NYC NOW - Arts & Culture Check In: Tuna Melts, NYC Designers on the Super Bowl Stage, and Curling Clubs in Prospect Park

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Starting on Friday, February 13, every other Friday will feature an arts & culture update from Gothamist’s culture editor Matthew Schnipper. This week’s topics include Mayor Mamdani’s ongoing cultural references, curling clubs at Prospect Park and the “ultimate NYC sandwich,” the tuna melt.

All right, I'm going to try this tuna melt. Oh, it's warm. Yeah, tell us about what you're about to take in today. All right, I have a tuna melt here on rye with pepperjack cheese. I'm a spicy girl. Is the tuna hot? It's hot. The tuna is hot.

The cheese, as I've learned, is always melted, but the tuna can be hot or cold. Tuna's cold. Confirmed. All right. I feel like I have tuna on the corner of my mouth here. Sorry. That whole sandwich you think? I don't think so.

I think I have lunch for tomorrow. Okay. Welcome to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. Tuna Melt's New York City culture at the Super Bowl and how you can curl like an Olympian right here in Prospect Park. That and more on this edition of the Arts and Culture Checkin.

But first, here's your news headlines. Mayor Zora Mundani says New York City will be reviewing regulations of the tow truck industry following an investigation by WNY. The reporting found hundreds of unlicensed tow trucks have flooded city streets in the last five years, as the NYPD has backed off of enforcement. Here's the mayor speaking at City Hall this week. First and foremost, thank you for highlighting this issue, and clearly it's not something that is working to the best of its ability. It's something that we will follow up on.

WNYC's analysis found there are nearly as many unlicensed tow trucks on the roads as licensed ones. Many of the unlicensed trucks race to crash scenes, which can put pedestrians and other drivers at risk. The NYPD says it was forced to pull back on seizing unlicensed tow trucks in response to city council legislation passed in 2021. Want to hear more about our investigation into the city's tow truck industry? Check out the previous episode of NYC Now. Mayor Mumdani still wants to raise income taxes on the city's wealthy residents, even though he says he's facing a smaller fiscal hold than expected. Momdani appeared in Albany this week for the annual 10-cup day budget hearing. That's where local officials from across New York ask state legislators for various forms of fiscal relief.

Mamdani said his team has updated its estimates and now projects a $7 billion deficit in the coming fiscal year. That's down from $12 billion he projected last month. The mayor said taxes on better than expected Wall Street bonuses and a more concerted effort at savings, helped trim the deficit. But with a large gap still looming, Mamdani said raising taxes would help address the imbalance. The mayor is continuing to push for higher taxes despite resistance from Governor Kathy Hogle.

A pride flag is flying high once again at the Stonewall National Monument, despite its removal under the guidance of the Trump administration this week. Hundreds showed up to the monument after the National Park Service removed the flag and replaced it with a U.S. flag. Mark Ricardy was among the people, there. He's a drag queen who performs at multiple venues across the city as Zeta Jones.

We're not a community that makes others ask who they are, what they are, why they are. But we are a community that just says we're fierce and just let us be here because you're here too. We're all here together. The Stonewall Monument is adjacent to the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar that was the scene of the uprising that birthed the modern queer liberation movement. The federal government says the National Park Service can now only fly the American flag, how Mia flag and Department of Interior flags at sites that the agency maintains. Still ahead, what's new in New York City Arts and Culture? That's after the break.

Welcome to another edition of our Arts and Culture check-in. A look at what's been coming across the Arts and Culture Desk here at WNYC and our news site Gothamist. And here to walk us through it, my good colleague Matthew Schnipper, he's the newsroom's Arts and Culture editor. What's up, Matt? I'm my new title is Tuna Editor, I think, basically. That's been a really big story that's been blowing up on the website and inside our building.

It's hot. Tell me about this story. Yeah, I think we are absolute tuna trendsetters. Okay. No, the food writer Joshua David Stein got in touch with me and basically said, hey, I want to write about tuna melts. And I said, well, what do you want to say about him? He's like, I love them. They're the greatest sandwich of all time.

And he thought he had seen from his eating around the city that different restaurants had been innovating on the form. This was in some ways an extraordinarily basic story, you know. That we all love. Sandwiches. Yeah, yeah. What's up with them? But I think I don't want to be too meta. You know, we get a lot of pitches.

about a lot of different types of things. Often they are about something extremely unique, something a little bit maybe kind of wonky, something kind of convoluted, a little weird, something somebody is like deeply passionate about that a lot of people don't know about. I would say it's possible in my, you know, brief tenure at Gothamist.

The tuna melt is the most mundane and popular subject that we have run a story on. But people love that counter programming, you know. There's a lot going on in the world. That's what was kind of funny is I feel like what we do is already counter programming. This was almost counter-counter-programming. I think there was a nice mix of cheekiness and earnestness in his pitch. And I think it came out in the story.

