Reading scores crash, pied-à-terre tax survives, first chokehold conviction. New York Explained for August 14, 2026.

New York Explained August 14, 2026
The Front Page
Housing: After 13 years, the developers who wanted to build senior housing on Elizabeth Street Garden dropped their lawsuit against the city, trading the Little Italy lot for 180 apartments, 120 of them for low-income seniors, at a Lower East Side site instead [65].
Politics: Gov. Hochul and AG James called a reported federal plan to arm ICE agents with electric-shock gloves a likely violation of the Constitution, with James vowing to sue if a New Yorker gets hurt [17].
City Council: The Council voted 37-5 to let restaurants keep sidewalk sheds up all winter, reversing the seasonal teardown rule that helped shrink outdoor dining from 12,500 spots citywide to about 1,600 [119].
Business: The Taxi and Limousine Commission moved to erase up to $500 in fines piled onto suspended drivers, a change the agency says will save cabbies roughly $950,000 a year [18].
Sports: Brooklyn Cyclones concession workers say their tips have been vanishing from paychecks since the Mets' minor-league affiliate's private-equity owner took over concessions this season [172].
This Morning in New York

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[2] service operates in two sections: 1. Between Flatbush Av and Chambers St 2. Between Wakefield-241 St and Chambers St and via the [1] to/from South Ferry

4Planned Work

In the Bronx, Woodlawn-bound [4] skips Burnside Av

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In Queens, Flushing-bound [7] skips 52 St and 69 St All trains at Woodside-61 St board from the Manhattan-bound platform

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[A] trains are running with delays in both directions while we address a signal problem near Rockaway Blvd.

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NYC's Reading Score Crash

A citywide reading surge evaporated in a single year, and nobody in charge can say why.

NYC's Reading Score Crash
Photo: chalkbeat

NYC's 2026 state exams showed reading proficiency for grades 3-8 fell 6 points to 50.3%, wiping out most of last year's 7-point gain, with third-grade proficiency dropping nearly 14 points to 44.2% [90][89]. The swing comes three years into NYC Reads, the mandated phonics curriculum that replaced two decades of school-by-school "balanced literacy," and testing experts say a reversal this sharp is unusual enough to warrant checking the test itself [89]. UFT President Michael Mulgrew threatened to pull the union's support for NYC Reads over the rollout [93]. Chancellor Kamar Samuels is doubling down anyway [90].

“The Department of Ed. is completely incompetent and irresponsible in its implementation, and we are not going to stand by.”
Michael Mulgrew, UFT president · [93]
“This kind of big increase followed by a big decrease is surprising.”
Marianne Perie, testing consultant who co-chairs the state's technical advisory committee · [89]
“We are going to double down on that next year with our NYC Reads program, which is evidence and research-based.”
Kamar Samuels, schools chancellor · [90]
By the numbers
  • 50.3%of NYC students in grades 3-8 scored proficient in reading this year, down from 56% the year before [90].
  • 14 pointsthe third-grade proficiency drop, to 44.2%, the sharpest of any grade [89][90].
The thread
  1. 2023NYC Reads mandated a single phonics-based curriculum for every elementary school, ending two decades of schools picking their own reading program [90].
  2. 2024-25Citywide reading proficiency jumped 7 points, a gain officials credited to the curriculum overhaul [90].
  3. TodayThat gain nearly vanished, proficiency fell 6 points, and the teachers' union threatened to walk away from NYC Reads [90][93].
WatchThe state's technical advisory committee meets next month to dig into the results and decide whether the swing reflects real learning loss or a scoring problem [89].
FromCity & State New York - All ContentChalkbeatThe City Reporter

The Pied-à-terre Tax Survives Its First Court Test

The city's tax on second homes worth $5 million-plus keeps mailing bills even as three lawsuits try to stop it.

The Pied-à-terre Tax Survives Its First Court Test
Photo: real deal

An appellate judge cleared Mayor Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax to keep rolling out through August, staying a Staten Island judge's Monday order that had blocked it over the city's error-prone notice list of 900,000 property owners [21]. City lawyers argued the halt would "derail" a levy now projected to raise $1 billion a year for the budget [21][22]. President Trump, who would owe the tax on his roughly $6 million-assessed Trump Tower penthouse, posted on Truth Social that he is exploring a federal block, El Diario NY reports [6]. Landlord attorney Randy Mastro is fighting the tax and the separate rent freeze in parallel Staten Island suits [6].

By the numbers
  • $1 billiona year the tax is now projected to raise, double Gov. Hochul's original estimate when she proposed it [22].
  • 900,000property owners landed on the city's searchable notice list, most of them primary-residence owners who then had to prove it [22].
  • 17,000initial notices the city mailed to owners it believed might actually owe the surcharge [22].
  • Sept. 18the extended deadline for owners to document full-time residency and claim an exemption [6].
The thread
  1. 2019Albany scrapped an earlier pied-à-terre tax after developer lobbying, replacing it with an expanded mansion tax on home sales instead (Gothamist).
  2. May 2026Hochul signed the revived tax into the state budget at Mamdani's push, with rates from 0.8% to 6.5% on non-primary homes [6].
  3. TodayAn appellate judge lifted the restraining order and cleared the city to keep billing through Aug. 31, while Trump and Mastro press separate challenges [21][6].
WatchA Staten Island judge hears the homeowners' case on the merits Aug. 31; owners have until Sept. 18 to prove primary residency [21][6].
FromThe Real DealEl Diario NY

A First Conviction Under NYPD's Chokehold Ban

Six years after the city outlawed chokeholds, a jury finally convicted an officer for using one.

