Everybody loves a parade

Confetti cannons, joyous fans, and the return of a resigned top aide and my HUNDREDTH ISSUE! #100!!!!

It’s never lost on me how cool it is I get to work inside City Hall. On some evenings when I’m leaving and the light is just right I stand at the top of the stairs, looking up at the giant buildings, and sigh like in a movie. This is why your ancestors left Ireland and Sicily! (not specifically.) This is the dream!!!!!

I really felt how lucky I am on Thursday, when I had a front-window seat to the ticker-tape parade for the New York Liberty, who won the WNBA championship last week. My colleague Gwynne Hogan was out along the parade route and I spoke with fans who awaited the ceremony behind the gates at City Hall. It’s where I met fans like sisters Joan and Janice, season ticket holders since 1998 who fell in love with basketball watching CYO games as kids and who grew up with an older brother espousing the status of season tickets (“But he didn’t have any money,” Joan told me.)

They’ve stuck with the teams through its ups and downs, focused on supporting the women and all women. When they finally won on Sunday, “I cried,” Janice said.

The players hung out in the rotunda before making their grand entrance, and star Sabrina Ionescu told me she was drunk and tired. I would be, too.

As a Mets fan and hater I joked with every Yankee fan that this was the last parade of the year. But even I wouldn’t mind another one, if only for the confetti cannons. My favorite part is seeing all my building colleagues — from the cops to the DCAS staff to city council staffers and yes, even the folks who run away from reporters — enjoying the celebration. (last pic below is from Gloria Chin!)

🔎 Other interesting stories 🔍

NY’s cannabis fund became a disaster, but its managers will still do well [THE CITY]
There’s no path of lease resistance in this admin’s DCAS [POLITICO]
Overwhelmed juvenile detention centers don’t do enough to curb violence [THE CITY]
DEVOLV: Subway scan company partner “engaged in misconduct” during sales [DN]
An Adams donor bilked one Chinese investor trying to get her son a visa [THE CITY]

🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹🔹

Phil Lesh dead at 84

Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there

Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking here for 100 issues!