Zohran Mamdani wants to use empty subway retail to help homeless New Yorkers

Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay

Weather: ⛅ Mostly sunny, highs in the mid 70s.

It's Wednesday in New York City, where about 30% of the retail locations inside subway stations are currently vacant and available for rent.

Two Democratic mayoral candidates — Zohran Mamdani and Jessica Ramos — both want to use those spaces to provide services for homeless New Yorkers.

Here's how a similar idea has already come to fruition in Philadelphia.

And here's what else is happening:

• Were you not invited to the Met Gala? Here's what to do with yourself instead.
• Mayor Eric Adams yesterday pitched an "After-School for All" program.
  • Fellow mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie has already made a universal after-school initiative central to his campaign.
  • Child care costs have emerged as key issue in the mayoral race as families with young kids leave the city in droves.
• The NYPD said police shot and killed a man in Brooklyn last night after he almost crashed into officers in a stolen Porsche.
• Federal investigators said they've traced a sprawling East Coast car theft ring back to a parking garage near Yankee Stadium.
• One of the most controversial elements of New York's $254 billion state budget deal is a change to the laws around sharing evidence with defendants in criminal cases. These four charts explain why this is a big deal.
  • The budget also includes about $50 million to establish a new housing assistance subsidy for low-income renters.
• A Republican-controlled congressional committee is investigating the New York City-based Chinese-American Planning Council over its know-your-rights training sessions for immigrants.
• A bill to allow medically assisted suicide passed in the New York state Assembly yesterday.
• Hats off to the Prospect Park elm trees that made it to around 100 before succumbing to disease.

• In April of 2022, Mayor Adams asked the public to send him pictures of NYPD officers standing around looking at their phones. Now, nearly three years after a journalist filed a Freedom of Information Law request to see those photos, Hell Gate has 'em.
• Mayor Adams is considering running for mayor on two custom ballot lines: "Safe&Affordable" and "EndAntiSemitism."
• If New York City held open primaries, about one million more registered voters would get to participate. 
• NPR interviewed Columbia student and peace activist Mohsen Mahdawi from the Vermont correctional facility where he's being detained.
• Two bikers discovered 30 abandoned cats in the woods of Massapequa yesterday. 
• Prince Edward (look him up) visited a school in Newark yesterday.
• Cape May Canal had to briefly shut down earlier this week after a low tide exposed a Word War II-era bomb that had never exploded.
• If you're a financially successful man and you name your son after you, it's going to be a little easier for your son to impersonate you for the sake of scamming celebrities out of millions of dollars.