NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Case Against NJ Congressmember Advances, Viral Scale Model of NYC Gets Official Exhibit, and Elizabeth Street Garden is Becoming a City Park

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

The federal case against New Jersey Congressmember Lamonica McIver will proceed and a viral scale model of New York City is getting an official exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Street Garden is becoming a city park.

The federal case against New Jersey Congress member LaMonica McIver moves forward. A viral scale model of New York City gets an official exhibit. And the controversial Elizabeth Street Garden becomes a city park. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Elizabeth Shui, in for Jene Pierre. The Trump administration's federal assault case against New Jersey Congress member La Monica McGiver will proceed. District Court Judge Demal Semper rejected the Democratic lawmakers' request that the case be dismissed.

McIver has been charged with assaulting federal immigration officers outside a Newark detention center back in May. McIver argued she's been selectively and vindictively prosecuted. In a statement, McIver says she is disappointed in the judge's ruling and will continue to fight the charges against her. Joe Mackin's scale model of every building in New York City is getting its first museum show. Mackin is a trucker upstate and spent 21 years building the scale model out of nothing but styrofoam, Elmer's glue, and Balza Wood. After his kids encouraged him to post about it on TikTok, it went viral. The Museum of the City of New York says it'll be exhibiting the model early next year. The museum's deputy director, Elizabeth Sherman, says she loves a monumental

model for its personal touch. There's this way in which, while he's not sharing intimate personal stories in the model itself. It feels to me like it's really communicating from one person's personal New York to each of our personal New Yorks. The exhibit, he built this city, Joe Mackin's model, will open to the public on February 12, 26. The Knicks just lost their first home game of the season after falling 124 to 107 points to the Orlando Magic. Wednesday night. The Knicks were 7 and 0 at MSG and had won five straight overall. Jalen Brunson scored 31 points, but seemed to sprain his ankle on a drive to the basket in the final minutes. The severity of his injury is still unclear. The Knicks play again at home Friday night against the Miami Heat, and the Nets will play against the Orlando Magic Friday night in Florida. Coming up, the battle over Nolita's Elizabeth Street Garden comes to a head. That's after the break.

The Adams administration is turning the Elizabeth Street Garden into a city park. The small, city-owned law in Lower Manhattan is at the center of a housing debate in the city. WNYC's housing reporter David Brand says this all started 25 years ago when the owner of an art gallery in the building next door got permission to lease the lot and store some sculptures there. He started letting some members of the public enter on a limited basis. Then in 2012, the city pledged to build affordable senior housing in the lot. When they started that a few years later, it triggered some pretty intense concern.

A lot of local residents, including some celebrities, and the community board say this garden's a unique oasis downtown, we need to preserve it. Housing groups say the city needs more affordable housing in every neighborhood, even the rich ones. David says the fight has continued for a decade until earlier this year when it looked like the garden was actually going to get evicted. But this Thursday, something changed. Well, what changed was Adams named attorney Randy Mastrow as first deputy mayor. Before Mayor Adams appointed Mastro, for the first three years of his term, he supported building the senior housing on the lot. But after he appointed Mastro First Deputy, Mastro maneuver to first stop the eviction, and then in June, he announced this agreement with the local council member, Chris Marte, to stop the plan altogether.

In exchange, Marte said he'd support affordable housing plans for three other sites in the area, but all of those are in very early stages and will probably take years to become reality. So critics are saying this is like a one in the hand, three in the bush situation, one concrete plan versus three more amorphous ones. David says turning the garden into a city park is the Adams administration's parting gift to supporters of the Elizabeth Street Garden. Mayor Lexoran Mamdani also commented on the move Thursday. It is no surprise that Mayor Adams is using his final weeks and months to cement a legacy of dysfunction and inconsistency. Mamdani has said multiple times that he supports building. senior housing at the site. As recently as a few weeks ago, he said he would evict the garden in his first year in office. But for now, it really does look like after this year's long saga

that the Elizabeth Street Garden is here to stay. That's WNYC's David Brand. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Elizabeth Shue. See you tomorrow. Thank you.