So he does believe in this, you know. And I think sometimes it's nice just to hear somebody celebrate something that is easy to take for granted. I think if you want to be a little bit dough-eyed about it, what I liked about this story was it just was sort of an appreciation for, you know, what's in front of you. And I think that's what came through to people. You could be a glass-saf full about things if you want to be. I think that was kind of nice.

Yeah, certainly. Speaking of tuna melts, Matt, were tuna melts at your Super Bowl party this past Sunday? You know, I did have Koso. My Texan next-door neighbors brought out one of those old-school dishes that has the flame underneath it. So no tuna melts. No, I don't think I had tuna. Sorry, I'm just going to go on about the kesa for a while. It was quite good.

Okay. I was posted up just eating kaiso. So I did have that. Yeah. No, there was no tuna. There was pizza. Also a melted cheese. So there was melted cheese, but there was no tuna fish.

Okay. At the end of the day, you know, it was the bad bunny bowl. And we had a couple. It was not the tuna bowl. We had a couple of New York City connections, right? You want to talk about that? So, you know, I think the one that's been making the rounds is Tonita. So, you know, at one point during his sort of extravagant, really just about kind of a neighborhoody Super Bowl set,

Bad Bunny goes in order as a drink. If you don't know anything about the woman, he gets the drink from behind the bar, that's fine. But New Yorkers know her as Tonita, who is the proprietor of Tonitas, a social club in William And we've actually written about her on Gothamist. You can go and check out a story about the history of the social club. But what was really nice about this is that, you know, he said, I'm going to bring her specifically out. He could have had anyone serve him. But that's a place where he hangs out, like when he's in the city, he's hanging out at Tonidas.

We have heard that he is hanging out there. I mean, I would say you should not probably rush there hoping to get a glimpse of Bad Bunny, but he name drops the the bar, the club in his song, Nueva, y'all. So it was cool for him to bring that to life. You have to say it like, Nueva yo! I don't think anybody was to hear me say it like that. We heard you singing before. We know you have it in you.

Okay. Well, listen, when I learn Spanish, I'll come back and sing Bad Bunny. For now, it's just going to be, I'm only singing Addison Ray. That's it. Okay. We had some other New York City connections during the Super Bowl. We did. You know, I love this one.

So Bad Bunny brought out Lady Gaga. You may have seen her wearing a kind of of sky blue, maybe baby blue dress and dancing with him. That dress was designed by Raoul Lopez, whose line, Luar, is Raoul backwards. You know, he's a born and bred New Yorker. You grew up in Williamsburg. He's Dominican. He was a part early on of Hood by Air, which was a huge fashion label.

And now he's kind of, he has his own thing, Luar, which has done incredibly well. And it's really cool to see how far he has come. What was great about him designing this dress? He did not know what this dress was for. Yeah. Lady Gaga's stylist wrote to him and said, hey, we need a dress. He said, this was before the Grammys. He said, you know, for the Grammys, they're like, no, for something, something bigger.

He didn't know. He didn't know she was going to be there. He didn't know that she was going to be wearing his dress. So he was at a Super Bowl party. Maybe having a tune to melt? No, I don't think so. He actually said there was caviar at his Super Bowl party. I wasn't there.

Yeah, no. This was a different kind of Super Bowl party. But he said all of a sudden he's watching it. And Lady Gaga comes out and she's wearing the dress he designed her. Oh, my God. What a surprise. So, you know, he said he started screaming. So then everybody else was at the party also started screaming.

But they didn't know why he was screaming. So then he had to explain to him, oh, my God, that's the dress I designed. Signora Gaga in his dress. Wow. Yeah, I thought that was such a nice moment. So cool. Also got to mention Cardi B was at the Super Bowl as well. Just kind of, she was there on stage.

Just chilling. Just chilling. I love that she was just there. It was kind of nice. She didn't have to work. It was nice. She should get to enjoy herself. Mayor Zoran Mamdani, you know, every time we talk, we get an update on his cultural references.

So have you added anything to your Excel sheet? I did. You know, I was watching an interview with Zoran on ABC. He talked to Jonathan Carl. And he was talking about, you know, the same. he has a rather large budget deficit. It seems that his predecessor, Mayor Adams, somehow has disappeared quite a bit of money. And Zoran had no interest in sort of taking ownership of this deficit issue.

And he said, you know, it's as easy as ABC, as the Jackson Five said, you know, it's an Adams budget crisis. How are you going to deal with that? Well, I think it's, frankly, in the words of the Jackson Five, it's as easy as ABC. This is an Adams budget crisis. So ABC. So I think setting aside the factuality of the budget crisis itself, I was very interested that he opted to reference the Jackson 5. Mom Dani is a 90s baby. He didn't grow up with the thriller years or anything like that.

