Good Tuesday morning.
I am a decidedly East Coast person. Every time I visit the laid back environs of California, or the South, I feel like a fish out of water.
First of all, I wear too much black, which makes me stick out like a sore thumb (although not so much in LA or Miami). Second, I walk and talk too fast, never say “hello” to strangers, and generally do not make chit-chat with the counter people at coffee shops.
Slower-paced communities make me a little itchy. But I have always really liked San Francisco, which is more cosmopolitan – and definitely cooler, from a temperature standpoint – than points south in the Golden State.
I have only visited The Golden Gate City a handful of times, but enjoyed myself immensely on each trip. I remember the first time I saw the city’s famed cable cars, and was blown away that they still existed – and also that they managed to get up the infamous hilly streets. (As an aside, it’s a helluva a place to go for a morning run).
The cable car is basically a rail vehicle dragged by a long cable pulled by steam power from a central station. It was invented by a man named Andrew Smith Hallidie to master the steep hills of San Francisco, and patented on this day in 1871.
Hallidie was reportedly inspired to create a cable car system after watching horses struggle to pull cars up the steep city streets and worrying that the situation was a deadly accident waiting to happen.
San Francisco’s first cable car debuted in 1873 on Clay Street, in which an endless cable run through a slot located in between rails embedded in the road.
Cable cars were wildly popular, as they provided a smoother ride than offered by the early electric street cars. They were adopted in cities all over the world – including New York City! – in the late 1880s, making Hallidie a very rich man, (he was reportedly strict about protecting and enforcing his patent), but they do have their drawbacks.
First, they only operate at one speed. Another problem: If the cable breaks or jams, then ALL the cars on the line are out of commission.
Nevertheless, cable cars were a popular mode of public transportation for a time, and spread north to the City of Seattle. They largely fell out of favor once electric streetcars technology improved.
Though they are no longer the main mode of public transport, there are still a handful of cable cars operating in San Francisco. In fact, the Powell-Mason, Powell-Hyde, and California Street lines are the lone cable car operations still in use across the globe.
There are some replica versions that you might be fooled into thinking are the real thing. But even if they were converted from the original versions of themselves, they now use rubber tires, not steel rails.
FWIW, the Roosevelt Island Tramway is just that, an aerial tramway. It is NOT a cable car, though some people mistakenly call it one.
It does, however, have the distinction of being the first commuter aerial tramway in North America, upon its opening in 1976.
It was originally supposed to be temporary while residents awaited a subway station, but came to be relied on heavily and so is still around – even though the subway has serviced Roosevelt Island since 1990 – and serves some 2 million passengers a year.
(I, a native New Yorker, have yet to experience it, though it is on my bucket list).
The tramway is one of the few public transportation options in the five boroughs that is NOT operated by the MTA. (Some might add a “thank goodness” after that statement; I’ll leave it to you to be the judge).
The tramway is owned and operated by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) of the State of New York, a Public Benefit Corporation responsible for the operation and development of Roosevelt Island. It does, however, only accept MTA MetroCards and follows the same fare structure as the MTA.
We’re in for a mix of sun and clouds this morning, which will give way to some showers and perhaps a bit of mixed wintery precipitation in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the mid-to-high 30s.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden is set to host Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for talks as the U.S. administration looks to persuade the Netherlands to further limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors with export restrictions.
Biden lambasted House Republicans’ tax agenda, targeting the new majority’s push to revoke new Internal Revenue Service funding, abolish the federal tax agency and replace the income tax with a federal tax on consumption.
Speaking at the National Action Network’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day breakfast in Washington, D.C., Biden referred to Republicans as “fiscally demented” and pledged to veto their tax legislation, which is all but certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
White House officials said that there are no visitor logs that keep track of who comes and goes from Biden’s personal residence in Wilmington, Del., where six classified documents were discovered in recent days.
“Upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them,” the White House counsel’s office said in a statement.
The White House is scrambling to catch up to the classified documents controversy and to blunt a Republican effort to pin down Biden and get former President Donald Trump off the hook in his own secret records drama.
Biden began the new year with the political winds at his back., but in the span of just a week, his political trajectory has dramatically shifted.
Stephen Colbert and other late night hosts poked fun at the president for seeming to forget the name of Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter-in-law while singing her a birthday tune
Trump repeatedly insulted and threatened to sue a writer who has accused him of raping her in the 1990s, according to recently unsealed portions of his October deposition.
“She said that I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nut job,” he said, according to the transcript.
Trump should be investigated over the payments he received to host the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf tour at his resorts, according to an organization set up by supporters of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Ivana Trump left behind $34 million of assets when she died in July, according to previously unreported probate documents. Her will specified that most of that should be split between her three children: Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric Trump.
A new scientific review published yesterday found that a COVID-19 infection at any time during a pregnancy increases the risk of maternal mortality, severe maternal morbidities and adverse newborn outcomes.
In the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, hundreds of workers locked in a pay dispute with a Covid test kit manufacturer hurled objects at police officers in riot gear, who held up shields as they retreated.
A number of Chinese regional governments have revealed the enormous sums they’ve spent on fighting the pandemic, reinforcing a previous report suggesting that mounting costs were a key reason why the country abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy.