A First Conviction Under NYPD's Chokehold Ban
Photo: gothamist

A Bronx jury convicted NYPD Officer Omar Habib of second-degree strangulation and using a banned chokehold on Lord Nyamaah during a 2023 arrest, the first conviction under the city's post-George Floyd chokehold ban [37]. Body-camera footage showed Habib holding the chokehold long enough that Nyamaah lost consciousness, and a doctor testified it takes seven seconds of continuous pressure to do that [37]. The NYPD fired Habib, whose record already included six lawsuits that cost the city $854,000 to settle [37][29]. He was ordered held at Rikers Island until sentencing [29].

“What'd you do, bro" ... "I'm done.”
Officer Omar Habib, recorded by his own body camera moments after the chokehold · [37]
“Why are you choking me?”
Lord Nyamaah, testifying about what he asked Habib during the arrest · [37]
“This verdict is just further proof of a grim reality: every second police officers spend on this job puts them at risk of criminal prosecution.”
Patrick Hendry, Police Benevolent Association president · [37]
By the numbers
  • 20 to 22 secondshow long video showed Habib holding the chokehold [37].
  • 7 secondsthe continuous pressure a doctor testified it takes to cut off consciousness [37].
  • $854,000the city already paid settling six prior lawsuits against Habib [37].
  • 7 yearsthe maximum sentence Habib faces on the top count [37].
The thread
  1. 2014Eric Garner died after NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo held him in a chokehold on Staten Island; prosecutors never criminally charged Pantaleo, who was fired only in 2019 (NPR).
  2. June 2020New York lawmakers passed the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act, 140-3, making a police chokehold a crime punishable by up to 15 years (Police1).
  3. TodayA Bronx jury delivered the law's first conviction [37].
WatchHabib returns to court Sept. 10 for sentencing, facing up to seven years [29].
FromGothamistBreaking NYC News & Local Headlines | New York Post
  • Manhattan: Manhattan's median rent hit a record $5,000 in July, up 6.4% from a year ago, as listing inventory fell for a 13th straight month [67].
  • Manhattan: A single rent-stabilized holdout tenant in Kips Bay is blocking a 160-unit tower that would quadruple housing on the site near NYU Langone [68].
  • Bronx: DOT broke ground on the Tremont Avenue busway, the Bronx's first, redesigning eight intersections for the 39,000 daily riders on the Bx36 [75].
  • Bronx: A 15-year-old was shot dead inside a Kingsbridge Heights apartment, at least the 13th New York City minor killed by gun violence this year [38].
  • Bronx: Twenty-five formerly incarcerated men graduated the Fulton Reentry Community Center's workforce program in Mott Haven, a converted correctional facility [30].
  • Brooklyn: Bike Plant, a Bed-Stuy bike shop, marked its first year as a worker-owned cooperative, one of a tripling number citywide since 2014 [79].
  • Brooklyn: A Boerum Hill developer paid $28.25 million for a fire-damaged 1890s Romanesque Revival church it plans to demolish for apartments [52].
  • Brooklyn: NineDot will break ground on a Bushwick battery storage facility meant to ease the blackouts that have hit Bushwick Houses' elevators [94].
  • Queens: The $175.6 million Elara development in Astoria will bring 429 apartments, 107 of them permanently affordable, to 41st Street [66].
  • Queens: Sunnyside Yard's $21 billion redevelopment has gone quiet since Mamdani and Trump shook hands over it in February, with no stakeholders or funding lined up [61].
  • Staten Island: The borough's own flag could become official under a City Council bill up for a vote Thursday [13].
  • Citywide: Hundreds rallied at City Hall for a bill that would ban Amazon's use of third-party subcontractors for last-mile delivery drivers [84].
  • Citywide: A Council bill would bar the city from ever shifting 250,000 retirees onto privatized Medicare Advantage plans [19].
  • Citywide: West Nile virus has turned up in 89 city ZIP codes this year, more than half the five boroughs [95].
  • Flava of the Bronx's Restaurant Week menu: Caribbean fusion at 3114 Third Ave. in the Bronx, $30 for lunch or $60 for dinner, through Aug. 31 [99].
  • The Met's Summer HD Festival: Free outdoor opera screenings on Lincoln Center's Josie Robertson Plaza, six nights Sept. 2-7, no tickets needed [133].
  • Steinway Street Festival: More than 500 vendors and food from across cultures fill Astoria's Steinway Street, Aug. 22 from noon to 6 p.m., free [123].
  • Calpulli's "Día de Muertos": Mexican folkloric dance and live music at Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Oct. 17-20 [121].
  • Good to know: NYC high schoolers have until 10 a.m. Monday to enter the lottery for 2,000-plus free Broadway tickets, and every entrant gets a two-month TDF membership either way [111][131].
Only in New York
Photo: brooklyn paper

On Aug. 22, Fergus Farrell will step onto the Brooklyn Bridge and start walking to Santa Monica, nearly 3,000 miles away, eight years after a ruptured disk left him paralyzed from the ribs down with a doctor's estimate of a 5 percent chance he'd ever walk again [100]. He's planning about 37.5 miles a day for 75 days to raise money for spinal-injury research, and his three kids will be there to see him off before their own school year starts. "I feel very privileged that I can put one foot in front of another," he said [100].