I'm literally on my way to buy pickles, but are cucumbers really the best use of publicly owned land in Manhattan literally around the corner from an express subway station?

Half-listening to a NYC Board of Standards and Appeals hearing on an appeal of a building permit. Just a perfect example of how if you give opponents an open mic for a hyper-specific issue and they WILL air all sorts of grievances they have with the project, regardless of rules.

Tell me why the first thing I saw upon leaving this commuter train station in Montclair was a big gas station? Maybe if the land-use here was a little less auto-centric they could manage to run this train more than once every two hours on Sundays?!

Many community gardens have sparse weekday hours, but plenty remain locked up for most of the weekend too, like this NYC Parks property in Central Harlem.

Working on an article in working-class NYC, and it’s wild we give neighborhood associations immense power over land use with zero good-government standards. In NYC, they're officially part of the government! If a group gets sway over housing, force public agendas & minutes.

With @c-sommerfeldt.bsky.social reporting Councilmember Marte is planning a run for Public Advocate, it's all the more disappointing he couldn't bother to support a 100% affordable housing project in his district this week in front of the Landmarks Commission. Full story in reply👇

"How easy it is to access the bathroom in a public library" is such a great proxy for whether a city or neighborhood is a high-trust society. Unsurprisingly, the bathroom at the @nypl.bsky.social branch on 96th St in the Upper East Side is very accessible.

If you’re looking at a fenced-off lawn in Northern Manhattan, it’s almost certainly a NYCHA housing project. No private developer is dedicating prime real estate to a completely inaccessible liminal space like this.

The Harlem Rose Garden (owned by NYC Parks, but operated as @greenthumbnyc.bsky.social community garden) has ZERO open hours during the week, so disappointed but not shocked to see it closed this evening. Looks like a cool park, but sadly only open 10 hours a week (half the legal minimum).

Abyssinian Tot Lot is one of the few community gardens with an impressive playset for young kids, but unfortunately on this beautiful afternoon this city-owned "park" is locked up. No open hours posted here or online either. Must be nice for the keyholders though.

Currently watching the FDNY is at a Landmarks Commission hearing begging to use synthetic slate at Fort Totten because real stone costs 3.5x more. Classic blue city governance: layering so many veto points onto public agencies that simple maintenance becomes an expensive, delayed legal ordeal.

A lot of New Yorkers go their whole lives without realizing how hilly Northern Manhattan gets.

Bruce Garden is a publicly owned park in Inwood which looks really neat and is supposed to be open now, but of course it's locked up. Relying on volunteers is just no way to run a parks department in a modern city like NYC.

Lots of talk about the need to improve inter-agency cooperation to speed up housing approvals at the @thenyhc.bsky.social panel this mornin, so no surprise John Woelfling from Dattner Architects strongly endorsed the new ballot measure from COGE to create a centralized permitting hub.

Some of the apartment buildings with big parking lots in Brooklyn remind me of the limited number of multi-family complexes I used to see in my suburban county outside of Philly as a kid. Except there's a subway station like a block away from this parcel in Williamsburg 🤯

Worth going to the Bronx if only for the walk back to Manhattan over the High Bridge on a summer evening.

Sorry, I don't have time to get involved in the discourse about how it's crazy for normal people to live in NYC because of the cost of living. Too busy eating a $3 roast pork bun and chilling out in a nice park.

It’d be a lot easier for @nycparks.bsky.social to keep adults out of Rivington St Playground if M'finda Kalunga Garden across the walkway had more than a single 2-hour weekday evening window. Is a garden locked virtually all week actually serving the community?

I understand why American cities took down many of their elevated rail lines, but maybe it's time to build some new ones. Mostly because modern Els are much quieter. But also because waiting for a train on a summer evening is a great way to see the neighborhood.

Abyssinian Tot Lot community garden on 139th St has no posted open hours (either online or at the site) so can't say I'm surprised it's locked this evening. Site is already owned by the Parks Department; let's just turn it into a real pocket park that stays open on hot nights?

Streets are for giant gift horses from our defeated and departing Greek rivals, not cars.

It's an absolutely lovely evening in the Upper West Side, so why is La Perla Community Garden locked up? What's the point of these cool publicly owned pocket parks if they're closed even during prime hours?

I may have missed Manhattan-Henge tonight, but the view of Manhattan from Sunset Cove Park in Queens was pretty great too.

One of my favorite things about checking out a new NYC neighborhood is picking up the local hyper-local print weekly. I know NYC isn’t the only American city where you can still do this, but the list of places with thriving, ad-stuffed community papers is getting incredibly short.

The board at Clayton Williams Community Garden is an administrative fiction. It lists open hours, creating an expectation of public access. Yet it was locked up when I walked by after 3pm. A profound failure by 'community gardens' more broadly to deliver on their core purpose.

What are the chances NYC can develop the capacity to implement a residential parking permit system when it can't even stop illegal car washes from dumping chemicals while operating from on-street parking spots on commercial corridors?

Just saw a textbook example of why offset bus lanes are superior to curbside lanes down by City Hall: This FDNY truck easily sped past a recently arrived UPS truck at the curb. So why is NYC still proposing and building curbside bus lanes in 2026?

Glad I never got that invested in the World Cup, instead pouring all of my emotional energy this summer into the Phillies, who would never emotionally devastate me.

Enjoyed this Real Deal piece on the difficulty of handling clients using Al. But this case seems reasonable? Client did independent research, didn't take the first answer as gospel, worked with the agent, and made a bid after better understanding the market. It worked out!

Same day, different neighborhood: West Side Community Garden on the UWS was open late. Public green space that depends on volunteer capacity produces lush gardens where neighbors have money and time to organize, and padlocks where they don't. GreenThumb bakes the inequity in.