NYC NOW - August 15, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

A ban on face coverings in Nassau County is now official. County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who signed the ban into law Tuesday, is urging city and state officials to follow suit. Meanwhile, the director of the Bronx Museum of the Arts is stepping down amid a major renovation. Finally, WNYC surveyed our audience for tips on running in New York City, including routes, safety, and advice for beginners. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with producer James Ramsay, who compiled the information into a running guide.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, August 15th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. A ban on face coverings in Nassau County is official after being signed into law yesterday. County Executive Bruce Blakeman is urging city and state officials to follow his lead. And specifically in New York City, at Columbia University, people who wore masks and engaged in anti-Semitic acts, engaged in violence,

try to abridge people's constitutional rights. A city hall spokesperson says Adams is exploring legal pathways for a ban on face coverings for non-health reasons. Governor Hockel says she's exploring at least a partial ban on masks in the city subway system. The head of the Bronx Museum of the Arts is stepping down in the midst of major, He's leaving to lead a museum in Florida. Claudio Rodriguez first joined the Bronx Museum in 2017 as a deputy director. Now let's check on the weather.

Today, slim chance of isolated afternoon shadows, mostly 787. It's WNYC. Stay close. There's more after the break. NYC. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. New York City offers residents many. opportunities, but a chance for an easy, stress-free run isn't always one of them. Maybe it's not surprising that a city as crowded as ours with residents as busy as we are

isn't the easiest place to jumpstart your running habit. But we have some good news for you. W.NIC's James Ramsey has been speaking with listeners, runners, and experts to get their tips. And he's compiled a guide to running in New York for our news website, Gothamist. And James is here now to share some of his tips and tell us what he's learned. Good afternoon, Sean. So, James, tell us what made you set up. about wanting to make a guide to running in New York and what inspired you to write this?

Well, despite what you said about everybody being busy and it being really crowded here, I think running has always been popular in New York City. But I think especially, you know, for one thing during peak COVID, the only thing to do was to go outside by yourself and go for a jog. And so running kind of exploded, you know, around 2020. The other thing that's interesting is everybody that I talked to for this brought, you know, when I said, why do you think running is so popular in New York City? They referenced the marathon. Yeah. Which, to me is kind of, it's 26.2 miles. Like, it's an absurd thing for anybody who's not a professional athlete to do.

And yet, it's 50,000 people. And if you're not in it, you go out there, you know, little worn out from the night before. You've got your coffee and your donut. And you watch all these people do their fitness parade. And it's impossible not to be, like, really inspired by this. And so a lot of people get into running, believe it or not, because they see someone do 26 miles and they say, oh, I got to do this.

Yeah, I like fitness parade. That's good. So I'm a good test subject here because I'm not a runner. So tell me, if I want to get involved, I want to start doing it, what do I do? I'm glad you bring that up because I don't know if you have scars in your memory from, you know, the presidential fitness test and middle school. Well, the good news here is you're not in middle school anymore. You're a grown adult. You make your own rules.

You are not only allowed to run as slowly as you want for as short a distance as possible. But in fact, that's probably what you should be doing if you're trying to build up a healthy. the habit of jogging to feel good enough to go out and do it and then do it again and again and again. I went for a jog last week with the running group Run LIC, which is based in Long Island City. And Sumo Das, who's one of the group's co-founders, he had some good guidance. Everyone can start with even doing 400 meters, which is about one lap around a traditional track. And don't be shy of walking and running. There are, in fact, established running methods.

proven running methods where running and walking helps you get to a faster pace. Did you do this? Yeah, so I should acknowledge it. If it sounds like he's huffing and puffing a little bit, it's because we did this interview while we were jogging. Thank you to our engineers for hooking us up with the mics. And I thought it was important to do this because, you know, one of the, I think, golden rules of running if you're trying to build a habit out of it

is that the vast majority of the time that you go out there, you should be going slow enough that you can hold comfortable conversation. while you're running. Interesting. What is the safest way or the safest location to run in our crowded chaotic city? Right. I mean, this is another issue is that not everybody lives on Central Park West. You can't just cross the street into a bucolic place with no cars. Sometimes you have to deal with running on the street and it can be really dangerous. And so to get some guidance on this, I went for another jog with a different group, Ridge Runners, which is based in Bay Ridge. And one of their members, Liz Donahue, she gave me her take on how to stay safe when you're running in traffic.

If there are like obstructions on the sidewalk and you kind of veer into the street, we always say run against the traffic. So you want to be able to see any vehicles coming towards you. We all have one of those light of vests or other light colored clothing especially. Because if you're wearing all black, like no cars can see you. Again, apologies for the Huffin of Puffin. I'm loving the running too. This is, I mean, if you're listening to this and thinking, I want to get going, where should I go?

You don't need to be running more than a mile, two miles, 20 minutes. It really, if you live near any park, even if it's not a big park, go and do laps. It's still fun. It's pleasant. You're not going to get run over by a vehicle. You can daydream. You can listen to music. That's really something that I would recommend as opposed to trying to dodge people in a bike lane.

For all the folks that you're inspiring right now to go out there and run the marathon, all 26.2 miles of it. What do we do? Just sign up on the website? No, you don't just sign up on a website. Like I said, this is so popular. New York Road Runners, which is the organization that puts on the marathon, they told me that for this year, 2024, for the people who applied into the general lottery just to sign up for the marathon,

165,000 people applied. 4% of them got in. Whoa. But I would also really, nothing wrong with the New York City Marathon. I would also recommend if you're interested in running races, there are so many local 5Ks or shorter races in every neighborhood in the city. And we put a link to a big calendar on the page on Gothamist to go check out. It's so fun to run in a local race.

I would recommend looking into that if you're not one of the lucky four percenters who make it into the marathon lottery. Ms. James, thanks as always. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be back this evening.