Columns Buckle at 42nd Street. Buses Get Faster. A Wrong Gets Righted.. New York Explained for July 8, 2026.

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July 8, 2026
The Front Page
Two structural columns buckled inside 235 East 42nd Street Tuesday morning, triggering an evacuation of the Midtown conversion project, 400 schoolchildren, and nearby residents; records show the building had seven "immediately hazardous" safety violations in 2025, none of them paid. [41]
Mayor Mamdani and Gov. Hochul released a joint plan to speed buses on 50 priority corridors by 20%, commit the MTA to all-door boarding by 2027, and build BRT-like routes on five outer-borough stretches; it is the first joint DOT-MTA plan in ten years. [71]
Brian Kendall was arrested in Flatbush at 16, convicted of a murder eyewitnesses said he didn't commit, and deported after serving his sentence; the Brooklyn DA concluded in 2022 he was "likely innocent" and he is now suing the NYPD for fabricating the case against him. [39]
The City Council's Governmental Operations Committee advanced an 18.2% pay raise for elected officials, their first since 2016, with good-government groups supporting the raise while warning against an automatic inflation-adjustment mechanism. [4]
The Upper East Side Legionnaires' cluster reached 23 confirmed cases and 17 hospitalizations Monday, with city officials testing 139 of 160 cooling towers in the three affected ZIP codes and still no source building identified. [78]
The Midtown Collapse ScarePhoto: Latest New York Real Estate News

The Midtown Collapse Scare

The city's largest office-to-residential conversion nearly fell from the inside out, and The City Reporter found that officials had known about the site's safety problems since spring 2025.

3 of 9 desksSee the breakdown →
The Bus PlanPhoto: gothamist

The Bus Plan

2 of 9 desks
 25 Years in the Wrong CellPhoto: the city

25 Years in the Wrong Cell

1 of 9 desks
Story: the day’s big ones, in their own words and numbers

The Midtown Collapse Scare

The city's largest office-to-residential conversion nearly fell from the inside out, and The City Reporter found that officials had known about the site's safety problems since spring 2025.

The Midtown Collapse Scare
Photo: Latest New York Real Estate News

Two structural columns on the 21st floor of 235 East 42nd Street, the former Pfizer headquarters being converted to 1,600 apartments by developer MetroLoft, buckled Tuesday morning after workers reported bricks falling; the FDNY established a collapse zone, evacuated 400 children from a school in the immediate area, and shut down 42nd and 43rd streets between First and Third Avenues. [41] The buckled columns sit directly below a planned "horizontal bump-out" expansion widening floors 23 through 32, though Buildings Department officials say investigators have not determined whether the expansion played a role. [74] By Tuesday evening, engineers found no further movement in the damaged columns and authorized contractors to begin installing temporary shoring; some nearby residents were allowed home while others awaited clearance. [80]

“The box beams — the steel beams — had started to bend.”
FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito, on what inspectors found inside · [41]
“We want to confirm that the affected area is a small section of one of the two buildings on this site.”
MetroLoft Senior Managing Director Mitchell Wasser · [74]
By the numbers
  • 7construction safety violations at 235 East 42nd in 2025, all classified "immediately hazardous"; certificates of correction accepted, no fines paid [103]
  • $98.7 millionestimated project cost; MetroLoft also plans four new rooftop floors and a 19-level addition to an adjacent building [80]
  • 400children evacuated from a nearby school [41]
The thread
  1. Spring 2025:DOB began receiving complaints about unsafe conditions at the job site, records obtained by The City Reporter show [41]
  2. Dec 2025:235 GC LLC cited for failing to notify DOB of a worker injury, a $10,000 penalty; second December violation for a worker falling six feet from an unlevel ladder [103]
  3. Today:Columns buckle on the 21st floor; evacuation; stabilization work begins by evening [41]
WatchDOB and FDNY are investigating what caused the failure, including whether the bump-out contributed; stabilization work continues into the coming days. [74]
FromThe City ReporterGothamistLatest New York Real Estate News

The Bus Plan

For 2 million daily riders on some of the slowest bus routes in America, Wednesday's city-state plan is the first detailed commitment to fix the problem in ten years, with the "free" half of Mamdani's campaign promise nowhere in it.

The Bus Plan
Photo: gothamist

Mayor Mamdani and Gov. Hochul released "Next Stop: Better Buses, Faster Service" Wednesday, described as the first joint DOT-MTA plan in a decade, targeting a 20% speed increase on 50 priority corridors and, for the first time, a formal MTA commitment to all-door boarding by 2027. [71] The city will advance 28 ongoing street redesigns with dedicated bus lanes and install 25 new queue-jump signals per year; five corridors will get BRT-like treatments with center-running lanes and level boarding: Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn (targeted for 2030), Utica Avenue in Brooklyn, Northern Boulevard in Queens, Church-to-Conduit between Brooklyn and Queens, and Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. [121] Mamdani controls the streets but not the MTA; he campaigned on buses that are "fast AND free," and MTA Chair Janno Lieber has not moved on fares. [71]

“In a place where every minute counts, some buses crawl at 5 mph. The wealthiest city in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world shouldn't have some of the slowest buses in America.”
Mayor Mamdani, from the plan document · [71]
By the numbers
  • 2 millionNew Yorkers ride the 50 priority corridors daily [71]
  • 20%targeted speed increase on those corridors [71]
  • 90%of bus routes currently lack dedicated bus-lane infrastructure [71]
  • 2027target year for all-door boarding citywide [71]
WatchFlatbush Avenue BRT corridor opens 2030; all-door boarding by 2027; 25 queue-jump signals per year beginning now. The practical test: whether the city enforces the bus lanes it already has before adding new ones. [121]
FromGothamistStreetsblog New York City

25 Years in the Wrong Cell

Brian Kendall was a skinny 16-year-old. Eyewitnesses consistently described the shooter as a heavyset man in his mid-20s. Brooklyn detectives built a murder case against Kendall anyway.

