YAY or NEIGH?

At a watch party at the Regal Concourse Theater in the Bronx, Reverend Adolphus Lacey — pastor of a Brooklyn congregation, largely Caribbean immigrant families — told me about the op-eds he’d been writing and the community board meetings he’d been sitting through, all trying to get the City to loosen its short-term rental rules for the tournament window. His pitch: let his congregants do what their families already do informally — host relatives, host guests — and actually get paid for it. Nothing came of it. He was careful to note that the City found ways to bend rules fast enough during COVID, and again during the migrant crisis – making use of his own church space – but that somehow the rules don’t bend the same way when the ask is “let regular people make money.” He’s not expecting an apology. He is expecting to bring it up again next time. Especially if NYC is considering playing a role in hosting a global event in the future…

At the same watch party, kids from South Bronx United were glued to the France-Spain match. Founder and executive director Andrew So has run the program for seventeen years — it started as after-school soccer clinics, then grew into workforce development, immigration assistance, and an actual coffee shop. The Clubhouse Cafe, a few blocks from Yankee Stadium, is staffed by teenagers from the program, making money as baristas and landing their first jobs. South Bronx United didn’t need the World Cup to prove any of this works. It’s boards like Trey Jenkins‘ 161st Street BID that benefit from Andrew So‘s kind of expanded ecosystem thinking — how do you make the most of an opportunity, and what does your community actually need? If kids need to stay out of trouble after school but their grades keep them off the soccer field, how do you fix that? If their parents need help with translation or immigration, can you get them attorneys during practice? If the kids need to make a living, can you build them a storefront to get work experience? And if the World Cup is coming to town, how does the Bronx get a piece of it? South Bronx United found its answer to that last one by working with some of FIFA’s corporate sponsors to get his kids onto the actual field at MetLife — an experience they’ll never forget, and one that started, at its root, with soccer and civics.

And then there’s Council Member Virginia Maloney, chair of the Council’s Economic Development Committee, who took office in January — about six months before the tournament she was playing a role in overseeing. Her first hearing as chair was on World Cup readiness. She confirmed the city put in $35 million, talked about getting the word out via digital maps and a cultural passport and was matter-of-fact about one thing: NYCEDC, the agency she’s counting on to help write the eventual “look back” report, still doesn’t have a permanent president. Jeanny Pak has been running it as interim since December — three years as CFO before that — good hands, by Maloney‘s account, but still interim, seven months into a new administration.

Which gets you to an even more local cast of characters who are also brand new in the schene of the seven years of planning – that played roles here: Justin Brannan, the Governor’s Senior Director of Major Event Operations; Maya Handa, City Hall’s World Cup Czar; and Steve Fulop, the former Mayor of Jersey City who is running the Partnership for New York City, having crossed the Hudson at almost the exact moment Mamdani took office.

So here’s the thing I’m thinking about: if New York wants to take a swing at the 2036 Olympics — or that Lake Placid-NYC winter bid some Albany folks have floated for 2038: what gets written down from this? What did the city overestimate (hotel bookings, apparently — occupancy dropped even as room rates climbed) and what did it underestimate (bars and restaurants did just fine, and nobody expected the fight over Airbnb to end up sending business to New Jersey instead)? Who actually runs the cost-benefit math when it’s time to decide whether to bid at all? And does the answer change depending on whether the same cast of characters — or an entirely new one — is sitting in these seats when the invitation comes?

Passion and fashion on the steps of City Hall this week, as real estate, nonprofit, and civic groups rallied behind Romanch’s Law — the horse carriage ban — with Speaker Julie Menin on the mic alongside Majority Leader Shaun Abreu and Council Members Harvey Epstein and Carl Wilson. A hearing followed immediately after. I wasn’t the only one who clocked this as electioneering, dressed up as a press conference — especially since the opposing side wasn’t allowed inside the gates. Why? NYPD didn’t want a physical altercation on a contentious issue, which, fair. But Palestinian protesters get to demonstrate next to Jewish events. So… make of that what you will. I don’t have a horse in this race (sorry) — just sharing what I saw.