The Chinese economy had one of its worst performances in decades last year as growth was dragged down by numerous Covid lockdowns followed by a deadly outbreak in December that swept across the country with remarkable speed.
Controversial Rep. George Santos reportedly scored big bucks donations from a New York real estate kingpin who is a cousin of a Russian oligarch and was once accused of being a go-between in the Stormy Daniels hush money deal.
Santos, who admits lying about much of his life story, won $5,800 donations from Andrew Intrater and his wife, along with tens of thousands in donations to political action committees that backed his upset victory in a Long Island congressional district.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy insisted that he “always” had some questions related to Santos’ resume amid ongoing revelations about the lies and embellishments by the freshman lawmaker from New York.
The Devolder Organization LLC, the supposed source of Santos’s wealth, has changed its headquarters from a penthouse on Merritt Island to a mail-services store in Melbourne.
GOP Rep. Nick LaLota is calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) to freeze Santos’s campaign accounts amid escalating scrutiny of his false claims before and during his successful House bid last year.
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik wants states to adopt a dangerousness standard when determining bail or pre-trial release, and this month proposed linking it to federal grant funding.
As a battle over whether to raise the federal debt limit looms, House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is asking Republicans in Congress, particularly those on the far-right, to set aside what he calls “partisan and political gamesmanship.”
Chair of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer of Kentucky, wrote to the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor on Friday asking for all information and data relating to fraud in the state’s unemployment insurance.
Amid a protracted battle over his judicial record, constitutional questions are being raised about whether the Democrat-led Senate is required to bring Hector LaSalle’s nomination to serve as chief judge of the Court of Appeals to a vote before the full body.
LaSalle is scheduled to appear before the (now larger) Senate Judiciary Committee at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
Gov. Kathy Hochul left her Penn Station-area redevelopment proposal — which would cost $306 billion to fully build — out of her State of the State address, heartening critics who want a less costly and less destructive way to create a new station.
New York state lawmakers have promised to make helping local governments, schools and hospitals protect against cyber ransomware attacks a top priority during the 2023 legislative session.
One of the most potentially consequential proposals in Hochul’s State of the State address last week would require the minimum wage to rise with inflation annually for hundreds of thousands of workers to “tackle the affordability crisis head-on.”
New York’s business community this legislative session will be following and weighing in on a plan, already endorsed by Hochul, to index the minimum wage to inflation.
Mayor Eric Adams is turning up the heat on Hochul to do something to help tackle New York City’s migrant crisis — promoting a plan to have upstate communities take in a fraction of the now 40,000-plus migrants that have flooded the Big Apple.
Hochul and Adams have big affordable housing plans; some question whether they can deliver.
Two big groups — the Association of Towns and the Conference of Mayors — have yet to weigh in, but Hochul’s housing plan has ignited concerns among some upstate advocates that it goes too far in encroaching on local control over zoning matters.
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy became a political cudgel as Adams and his critics took swipes at each other over New York City’s migrant crisis while attending an event honoring the late civil rights hero.
Christine Quinn, CEO of the major New York City shelter provider Win, lauded Adams for seeking to work with other cities to address the ongoing migrant crisis, following his visit to El Paso, Texas over the weekend.
Developers hoping to win one of three casino licenses in the New York City region are crafting bids heavy on amenities and less focused on gambling.
Two New York City investigators responsible for rooting out sick-leave fraud and other corruption at the Rikers Island jail complex are now themselves under investigation over whether they abused sick time, officials with the Department of Investigation said.
An NYPD captain has been forced out of the job after investigators determined he was paid for more than 400 hours — about $60,000 — that he never worked.
MSG Entertainment resorted to facial recognition technology to kick out legal foes, but some have undermined the ban using a law passed to protect theater critics in 1941.
Local electeds are crying foul on Madison Square Garden’s ban on certain lawyers — and the use of facial recognition technology to impose it.
Several local pols suggested the company’s continued use of the tech could jeopardize its public support – including a $43 million state tax abatement, liquor licenses and a city permit “expiring” this year that allows the arena to have more than 2,500 seats.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have moved to dismiss a case against a New York City police officer charged with providing Chinese consular officials with intelligence about Tibetans living in the United States, according to court documents.
A close call at Kennedy International Airport Friday in which an American Airlines plane crossed a runway in front of an oncoming Delta plane appeared to have occurred when the American Airlines pilots misconstrued directions from air traffic controllers.
New York City’s second legal, recreational cannabis dispensary is slated to open shortly in Greenwich Village.
The musical “A Strange Loop” won a Pulitzer Prize even before it got to Broadway, and then it won the Tony Award for best musical shortly after opening. But yesterday, it closed after only a nine-month run.
A staggering 10-month absence of snow in New York City has made the ongoing streak the fourth-longest since record-keeping began.
A University at Albany graduate student says she was grabbed and shouted at by a top administrator when she used a megaphone during a protest, prompting her to file a federal lawsuit against the university alleging a First Amendment violation.
A remediated brownfield across the street from the City of Saratoga Springs’ public library could be the next property on which affordable housing will rise.
Gina Lollobrigida, the Italian movie actress who became one of the post-World War II era’s first major European sex symbols, died in Rome. She was 95.
