I was so happy to see this column without numbers on Tuesday. I think the numbers do seem to rank the stories, while the Metropolitan diary and events make this feel like more of a conversation. Also, what is added by having numbers? If it's so we know where each story begins and ends, isn't that accomplished by the larger, bold font? This is The New York Times, trust the intelligence of your readers.
1
The zoo should allow Happy and Patty to retire to a sanctuary. Keeping these intelligent, sensitive and social beings confined in a zoo lacks compassion, especially now that each elephant will be subjected to a lack of companionship.
3
"The mayor overrode an objection from the city comptroller and is using more than $2 million in city funds to pay his legal bills.”
Oy and vey, they never even TRY to stop giving the G.O.P. and Mnuchin talking points on how dropping the deduction for state and local taxes is not a blue-state punishment, but an effort not to let the Feds fund some high-tax localities treating their taxes like a bottomless pit. Who elected these guys, oh wait...
tune of “Over the River and Through the Woods”
Over de Blasio’s spending sprees
And through with Cuomo’s waste
This New York trend
To endlessly spend
Should never be embraced
Over the kvetching and through false claims
That I’m a Mnuchin nerd
This Dem must confess
The IRS
Should not shell out a third!
Still hope everyone enjoys their bird!
2
I love the wording of this about the congestion fee!
Starting New Year’s Day, it will cost “$5.80 just to sit inside a cab.”
It reminds me of this classic from SNL:
“Hollywood superstar Steve McQueen said this week that he would not consider any movie deal in the future, or even read a script, unless he was guaranteed a minimum of $5 million …McQueen has agreed, however, to read a newspaper for only $2 million, and also local traffic signs for a fee that can be negotiated through his agent.”
9
For one day (yesterday), this column appeared without its items being numbered ... I was thankful for that.
And to everyone else -- Happy Thanksgiving!
10
@N. Smith, is the issue with the numbering that it gives an illusion of an order of importance? Or too businesslike, like the department briefing the boss? For me, it's all the same (numbered or not), when I'm on a desktop or large screen - but on my phone yesterday, I found navigating without the numbers as guideposts really difficult on the go, even more if I have to take a call or pay a cab (or check out a link) and want to get right back to reading. (I don't mean to sound like it's "everything but the bloodhounds snapping at my rear end," though, as it seems more people who comment seem to find the numbers too businesslike, it seems.)
1
And, no matter how crowded it is, the barista at your Starbucks looks up when you enter and says "the usual?" (thank you Justin@ Fresh Meadows)
2
Amazon advisory board??? Is this anything like the so-called Quality of Life Committee for those living near the Barclay Center? Will it be appointed by the folks at Empire State Development? ESD's track record is not so good when it comes to big projects, as can be seen by all the failed promises by the developer of the Atlantic Yards project.
3
Why is only one person writing New York Today when previously there were two? Is it suddenly half the work?
4
@Lifelong Reader, it says in the column that Iman Stevenson is doing the Coming Up Today section for us.
But maybe Azi possibly has high energy? I did think that somehow as, having read/seen lots of interviews with the never-resting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Azi seemed to be the only reporter so far who really kept up with her, or so it seemed!
About the numbering change: In a charming twist that brings joy, Jonathan used numbering (1 through 6) and the font size for his six travel tips and issues.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/travel/flight-issues-airline-help.html
(Both Alex and Jonathan are at work after their week off, Jonathan with humor, Alex moving but with hope - and in my third favorite section: (1) Metro, (1A) Theater, then (1B) Travel. I also read Politics almost word for word though it brings knowledge without joy!)
7
Last one, I promise:
And a poetic move that somehow seems inevitable with her first sentence, but only now that she did it: the aftermath of Hurricane Michael through the lens of a Florida resident (named Michael).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/travel/when-will-tourists-be-able-to-return-to-the-florida-panhandle.html
Subtle but resonant, Alex lets us maybe see something in the coincidence or choose not to, personalizing it, yet a name is not just a name - the destructive force sharing a name with a victim determined to come back. Plays have been built on less.
7
@Freddie How did you find them? I've been searching Ali (as in her Twitter handle) in Metro for days. So "(1B)" means she's in Travel? Or is that the order of your favourites. Anyway, where did you find her?
3
@Jack Bush, the 1,1A,1B are just the order I usually read, though now the Times has made it easier by sending to our in-box by signing up. (Frankly, that makes me have to click less, and encounter fewer ads, but I assume the researchers weighed the pros and cons of this nationwide and beyond for the newspaper long term.). Jonathan's were there on the main travel page, so it hit me that maybe they'd just taken a week off, so I checked Alex's twitter page and found the article there in her feed.
4
The best way to enjoy the Thanksgiving parade is in one's own home with the tv on. This is a New York City experience like New Year's Eve in Times Square which also involves standing around in bitter cold for hours. This must qualify them as things to do once and never again.
21
I had that experience as a six-year-old decades ago. Freezing, hard to see anything, and even then I considered the balloons stupid: gassy, bloated versions of cartoon characters. I have never understood the attraction.
4
@John Turner
That would make a great reader-participant newspaper column (or party game): things you do once so you can say you did it, and never again.
4
The best way to enjoy the parade is to be a clown IN the parade as I had the privilege to be in 1977. You see the floats and celebrities close up . Of course only the underside of the balloons but that’s interesting too! And you delight all the children along the route when they shake hands with a “real clown”. As it happens the weather that year was mild and I was sweating in my 100% polyester costume...
3