NYC's city-owned markets keep food cheap, at a cost

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ☀️ Sunny, highs in the mid 40s.

It's Friday in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor on a pitch to create affordable city-owned grocery stores.

But New York already has a version of these: six public markets where city-owned retail space is rented to private vendors at below-market rates, with public funds also covering operational costs such as utilities, security, janitorial services and maintenance.

Newly obtained financial records show that three of those markets — Essex Market on the Lower East Side, La Marqueta in East Harlem, and Moore Street Market in Brooklyn — ran a combined operating loss of roughly $3.6 million in fiscal year 2024.

Here's how the comparatively modest subsidy keeps food prices low and preserves legacy vendors.

And here's what else is happening:

• Ellie Aghayeva, a Columbia University student who was detained early yesterday by ICE agents who entered her off-campus apartment without a warrant, was released after Mayor Mamdani said he received assurance from President Donald Trump that she'd be let go "immediately."
  • Mamdani, who met with Trump during an unscheduled Oval Office meeting yesterday, also pitched the president on a plan to build 12,000 units of housing over Sunnyside Yard in Western Queens.
• Under Trump, ICE has detained more than 120 children in hold rooms in Lower Manhattan — facilities that detainees have described as "inhumane" — according to a Gothamist analysis.
  • The Trump administration is also buying a warehouse property in Roxbury, New Jersey, to use as a future immigrant detention center, and paying the property owner $129.3 million, which more than double the 2026 tax assessment on the property.
• Manhattan prosecutors last night declined to pursue an assault charge against Gusmane Coulibaly, a 27-year-old who was allegedly involved with a viral Washington Square Park snowball fight, because they couldn't prove Coulibaly directly injured a cop with a snowball.
• Police said they're looking for a man who shoved a subway rider onto the tracks at the Jay Street–MetroTech station late last night. 
• One man died and another was critically injured after a wall collapsed at a construction site in Bushwick yesterday morning, the NYPD said.
• The operator of Heights University Hospital in Jersey City has decided to close the troubled facility for good this weekend, prompting outcry from local officials that the move will leave residents without access to emergency care.
• Mayor Mamdani is backing a 15 mph speed limit for cyclists in Central Park, despite a lawsuit from a cycling group that says riders who are training for races should be allowed to go faster. 

• NFL quarterback Michael McCorkle "Mac" Jones was also throwing snowballs at that Washington Square Park snowball fight, for what it's worth.
• Patrick Martinez, the nephew of former Democratic power broker and U.S. House member Joe Crowley, is running for an open State Assembly seat in Queens.
• Asif Merchant, a Pakistani man with ties to Iran, is on trial in Brooklyn right now for allegedly trying to hire hitmen to kill President Trump back in 2024.
• Svetlana Dali, the infamous serial stowaway, was detained in Milan this week after allegedly sneaking onto a flight from Newark to Malpensa.
• Oliver Grant, an executive producer who helped fund Wu-Tang Clan and create the group's fashion line, has died.
• More on the Tokyo-style pizza.
• Modern ovens can be stressful.