Plan to modernize NYC's diesel-spewing produce market falls apart under Mamdani

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ⛅ Partly sunny, highs in the lower 70s.

It's Tuesday in New York City, where up to 60% of our fresh groceries move through the Hunts Point Produce Market.

But while the market is crucial for the city's nutrition — everything from street cart bananas to mesclun for high-end salads touches Hunts Point — much of the produce is stored in refrigerated trailers that spew diesel fumes into the poorest, most unhealthy neighborhood in the five boroughs.

By the end of last year, city officials thought they'd finally landed on a deal to build new, modernized warehouses that would eliminate the need for diesel-powered trailers.

Here's how the deal fell apart during the first seven months of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's tenure.

And here's what else is happening: 

• A dump truck driver struck and killed a bicyclist on a busy stretch of West 34th Street in Midtown on Monday morning, then left the scene, according to the NYPD.
  • The cyclist's death marks the latest in a string of fatal hit-and-run crashes over the summer.
  • Mayor Mamdani responded last month by calling for the creation of "pedestrian-only" districts and a crackdown on reckless and impaired drivers.
• People gathered in The Ramble in Central Park yesterday to remember a 63-year-old woman they said was a familiar presence in the park's birding community before she was found dead on Sunday. A 36-year-old suspect has been arrested and charged with murder.
• Police said a man died on Monday evening when his backpack got caught in the closing doors of an A train at Utica Avenue, leading him to get dragged to his death during rush hour.
• A voter-approved ballot measure is soon likely to spur affordable housing development on the Upper East Side — and incite backlash from locals.
• Earlier this month, two detainees at the infamous Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park repeatedly hit an emergency button as smoke filled their locked cell, but no one responded for half an hour, according to their lawyers.
• Crews in North Bergen, New Jersey, have turned on the first of two massive tunnel-boring machines that will carve out a new set of train tunnels between Manhattan and the Garden State for the first time since 1910.
• The public will soon get to weigh in on New York City's plan to build a towering 4,000-unit housing complex and center for older adults in Lower Manhattan near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge.
• New Jersey will now require corn masa dough and flour made and sold in-state to be fortified with folic acid, a form of vitamin B9, which has been shown in scientific studies to prevent certain serious birth defects more prevalent in Hispanic and Latino families.

• NYC Ferry fares could jump from $4.50 to $5 for a single ride next month.
• The MTA has cancelled plans to shut down the G train for tunnel repairs over three weekends in December after pushback from stores in North Brooklyn that didn't want their holiday businesses disrupted.
• Goodbye to the Manhattan Plaza climbing gym in Hell's Kitchen, where the fees were low and the climbers could bring their cats. 
• Billy Joel is auctioning off more than 70 of his motorcycles to raise money for his own arts nonprofit.
• The U.S. is now banning Canadian dairy and liquor from entering the country.
• A massive runaway tortoise in South Jersey has been reunited with his owner.
• Jalen Brunson: not a comedic actor.