25 Years in the Wrong Cell
Photo: the city

Kendall was pulled from his parents' Flatbush apartment in handcuffs in 1988, a week after the Feb. 24 shooting of Raphael Reyes outside a Cortelyou Road video game parlor. [39] A federal lawsuit filed in Brooklyn accuses NYPD's Brooklyn South Homicide Squad of running suggestive photo arrays until witnesses identified Kendall, withholding exculpatory witness statements from prosecutors and defense lawyers, and pressuring Kendall into a false confession by telling him he could go home if he admitted involvement. [39] The Brooklyn DA's Conviction Review Unit concluded in 2022 Kendall was "likely innocent"; a judge vacated the conviction; Kendall, now 55, had been deported to Guyana after serving his sentence and is suing the city, a surviving detective, and the estates of two deceased ones. [39]

“The suit is for the NYPD and district attorney to be held accountable. Back in the '80s there was a lot of misconduct. This was a practice happening all over.”
Brian Kendall · [39]
“I thought it was a big mistake that they would correct.”
Brian Kendall · [39]
By the numbers
  • 1988year of Kendall's arrest, at age 16, for the Feb. 24 shooting [39]
  • 2022year the Brooklyn DA's Conviction Review Unit concluded he was "likely innocent" and a judge vacated the conviction [39]
The thread
  1. Feb. 24, 1988:Kendall arrested; eyewitness accounts contradicting police theory withheld from defense [39]
  2. 2022:Brooklyn DA's CRU reopens the case; judge vacates conviction and dismisses indictment [39]
  3. Today:Federal suit filed in Brooklyn against the city, a surviving detective, and two deceased detectives' estates [39]
WatchThe city Law Department says it will "review the case and respond in the litigation." No dollar amount is specified. [39]
FromThe City Reporter

Around the Boroughs

  • Queens: Gotham FC announced it will move from Harrison, New Jersey's Sports Illustrated Stadium to Etihad Park in Willets Point starting in 2028, sharing the new Queens venue with NYCFC and hosting Olympic soccer matches the same year. [83]
  • Citywide: Lawmakers are pushing the city and state to replace stolen SNAP benefits after The City Reporter found untold numbers of New Yorkers reach the checkout to find their food money already gone; California moved to chip cards, New York has not. [40]
  • Manhattan: A bookkeeper at John Jay College of Criminal Justice was charged Tuesday with stealing $710,000 from student stipends in the APPLE Corps law enforcement program over six years, paying herself through more than 260 fraudulent checks. [62]
  • Brooklyn (Coney Island): A grandmother whose eight family members were shot at a 4th of July barbecue interrupted Mayor Mamdani at a vigil Tuesday: "They shot our babies. This has to stop." The gunman remains at large. [55]
  • Brooklyn: The MTA released a contract for more than $100 million to add elevators at five more inaccessible stations, Neptune Ave (F), 18th Ave (N), Jefferson St (L), Nostrand Ave (C), Fort Hamilton Pkwy (D), funded in part by congestion pricing. [92]
  • Bronx: Community Board 1 voted down a Mott Haven waterfront rezoning for 537 affordable apartments, with residents arguing that AMI benchmarks including wealthy Westchester suburbs make what the city calls "affordable" unaffordable for actual Mott Haven families. [70]
  • Citywide: Rent-stabilized vacancies hit 5.6% citywide in 2025, up from 3.7% in 2016 per landlord-reported state data, with landlords outside Manhattan citing the 2019 tenant-protection law and the rent freeze as the reason repairs can't pencil out. [96]
  • Citywide: Walgreens agreed to pay $1.6 million to 579 workers at three Brooklyn stores for Fair Workweek violations; three other companies owe $500,000 more in a Mamdani labor sweep totaling $2.3 million for more than 1,600 workers. [115]
  • Citywide: Seven schools will pilot digital OMNY cards on phones this fall, aiming to end months-long waits for paper replacement cards that break constantly; students without phones keep physical cards. [42]
  • Citywide: New York's $6 billion Champlain Hudson Power Express from Hydro-Quebec failed for the second time this month on July 4 during the heat wave; the line powers roughly a million homes when running, and Hydro-Quebec has not provided a restoration timeline. [73]
  • Bronx: Borough President Vanessa Gibson ribboned 166 new apartments in Bedford Park Tuesday; developer AG Holdings expects most tenants will use CityFHEPS vouchers. [67]
  • Brooklyn: Saint Vitus, the underground punk and metal bar, is reopening in Bushwick. [187]
  • Sports: Jalen Brunson had left wrist surgery Tuesday; the Knicks' Finals MVP faces a six-to-eight-week recovery that puts his preseason prep in jeopardy. [225]

Only in New York

Only in New York
Photo: gothamist

The best case that New York invented the hot dog starts in 1867 on the Coney Island shore, where a broke German immigrant named Charles Feltman took a Frankfurter sausage, stuck it in an elongated bun he had baked himself, and sold it from a rolling cart. Feltman built a pavilion that could feed thousands at a time before the family sold the property in the 1940s and the name faded from history. A Coney Island history enthusiast named Michael Quinn revived it in 2015, Feltman's original-recipe franks are back in city groceries and restaurants, and has since written a one-man show about Feltman's life, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and at a 36th Street theater in Manhattan. "He nearly starved the first year here in New York," Quinn said. "He just kept moving forward and finding ways to survive." [82]