Good Monday morning.
Summer is fair season. And festival season. And concert season. If I’m being perfectly, I am not a fan of any of these things. I do not like crowds, or walking around in the heat, or amusement park-style games and rides.
I have a special horror reserved for those swings that go around and around high up in the air and that whirly thing that spins at high speed until the bottom drops out while riders are pinned to the wall by centrifugal force. (I think that’s how it works, anyway – maybe there are also harnesses and straps? I hope so. I wouldn’t know).
I guess I sound like a terrible stick-in-the-mud. And maybe I am. I think I have come to accept this about myself.
I wasn’t always this way. Back in the day I was a big fan of Disney World. I went there numerous times – along with Epcot and Sea World – because my grandfather retired, moved out of New York and settled not terribly far from Orlando. I have fond – if vague – memories of these trips.
I also ran the Disney Marathon for Team In Training when I was fresh out of college. It was a fun – if very hot – race. And it was for a good cause. I didn’t love the fact that they started it at the crack of dawn, purportedly to beat the Florida heat, but really I think it was to ensure that they could get a full day’s worth of paying customers into the parks.
I didn’t go to Disneyland until I was well into my 30s. By that time, I was already losing my taste for the whole theme park thing. I distinctly recall being struck by how SMALL the place – especially compared to the expansiveness of Disney World. It’s very cramped, very crowded, and very hot – like middle-of-the-desert hot. No thanks. I never went back.
It wasn’t until just now, as I was doing my down the rabbit hole thing in preparation for this post, that I learned Disneyland actually predated Disney World by 16 years. (The first opened on this day in 1955; the second in 1971).
Actually, July 17 was something of a disaster for Disneyland, which cost $17 million to build on a former 160-acre orange grove in Anaheim, California, and was the only of the existing parks completely overseen by Walt Disney himself. The rest were all conceived of, constructed, and/or opened after his death in 1966.
July 17 was billed as an International Press Preview to which only a handful of special guests and members of the media were invited. But some 28,000 people ended up attending – about half of whom either purchased counterfeit tickets or climbed over the fence and entered without paying at all.
The whole thing was a mess.
The televised broadcast, co-hosted by none other than actor-turned-future president Ronald Reagan, was full of errors. There were only 10 attractions running (including the famous Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride) and parts of the park were still under construction.
Traffic was backed up for miles and the temperature was over 100 degrees – so hot the that asphalt, which was poured that very morning, softened and caused a hazard for women hearing high heels.
The drinking fountains were dry and the vendors ran out of food. Some desperate parents threw their kids over the crowd in hopes of getting them onto the rides. The media coverage was so negative that for years executives refused to acknowledge July 17 as the official Disneyland opening day, that it is today recognized as the park’s “birthday“.
You would think that after such an inauspicious beginning, Disneyland would have been an abject failure. But just the opposite occurred. In seven weeks, more than 1 million people passed through its gates. And today, the tally of those who have visited the so-called “Happiest Place on Earth is 750 million and counting.
It’s going to be a scorcher of a day, with temperatures in the low 90s. Skies will be partly cloud and thunderstorms will be developing later in the evening. Also, wildfire smoke from Canada will return to New York today with forecasters predicting air quality that is unhealthy for all to cover much of upstate.
In the headlines…
A Long Island pimp’s tip, coupled with chilling web searches and pizza crust DNA, steered authorities to serial killing suspect Rex Heuermann before his arrest in the notorious Gilgo Beach murders ended years of mystery in the long-cold case.
Suffolk County Police Commissioner Rodney Harrison called the Gilgo Beach murder suspect “an animal” Saturday, vowing not to rest until all killers responsible for the 10 bodies are arrested — as the NYPD looked for city ties to the alleged killer’s DNA.
In 2011, experts made a list of characteristics they predicted the suspect would have. The man charged in three of the killings checks many of those boxes.
Suffolk County prosecutors argued against bail for Heuermann in a 32-page document that explicitly details the investigation into the Gilgo Beach killings.
At least five people were dead and two others remained missing yesterday after severe floods swept through areas of Pennsylvania and storms continued to threaten much of the Northeast.
The Biden administration announced 804,000 borrowers will have their student debt wiped away, totaling $39 billion worth of debt, in the coming weeks due to fixes that more accurately count qualified monthly payments under income-driven repayment plans.
“For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a written statement.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Republican-controlled House’s version of the annual defense policy bill has zero chance of making it to President Joe Biden’s desk.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has started cutting campaign staff just months into his presidential bid, as he has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary and lost ground in some public polls to former President Donald Trump.
Fewer than 10 staffers were let go by the Florida governor’s campaign last Thursday. Each of the aides was involved in event planning, and some of them may soon wind up at an allied outside group.
DeSantis filed his second quarter fundraising report with the FEC Saturday. It shows he had $12.2 million in cash on hand at the end of June, and $3 million of that only can be spent in the general election, not the primary.
Biden’s campaign committee raised $19.9 million from April through June — less than his total as one of a dozen-plus candidates in an open primary four years ago, though his political operation says it raised an additional $52 million for Democratic Party groups.
While the combined haul is stronger than any other 2024 contender, it falls short of the record-breaking $86 million raised in 2011 by President Obama for his reelection campaign and the DNC in his first quarter of fundraising after launching his second-term bid.