And the other side did show up — just not on the steps. Carriage drivers and supporters, organized by Alexander Kemp and TWU Local 100 president John Chiarello, held the sidewalk on Broadway, which is what their permit allowed. Council Member Jim Gennaro sided with them. Meanwhile the steps belonged to Speaker Menin and Council Members Chris Marte, Harvey Epstein, Shaun Abreu, and Carl Wilson — plus former Council Member Bob Holden, who doesn’t even hold the seat anymore and showed up anyway!

Pre-hearing, the steps were a who’s-who: Jason Goldman on the phone the whole time; Nate Swidler from the Speaker’s speechwriting team; Bhav Tibrewal, the Speaker’s chief advisor, catching up with Menashe Shapiro; Yoav Gonen, the Speaker’s communications director; Gabby Eiss and Sam Weinberger from Geto & de Milly, repping client NYCLASS; and Rose Christ of Cozen O’Connor, there for the Central Park Conservancy. Everyone on that side of the gate: pro-Romanch’s Law.

Council Members Marte and Epstein say there will be a workforce program for the drivers who’d lose their jobs — something in hospitality, details still being worked out…. Which raises the previously discussed option: what about electric carriages instead? Philanthropist Josh Fox floated that a few years back through his Brady Hunter Foundation… Now for out-of-the-box thinking: how about a job creation pipeline into the Tesla plant in Whitestone, Queens, retraining carriage drivers to build electric ones instead of driving horse-drawn ones?

Inside, staffers Sophie Secor and John-Carlo Bautista had the real play-by-play: Curtis Sliwa showing up to scream in favor of the ban, a hearing that ran past nine hours, and Phil Wong earning some respect as the only member besides Chair Lynn Schulman to sit through the whole thing.

Meanwhile, other Manhattanites are wondering if Council Members could bring a fraction of their horse fight energy to the homeless encampments and open-air drug-addicted population living on the sidewalks that families and visitors to NYC step around every day?

David Siffert, 42, is a civil rights lawyer, law professor, and lifelong Manhattanite who just won the Democratic primary for the 66th Assembly District — Greenwich Village, Tribeca, SoHo, NoHo, Union Square, and slivers of Battery Park City and the Meatpacking District. Raised in Manhattan, Siffert went to Horace Mann from kindergarten on, then the University of Chicago for undergrad, then back home to NYU for a JD in 2009.

Siffert is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns; if elected in November, they’d be the first openly non-binary person elected to New York State government. Career-wise: private litigator, tax lawyer, legal director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, and now an adjunct professor at NYU Law, where they founded the school’s State Government Initiative training law students to draft and pass legislation.

Siffert is running for the seat Deborah Glick is vacating after 35 years. While no Republican has filed in the heavily Democratic district, so November should be a formality — the primary was the real fight. Siffert trailed Jeannine Kiely by 56 votes on election night out of roughly 17,000 cast; a mandatory recount, triggered by the sub-0.5% margin, flipped it — Siffert won by 15 votes. Kiely conceded and dropped her legal challenge. Notable: Nadler, Hoylman-Sigal, Epstein, Maloney, the UFT, and Glick herself had all backed Kiely. David lives in the West Village with wife Melissa and their child, Eden.

It was hot enough that Autopilot moved their first NYC event indoors at Elsie Rooftop — which didn’t stop the room from filling up with young finance and tech types. Founders Brian Schardt and Chris Josephs brought up Peter Wolff and Dr. Alejandro Lopez-Lira to talk through the more than $1 billion now moving through the platform.

I spoke on-camera with Chris two years ago, right when the idea first clicked for him. Members of Congress sit on committees, see the information first, draft the legislation — then trade stock in the very companies that legislation will move. That premise became known as ‘the Nancy Pelosi stock tracker’ which is still the nickname most people know for Autopilot.

The pitch: auto-trade based on Pelosi‘s disclosed trades, or pick from a menu of other “pilots” and mirror theirs. The platform has since expanded past politicians — Dr. Lira‘s portfolios are picked entirely by AI, while Peter Wolff still researches and trades his own calls. Different pilots, different philosophies, same premise.

