Celia

Rent Board Resignation Clears Path for Mamdani Rent Freeze Promise The new mayor is now able to appoint a majority to the Rent Guidelines Board, giving him the numbers for a signature campaign promise.

looks like Mamdani is gonna get his rent freeze this year after all. big news on the housing beat from @smaldo.bsky.social:

Northwell Health lays off 'under 4%' of IT staff The job cuts were made in an effort to reduce spending, a spokesperson for Northwell Health said Friday.

New from me: Northwell Health is laying off “under 4%” of its IT staff, a spox confirmed this morning…

www.newsday.com/real-estate/...

Activists at Stonewall put a Pride flag (back up!) at the park, after a Trump admin decision to remove it.
They tied it to the American flag.

Possible heckler in one of those freaky masks that makes them look like they have a funhouse mirror version of Zohran Mamdani’s face…

Also rallying at Stonewall now, City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Senator Erik Bottcher, and Representative Dan Goldman

Spotted at a rally at Stonewall today: Congressional candidate Jack Schlossberg, who’s running to replace Representative Jerry Nadler in New York’s 12th Congressional District—

Trump launched a website advertising low-cost prescription drugs, even though it often *cheaper* to use insurance/generics, and named it after himself. Welcome to TrumpRx—

Staff at Youth Prison Recount Lockdowns, Turmoil, 24-Hour Shifts A yearslong staffing crisis at state-run facilities has taken its toll on incarcerated kids and the workers who watch over them.

New York's youth prisons are a disaster. Kids locked in solitary for days at a time. Staff forced to work 24-plus-hour shifts. Crisis after crisis.

"I'm a human rights violator," one whistleblower told me.

They recounted the nightmare at one facility:
nysfocus.com/2026/02/04/o...

Hockey players t up to hit the puck at an Islanders game

When do they, uhh … when do they….uhhh…

NEW YORK (AP) — Her shadow was one of the last things she saw. The groundhog that escaped Mayor Bill de Blasio’s grasp during this year’s Staten Island Zoo Groundhog Day ceremony died a week after the fall.

On this Groundhog Day, I choose, once again, to celebrate the greatest lede ever written about a rodent's death, courtesy of @jonlemire.bsky.social

Perennial reminder to my NYC friends that landlords cannot refuse to rent to you, evict you, or discriminate against you because of your immigration status.

www.brickunderground.com/rent/undocum...

Nurses at 3 Northwell hospitals approve new contracts Huntington, Plainview and Syosset hospitals have ratified new labor contracts, the health system's spokesperson said.

Nurses at three Long Island hospitals ratified new contracts with Northwell Health, avoiding a possible strike on the island —

www.newsday.com/business/nor...

Mokafe Coffee House is serving up Mayor @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social’s face on its Cardamom Mamdani Chai Matcha, even at one of its Long Island stores. (And it HITS.)

Inbox: A City Council employee was detained by ICE while at a routine immigration appointment in Bethpage this afternoon, Council Speaker Julie Menin says.

The detention happened even though this employee has legal status to be in the country until October, per Menin.

FDNY Blows Whistle on PureGym's Scan-to-Exit System: 'You Should Just Be Able to Leave' Seven PureGym locations across the city have racked up more than two dozen fire safety violations.

Weeks after we first wrote about PureGym's controversial tube-assisted egress system, the FDNY has inspected 7 of the gym locations and issued dozens of violations, some of them related to having to scan your phone to exit the building.

DHS Is Lying To You About ICE Shooting a Woman At least four videos show what really happened when ICE shot a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday. DHS has established itself as an agency that cannot be trusted to live in or present reality.

use your eyes

www.404media.co/dhs-is-lying...

An AI Singles Scam, a Cybersecurity Social, and a Subway-Themed Book Launch: Welcome to Eventbrite Night Let me explain.

Check out how I was fooled by an AI scam for medium-ugly singles hellgatenyc.com/eventbrite-n...

Poetry in Hypermotion: Stop Shoving Subway Poems Between Lottery Ads The MTA's ad screens allot just 15 seconds for poems displayed through the MTA's Poetry in Motion program. That's not enough time!!!

Read my rant about why the subway's poem-ad cycle broke my brain hellgatenyc.com/subway-poems...

I Tried Five of the Subway's Gross Viral 'Recipes' and Survived (Barely) I fed "Brieghetti Pie" to my friends. I hope they will forgive me.

Here's me crashing out over (almost) poisoning my closest friends hellgatenyc.com/tried-gross-...

Missed this in my holiday haze but I was so thrilled to spot a few of my blogs on this list! Big thanks to the Hell Gate team for forever memorializing the time I ate the subway slop foods, got scammed by an AI-generated singles event, and ranted about the subway poems.

Hell Gate's Favorite Blogs of 2025 The stories most beloved by Hell Gate's writers and editors in 2025.

At the end of each year, we drop the veil and tell our readers which of our blogs, interviews, features, or miscellanea we loved best from the hundreds of stories we published.

Did your favorite make the cut? Let us know.

A Judge Tossed a Prison Sex Abuse Lawsuit Over Typos The state plans to ask a court to dismiss some 500 prison sexual assault lawsuits for not strictly abiding by filing requirements.

The state, represented by the office of Attorney General Letitia James, plans to ask judges to dismiss up to 500 prison sexual assault cases filed against it under the Adult Survivors Act, Hell Gate and New York Focus have learned.
nysfocus.com/2025/12/22/p...

Access to the RSS feed RULES

This new movie about Russia's independent journalists is harrowing, but not hopeless My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow follows Russian journalists who report on the country's abuses. Reviewer Justin Chang calls it one of the most engrossing films he's seen all year.

My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow follows Russian journalists who report on the country's abuses. Reviewer Justin Chang calls it one of the most engrossing films he's seen all year. n.pr/4p96lsq

Learning that Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump discussed ULURP at the White House last week is big news for sickos like me.

New York Groove subscriber Zohran Mamdani has converted the president to socialism

Wow, President Trump Fucking LOVES This Mamdani Guy Asdfjasdfjlsakdfsdhfsodfh;asdfasdf

Nothing can possibly do justice to the incredible body language on display here—Mamdani's rigid spine, his hands clasped tightly to prevent them from punching a hole in the Oval Office window and jumping out of it, Trump repeatedly touching Mamdani's arm, smiling at him like the son he's never had.

Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.

A few months ago @thelocal.to got a promising pitch from a writer with bylines in whole bunch of reputable publications—The Cut, The Guardian, Dwell, Architectural Digest, etc. Then I started investigating. Here's a story about fabulists in journalism's AI slop era. thelocal.to/investigatin...

“People will actually speed around you to run the red if you don’t run it yourself.” This literally happened to me this week!

Preach! I actively avoid driving because other drivers are so scary