It's Tuesday. Today we'll look at Mayor Bill de Blasio's vaccine mandate for private businesses. We'll also look at whether Eric Adams will enforce it after he succeeds de Blasio on Jan. 1. |
 | | Byron Smith for The New York Times |
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All employees in New York City, from bodega owners to banking executives, will be required to get vaccinated against the coronavirus under a plan that Mayor Bill de Blasio announced. |
My colleague Emma Fitzsimmons writes that this is the most sweeping local mandate in the country. De Blasio called the mandate a "pre-emptive strike" amid rising case counts and concerns about the new Omicron variant. "We cannot let Covid back in the door again," he said. |
The mandate will apply to roughly 184,000 businesses. It is set to take effect on Dec. 27, days before de Blasio leaves office. It is almost certain to face legal challenges and pose new hurdles for employers responsible for enforcing it — and for the next mayor, Eric Adams. He has not said whether he supports this kind of mandate, although he has generally supported de Blasio's earlier vaccine requirements for city workers and his approach to indoor dining. |
It was not clear if Adams would enforce de Blasio's edict or defend it from potential legal challenges. Adams, who has said that he is fully vaccinated and has had a booster shot, is on vacation. His spokesman, Evan Thies, said in a statement that Adams will evaluate de Blasio's mandate once he takes over at City Hall. De Blasio said he had briefed the mayor-elect on his mandate plans twice, once before and once during Adams's current trip. |
"He has been tremendously clear that he respects the health care professionals and their guidance," de Blasio said. |
Some business owners reacted with shrugs. Others said that to keep their employees and their customers safe, they already had their own mandates in effect. Still others raised concerns about how difficult the new mandate would be to enforce and how they had received no word that it was coming. |
"We were blindsided," said Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a prominent business group. |
De Blasio did not say whether, under the new mandate, businesses would face fines if they failed to comply. Nor did he spell out how it would be administered. Under the mandate for municipal workers that took effect last month, the city had the power to put unvaccinated employees on leave. |
Some retail workers questioned the rationale of requiring vaccinations for employees but not customers. And Andy Churchill, the brand director of Canine Styles, a pet grooming salon on the Upper West Side, questioned the mayor's decision to put the mandate into effect just before turning City Hall over to Eric Adams. |
"I think it's de Blasio's last-ditch effort to go out with a bang," he said. |
It's a mostly sunny day, with temps in the high 30s. The evening will be mostly cloudy with temperatures dropping to the low 30s, and there's a slim chance of snow during the night. |
In effect today. Suspended tomorrow (Immaculate Conception). |
For Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, a rematch |
 | | Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times |
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Max Rose announced that he would run for his old seat in Congress. Rose is a moderate Democrat who lost by six percentage points last year in a conservative district that includes Staten Island as well as part of Brooklyn. |
The race could become one of the Democrats' more promising opportunities for picking up a seat next year, depending on how the state draws the borders for the congressional district. |
Unburying a brook to cope with a changing climate |
 | | Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times |
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There is water, water everywhere around New York, from the Atlantic Ocean to narrow little creeks. There is also water underground, in streams that were buried as streets and sewer pipes were laid and buildings went up. |
Now the city is looking to bring one subterranean stream back to the surface as part of an ambitious green infrastructure project. |
As my colleagues Winnie Hu and James Thomas explain, one goal is to prevent another flood like the one after Hurricane Ida, when the stream in question — Tibbetts Brook in the Bronx — poured onto the Major Deegan Expressway, stranding dozens of cars, buses and trucks. Another goal is to reduce pollution in the Harlem River from sewer overflows. |
The $130 million project would unearth Tibbetts Brook, an engineering feat known as "daylighting." Environmentalists and local activists have campaigned to unearth it for years. A changing climate with more frequent and intense storms is now making it necessary. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, has said he will work with city officials to arrange funding from the $1 trillion infrastructure deal and federal pandemic relief money. |
Submerging Tibbetts Brook did not stop the 2.2 billion gallons of water that it carried every year. The water went into the same pipes that carry household sewage and rainwater runoff on their way to wastewater treatment plants. And when the remnants of Ida overwhelmed the pipes in September, the brook found its way onto the Major Deegan and "made us an international symbol of what happens when the city doesn't prepare for flooding," said Robert Fanuzzi, the president of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, an advocacy group. |
There is nothing new about resurrecting long-buried waterways. Cities from Auckland, New Zealand, to Detroit to Seoul have looked into peeling back pavement and exposing creeks and streams to help with the twin crises of outdated infrastructure and climate change, according to Jenny Hoffner, a vice president for conservation strategies for American Rivers, an advocacy group. |
The plan to daylight Tibbetts Brook involves rerouting it above ground for one mile, part of the way along a new greenway on a former railroad right-of-way. Taking the brook out of the sewer system would reduce combined sewer overflows in the Harlem River by 25 percent, or by 220 million gallons annually, according to the city. "It makes this one of our most cost-effective projects," said Angela Licata, a deputy commissioner at the city's Department of Environmental Protection. |
The city has tried for years to buy the land along the old rail line. Schumer and other elected officials have accused the owner, the railroad freight company CSX Transportation, of stalling the project. CSX said in a statement, "We maintain our commitment to determining if a mutually beneficial transaction can be agreed upon." |
Bronx residents like Dart Westphal, a longtime environmental advocate, have campaigned to bring Tibbetts Creek above ground since the 1990s, at first to improve access to parkland fragmented by roads and development. Climate change has given him reason to believe the long-buried creek may finally see the light of day again. |
"You have to do this to make the city sustainable," he said. |
My wife, Tina, and I were both born in New York City. When we married, in 1969, we didn't have much in the way of furniture or other household items. |
In her purse, which seemed like a well-stocked suitcase to me, Tina carried a small book. In it were measurements for things she wanted for our home: a chair, a sofa, pieces of fabric. |
The measurements I loved most were the ones she kept for an old church pew she imagined putting next to the kitchen window. The measurements were very precise because the pew could be only so long and so high and could not block the radiator. |
When I asked Tina how she would know she had found the right pew if she saw one, she pulled a tiny measuring tape from her purse. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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