaane D. Williams, the public advocate. “If I do endorse it would be a combination of where I think I ideologically align and who I think shouldn’t run the city,” or, he added, “who I’d have concerns about running the city.”
From The Times
Adams Gets Boost With Latino Voters: 5 Takeaways From Mayor’s Race
2 Dead and 12 Wounded in House Party Shooting in New Jersey, Police Say
‘It’s Not Enough’: Living Through a Pandemic on $100 a Week
Some Famous Gems Get a New Setting
Want more news? Check out our full coverage.
The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.
What we’re reading
A woman died after falling from a rooftop during a party in the East Village, prompting calls for more oversight of unsafe rooftop gatherings. [ABC 7]
Twenty-nine people were shot this weekend across New York City. [N.Y. Post]
A woman abandoned her 7-month-old baby at a bodega in Brooklyn, before turning herself into the police. [Daily News]
And finally: Why being a Knicks fan hurts so good
The Times’s Scott Cacciola and Sopan Deb write:
Ashley Nicole Moss did not have much of a choice when she was growing up. Her father, Jeff, was a Knicks fan, which meant that she was a Knicks fan, too.
For part of her childhood in Brooklyn and Queens, Moss, 27, found that rooting for the Knicks was not such a horrible thing. When she was especially young, the team often made the playoffs and even advanced to the N.B.A. finals in 1999, which she said was among her earliest memories as a fan. So she was unprepared for the subsequent two decades, which were largely a wilderness of losing and dysfunction, of failed hopes and shattered dreams.
“It’s been a lot of disappointment and a lot of frustration,” said Moss, who is a co-host of “KnicksFanTV” on YouTube.
All of which has made this season — this glorious season — so much more special for fans like Moss. The Knicks have engineered a comeback story, sending their long-suffering fans into a fervor. While the Nets, over in Brooklyn, are brimming with high-priced talent as a championship favorite, the Knicks have gone from punchline to playoff contender in the space of several thrilling months.
“God forbid, if we win, we are going to burn this city down,” said Daniel Baker, a Knicks fan more popularly known as Desus Nice on the late-night comedy show “Desus & Mero.”
“Sorry, I’m just letting you all know,” he added.
The Knicks, with the second-lowest payroll in the league and a roster almost devoid of stars, will open their first-round series against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday night at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are seeded fourth in the Eastern Conference after finishing with a 41-31 record in the regular season.
It’s Monday — take a shot.
Metropolitan Diary: Boarding
Dear Diary:
My fiancé and I rode our bikes to Manhattan from Brooklyn last summer to meet some friends for an outdoor restaurant dinner.
As dinner ended, it began to rain — hard. We couldn’t bike back home, so we walked through the downpour to the closest train station.
Drenched, we carried our bikes down to the platform, where we saw a group of teenagers. They were a little rowdy but harmless and waiting for an uptown train, which pulled in just as the lights of the train we were waiting for started to shine down the tunnel.
Just then, without the teenagers noticing, a skateboard that belonged to one of them slipped and rolled onto the tracks. As the uptown train’s doors opened, the board’s owner turned around to grab it, only to see it where it had fallen with a train bearing down.
The teen hesitated. He was clearly considering going onto the tracks as his friends held open the doors and yelled at him to leave the board where it was.
With only seconds to spare, a transit worker who had witnessed the entire turn of events yelled from across the way and pulled out a walkie-talkie. The downtown train screeched to a halt a few feet in front of the skateboard.
The conductor put on a neon vest, swung open the train’s front door and hopped down onto the tracks. He grabbed the skateboard and handed it to the boy, who sprinted to the uptown train. His friends were still pushing against the closing doors.
— Elizabeth Blue Guess
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