The small-dollar online money spigot that helped Biden smash fund-raising records during his 2020 presidential campaign has not yet turned on, and there are ample signs that it may be months before it does.
Biden’s re-election campaign ended last month with about $20 million in the bank, just trailing the $22 million plus reported by Trump, the Republican front-runner.
Biden’s campaign spent a total of $1.1 million in the second quarter of this year, a remarkably small amount that would put him behind several Democratic Senate candidates in terms of expenditures.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attempted damage control on his controversial remarks suggesting COVID-19 may have been “ethnically targeted.”
A conspiracy-filled rant by Kennedy Jr. that the Covid-19 virus was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people has stirred accusations of antisemitism and racism in the Democratic candidate’s long-shot run for president.
Trump remains coy on whether he’ll be in the first GOP presidential debate, suggesting he’s so far ahead of his rivals in the polls that it makes no sense for him to participate.
Rep. George Santos raised just $179,000 in the second fundraising quarter of 2023 — and spent a considerable portion of the funds to reimburse himself for earlier loans he made to the campaign.
Santos withdrew $85,000 from his campaign to help repay hundreds of thousands of dollars he loaned himself to get elected in 2022.
Though the New York representative says he is running for reelection, he spent virtually nothing on campaigning.
Burning air, torrential rains — Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that the region’s recent extreme weather may be “our new normal.
Thousands of projects are in the works across the state to combat the effects of climate change, including rethinking flood-resistant housing, updating weather models and managing overflow rain. But many will take decades to complete, and might not be enough.
Hochul announced the state is deploying 60 drones to beaches along Long Island, New York City, and Westchester County to help with shark spotting after five attacks this year.
Hochul has requested a major disaster declaration from Biden as several New York communities continue to clean up from recent flooding.
If granted, this declaration would release critical federal financial assistance that will support recovery and reconstruction efforts in Albany, Clinton, Dutchess, Essex, Hamilton, Ontario, Orange, Oswego, Putnam, Rensselaer, Rockland, and Westchester counties.
The organization that oversees New York’s power grid said without extensive changes some of the aging fossil fuel power plants in New York City may have to remain open after their scheduled closing date of 2025 in order to avoid potential power outages.
Some school officials are voicing concern about a proposal to change how schools can restrain students and seclude them alone in rooms as the Board of Regents prepares to vote on the measure today.
Changes to New York’s bail statutes last year, intended in part to curtail a “revolving door” of shoplifting offenders, only marginally altered the decisions that many judges made in those low-level misdemeanor cases, according to recent bail data.
Mayor Eric Adams is reportedly set to name Acting Police Commissioner Edward Caban to the helm of the NYPD this week — marking the appointment of the city’s first top cop of Hispanic descent.
Caban has called himself a true New Yorican – third generation, raised in the Bronx, with roots in Ponce. He and three of his brothers joined the department with their dad’s encouragement.
Caban has been leading the department on an acting basis since his predecessor Keechant Sewell left on June 30 after abruptly announcing her resignation.
Former Gov. David Paterson says Adams may be right about the media “hyping up crime” in the Big Apple — but the fear of “rampant” unlawfulness is very real and driving many New Yorkers to flee the Empire State.
A construction safety firm charged with funneling illegal campaign contributions to Adams reportedly secured a city contract expansion just days before it came under indictment.
The number of people interested in taking the NYPD exam is cratering, likely hitting a new low as the city struggles to fill the positions left vacant by senior officers leaving in droves.
A detainee died in custody on Rikers Island on Saturday, city Department of Correction officials said. William Johnstone, 47, was found unresponsive at about 1:50 p.m. inside his cell at the George R. Vierno Center jail.
A man vandalized state Sen. Iwen Chu’s Dyker Heights office Friday while her staffers worked inside, hurling a cluster of several bricks at the windows in what appeared to be an attempt of targeted vandalism.
New York City officials are scrambling to open two new sprawling tent shelters for arriving asylum seekers, both in Queens.
Adams’ administration is eyeing the Aqueduct Racetrack and Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens as new locations for massive emergency tent cities that would help temporarily shelter the relentless influx of migrants in the Big Apple.
A group of Manhattan residents is demanding that the city Department of Investigation probe a $500 million, 40-year government contract involving a shelter for women with drug addiction and mental illness.
Heartbroken colleagues and friends are mourning the loss of “gifted and consummate professional” CBS-New York meteorologist Elise Finch, who died suddenly over the weekend, just a day or two after appearing on air.
Paul Smith’s College broke off what its leaders had described as an urgent need to be acquired by The Fedcap Group after months of planning and takeover of key college operations by Fedcap.
Two in-person public comment periods will be held next month on whether operating permits should be renewed at the controversial Dunn Landfill in Rensselaer.
The Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee formally chastised Public Safety Commissioner James Montagnino though the group stopped short of rescinding its endorsement of him over his clashes with civil rights activists and fellow city officials.
After a nine-month hiatus, the New York State Military Museum reopened to the public over the weekend.
The Port of Albany is making good progress preparing its wind turbine manufacturing site on the Hudson River in the town of Bethlehem despite a potential $300 million-plus funding shortfall that could ultimately delay or jeopardize the project.
Funny Cide, the New York-bred horse with ties to the Capital Region that won the 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes and invigorated horseracing fans who embraced an unlikely champion, died yesterday in Kentucky from complications of colic.
