It's almost over

Oh, and there's two days to go #137

In case you haven’t heard, election day is Tuesday. At times it felt like we’d never get here, as we trudged through what felt like an endless campaign season. Early voting is over, and there’s a break tomorrow before the big day

Here’s THE CITY’s election page, with links to all of our coverage.

And read this dispatch from a Saturday on the campaign trail I wrote with my colleagues Gwynne Hogan and Sam Maldonado.

Another story this week was the torrential rain on Thursday that seemed to surprise a government that swears it’s going to get better at notifying New Yorkers about various weather emergencies but keeps fumbling it.

Two people died in flooded basements as rainwater overwhelmed our sewer system. Social media was filled with videos of flooded streets, subways, stores, apartments.

And yet Mayor Eric Adams and his very large team of experts — both emergency and communications — didn’t pivot at all to notify people of what was going on as the rain that was forecasted to fall throughout the day came all at once.

The mayor spent his day doing anything else. He campaigned with Andrew Cuomo, then returned to City Hall where he added a last-minute address to New Yorkers that I initially thought was about the weather. Instead, it was focused on a rogue art exhibit days earlier on Governor’s Island that was taken down within hours and which contained anti-Semitic art. Afterwards, he had a podcast interview in the governor’s room (I didn’t recognize the hosts, and when I asked a communications staffer they tried to be coy and told me to stay tuned, which is a weird take at this point in the year working for a lame-duck mayor.) Then he went to a party at Gracie Mansion for Día de los Muertos.

The mayor finally posted something about the storm on his social media accounts near midnight. But it felt too late.

If Rome burned, New York City flooded.

We experienced this lack of communication during the Canadian wildfire, but the lessons don’t appear to have stuck. This is all happening as Adams and some members of his administration seem more obsessed with perfecting the outgoing mayor’s legacy instead of tending to the day-to-day needs of the city.

LISTEN & WATCH

Catch up on our FAQ episodes including a live one we did at the Tenement Museum.

Amidst all of this news I saw Shudder to Think play at the Mercury Lounge last week. My musical tastes as a kid were heavily influenced by my friend’s older brothers, our nearly next-door neighbors, which is why my sister and I asked for “Pony Express Record” in elementary school. I can’t find many good videos of that show on YouTube but here’s the band playing in Chicago in September. (Special thanks to my friend Alex for the ticket and for the band going on late enough for me to go after the Queens Night Market!)

My mom might protest outside 30 Rock for my exclusion which she said was “sexist” but I thought this sketch was funny! Although not as funny as the real thing.

Thanks for reading!