But he's not naive to kind of where Michael Jackson ended up, you know, where his reputation ended up. I thought this was a dicey choice, honestly. Yeah. Okay. So, Matt, there's another story that has come off of your desk this week. Brooklyn Lakeside Curling Club. What is curling? For those who do not wait for the Winter Olympics every four years

so that you can watch some dudes throw stones on the ice. Curling is a sport that I kind of have said is almost kind of like ice botchy. It's got a shuffleboard kind of vibe. There are large polished stones. stones with handles and you shoot them down the ice while other people on your team brush the ice quickly and I would say fiendishly, furvishly, you know, one of those with fire. I don't know. They brush the ice real hard so that your stone will go the furthest distance that it needs to go. And we had one of our writers go try it. Okay, so you can try this at Prospect Park.

You can try this at Prospect Park. Yes, there is the Brooklyn Lakeside Curling Club, which includes some real pro curlers. Pro-like Olympians? There is the coach for the Philippines team, does coach out of there. And you can go and learn how to curl. You can try it yourself. Is this something that you've tried before? I have not curled, but I'll be honest with you.

I was jealous. The photos from this also. I mean, first off, people were wearing some. fantastic outfits. Seems like curlers bring out the real kind of Jimmy Buffett-Parrant head kind of people. People into neon and gold and just going for it. But it just looked kind of delightful. You know, one of the, I feel like I'm going to say something's going to make somebody who's really into curling very mad by saying that it's, you know, a silly thing to take seriously. Hot take. You know, but I mean, look, like, you know, you've played shuffleboard, right, Janette? Yeah. You played botchy before? No. You know, whatever. You know, you throw a

thing and you try to get a tar you know you played a ski ball yeah okay so i can grow yeah exactly what if you did it except you were on ice and then a bunch of your friends also had brooms you know okay well let's start a group hot girls curl girl's girl i mean when you're not what i'm saying that it sounds kind of like you're like i had the weirdest dream last night i was throwing a stone on the ice and all my friends were there with brooms you know and then i got a gold medal exactly imagine that you know um i think that to me there's something sort of very lovable about this sport. Yeah.

Speaking of love, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Last week we spoke to one of your reporters, Hannah Frischberg, and we put out a call to listeners to tell us about their experience as far as, like, finding love in New York City. We got this voice note from Brea Paley. I want to play it for you, can I? Oh, please. My dating experience in New York City has not been great. I'm Jewish, and I really prefer to date.

Jewish men. I go to events. I've been on the apps and it has not been smooth sailing. I'm now in my early 40s and I'm like, what is going on here? I thought it would be easier. Seems like people aren't looking for meaningful connections or if you swipe right on them, they don't write you back. If they do write you back, they don't ask you out. It just feels like pulling teeth. It's not ideal. So I decided to spend the winter in Australia to see if it would be better here. But it's not.

But I'm still hopeful because what else are you going to do? Bye. I'm sorry, Brea. Man, that sucks. It sucks. Good luck finding community out in Australia. You know, I am a Jewish man in his 40s. I am not single.

I've not been single. You know, I've been married for quite a while. But I do remember that experience of being single of being Jewish. I did not say I am only dating Jewish women. I did actually get married to a purebred Italian. Crew up going to church. But, you know, my heart goes out to her, you know. It is hard.

And there is that feeling, you know, sometimes in New York City of being alone in a crowd, you know. And I think phone apps can make you feel. both connected directly to everybody, but also, you know, like an anonymous person and almost not like a person as well. It's hard. You know, I think it sounds like Brea is putting herself out there, which, you know, full respect to that. Definitely.

But I do believe it will happen for her and for other people who want it to. That's right. That's right. And, you know, Brea and for everyone else who's single out there, there are places that you can go to celebrate yourself this Valentine's Day. So be sure to do that. And Matt, I know that we have a list of things that people can get into on our new site, Gothamist. We do, yes.

Tell us. If I was single, what I would be going to is Questlove and the Roots have an event at Brooklyn Bowl. And it's a slow jams party. I think that's going to be really fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, I think it's just, it'll be like there'll be people there both celebrating and looking for love, I would imagine. You have any Valentine's Day plans for the special ladies in your life?

There are a lot of special ladies in my life, my daughter, my wife, and my mother. Cute. I'll be hanging with all three generations. Nice. We'll have a nice Saturday. How about yourself? I will actually be in New Orleans. I will be there.

It's parade season. Mardi Gras is coming up, so no red, no hearts. But in my relationship, you know, Valentine's Days every day. Love takes all colors, you know. Love, love, too. Love, love. Matthew Schnipper is the editor on our. arts and culture desk. Thanks again for joining us. Thank you,

and thank you for listening to NYC Now. If you want your comment featured like Brea's, send us a voice note letting us know what's up in your New York at NYC now at WNYC.org. Happy Valentine's Day. I'm sending you so much love. I'm Jenae Pierre. See you next time.