Insider trading is still legal at the federal level for members of Congress. The room’s operating theory was simple: if they can do it, why can’t we?

JCRC’s Kayla Aaron brought a group of friends out Wednesday night to Citi Field, joining hundreds of women for The Queens Collective — Gotham FC’s event previewing their move into the borough. On stage: Yael Averbuch West, Gotham’s President of Soccer Operations, alongside Caiti Donovan, head of growth strategy for the WNBA, Jennifer O’Sullivan, COO of NYCFC, and Katie Haas, the Mets’ EVP and Chief Ballpark Operations and Engagement Officer. Four teams, one borough, one stage. Off to the side, Danielle Ellman, CEO of Commonpoint Queens, was deep in conversation with Evie Litwok, executive director of WITNESS to Mass Incarceration’s Art of Tailoring program — talking workforce development for immigrant, justice-impacted, and marginalized youth. Which led somewhere fun: with multiple sports franchises suddenly converging on Queens, who better to design the uniforms than the borough’s own kids? Sports couture, literally.

→ Sam Weinberger of Geto & deMily at City Hall wearing a Grand Hotel Mackinac Island shirt, with an X through the horse carriage symbol – vowing to shut down horse drawn carriage rides in Michigan next

— British Bubbles anyone? Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick is fresh back from visiting his son in London where he is a winemaker – English sparkling wine trade (Hundred Hills Vineyard, Nyetimber) and his own Italian shopping trips in Perugia. We hear he’ll take his fashion sense to the runway at Style Across the AIsle this fall.

— Assemblyman Charles Fall recording educational social media content about his district alongside his daughter Naila, including a stop at Staten Island’s own Ralph’s Italian Ices

When City & State’s Fariha Rahman was working on a story and wanted to talk to “someone who understands the political value of fashion,” she called me! I love that. Here’s what I told her, and what I actually believe: fashion is a form of communication.

Some people say it out loud. Council Member Inna Vernikov in the Israeli flag dress. AOC in the “Tax the Rich” gown. Other people go the opposite direction and create a uniform instead — Obama wore the same handful of suits so he’d have one less decision before breakfast, Zuckerberg said the same thing regarding decision fatigue – not spending precious brain power on outfits. Karl Lagerfeld turned himself into a silhouette — black suit, white collar, dark glasses, gloves, the ponytail — you knew it was him before he opened his mouth.

So when Fariha asked me about the mayor specifically, I told her: “The suit also has the ease of a uniform. He is the mayor, which is like Mickey Mouse in Disney World. Any of these costume characters, you see them, you recognize them, because they look the same all the time. Their hair is the same, their outfits are the same… There he is in the same outfit, he looks how he looks on TV, like that’s him. Undoubtedly that’s the mayor.”

That’s not the first time I’ve made the Disney comparison, and honestly the more I sit with it, the more it holds up. The Capitol in Albany is our Magic Kingdom. The Egg is our Epcot. State Street is Downtown Disney once the “rides” — meetings, mostly — close for the night. And our public servants really are our own cast of characters: people want to see them, identify them, get their autograph (on a bill), take a photo next to them. Which means, like any costumed character working the park, they’re on the clock the second they step outside. Model behavior isn’t optional. It’s the job!

Which is really the whole reason we built Style Across the Aisle — public officials on a runway, wearing designers from their own districts. It’s fun, sure, cute photos, a break from the podium. But it’s also the rare moment an official gets to put their district’s culture and craftsmanship literally on their body, in front of a room paying attention to them for a reason that has nothing to do with politics.

Former Rep. Carolyn Maloney was doing fashion-as-politics long before any of us had language for it. That FDNY jacket wasn’t a fashion choice, it was a campaign — for the Zadroga Act, for 9/11 victims, worn on repeat until it became law. You saw the jacket, you thought of the cause.

Party affiliation, committee assignments, district lines — that’s the uniform, the part everyone already knows how to read. Everything else is just how much flavor a character decides to add on top of it.