Tuesday’s Headlines: Not All Heroes Wear Capes Edition

There’s still time to give a struggling kids the Christmas they deserve.

Council members, state lawmakers, police precincts and others are begging for last-minute Xmas presents that they can distribute to people in need, so it’s imperative that you take a few minutes to go out of your way to drop off something.

Our old man editor took advantage of the friendly staff at Council Member Lincoln Restler’s office at 410 Atlantic Avenue (just east of Bond) to drop off two presents that his kids outgrew before he could give them to them. Staffer Arvind Sindhvani was all too happy to assist and add to the pile of gifts that will make a kid’s day on Sunday.

So please, do what you can. (To find your local Council member, click here. And to donate a coat via NYC Cares, click here). Owing to the pathetic, 1980s nature of the NYPD website, there’s no central listing of precincts accepting gifts, so check the Twitter feed of your local precinct.

And speaking of donations, we’d be remiss if we didn’t try to steal a tiny bit of Xmas mirth away from those kids and remind you of our December Donation Drive, which continues, as you’d expect, through Dec. 31. To donate, just click the yellow icon above. And if you donate, you, too, will be mentioned in an upcoming benefactor honor roll, like this: Thanks, Ian! Thanks, Jonathan (and we’ll tell the boss you love “criminal mischief”)! Thanks, Ryan (and thanks for the kind words)! Thanks, Zeke (aka the Faux Fox)! Thanks, Ross! Thanks, Brian! Thanks, Helen!

Here’s how we feel when you donate to us:

Woo-hoo. OK, in other news from yesterday:

• The biggest news yesterday was the MTA’s announcement that it will reduce (slightly) some rush-hour service to create better service on the weekends, where ridership has returned more strongly since the pandemic. But not everyone likes the idea of cutting rush-hour service. (NY Post, amNY, Gothamist)
• Could it be that the Times has finally met a highway-widening project it doesn’t like?
• Will the MTA meet its goal of opening its East Side Access service before the end of the year? Well, that depends on how you define “service.” (Gothamist)
• Uber and Lyft drivers protested with a caravan over the Brooklyn Bridge. (NYDN, NY Post)
• Like Streetsblog, the Post needed a little more time to fully digest Mayor Adams’s big Sunday announcement about trying to make Fifth Avenue better than the car sewer it is today. Of course, Steve Cuozzo didn’t need any time for reflection — he has his pro-car venom on what we used to call a “save-get” in the pre-cut-and-paste Univac days. Just to give you a taste of Cuozzo’s elitism and anti-public space philosophy, here’s this gem: “Most pedestrian plazas cheapen everything around them, while providing a consequence-free lolling ground for low-spending tourists and vagrants,” he wrote. Hey, Steve, Central Park called and it wants its lolling ground back.
• And like Streetsblog, Crain’s also covered the news of funding for a study to cap the Cross Bronx Expressway.
• Set your calendar: On Jan. 7, Mets owner Steve Cohen wants your input (psst — tell him to make it less-than-deadly to bike to Citi Field). (NY Post)
• Remember that big development in Harlem that got shot down by the local Council member and turned into a truck depot? Well, that noxious way station is about to open. (Patch)
• We were stunned that no other outlet (but us) covered the release of video of the NYPD officers who killed Ronald Smith on Eastern Parkway earlier this year. It’s kind of a big story, people.