NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: ICE Detentions Shake Church Community, Toddler Drowns in Bronx Daycare, Cuomo Calls For Beefed Up NYPD Security After Midtown Shooting, and Dining in Williamsburg

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Two Episcopal church members face detention by ICE, prompting parishioner warnings across New York. Meanwhile, authorities are investigating the drowning of a 20-month-old girl at a Bronx daycare on Friday. Plus, Andrew Cuomo says he wants to beef up the NYPD unit that responded to last week's mass shooting in Midtown. Finally, food writer Robert Sietsema spotlights Williamsburg’s culinary boom.

ICE detention's shake church community. Toddler drowns in Bronx daycare. Cuomo calls for beefed up NYPD security after midtown shooting and dining in Williamsburg. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Sean Carlson. The Episcopal Diocese of New York is preparing parishioners for potential arrest after two church members were detained by ICE. Advocates say 20-year-old Yansu Go was taken into custody on Thursday, along with a 59-year-old Peruvian. woman who is also active in the community. Mary Rofwell Davis is an attorney for the diocese. She's encouraging people with pending appointments to make plans for child care, bank accounts,

and other essentials in the event they are detained. Unfortunately, there seems to be a pretty good chance these days that you may not return home after your court date. Go is released Monday night. Advocates say the Peruvian woman is still in detention. Authorities are investigating the drowning of a 20-month-old girl at a Bronx daycare. Police say the toddler died Friday at a Castle Hill-based daycare called Anna's Butterfly Garden. Her family is identifying her as River Adema Wilson.

According to the NYPD, the daycare operator says she was cooking when the child slipped out through the back screen door and that the girl climbed into an above-ground pool in the backyard. The state inspected the daycare four times in the past year and found no violations. Andrew Cuomo says he wants to beef up the NYPD unit that responded to last week's mass shooting in Midtown. Cuomo says the team is critical to handling both emergencies and protests. And it's only going to get worse, not better. I think it would be a tremendous mistake to disband them. His opponent, Democratic mayoral nominees, Iran Mamdani, says he'd dismantle the unit because

of its history of aggressive tactics with protesters. The city has paid out millions of dollars in settlements over mistreating protesters. Mamdani defended his public safety policy saying police are being asked to do too much. We are making it more and more difficult for them to respond to the very responsibilities that drew them to the job in the first place. He says he'd hire more social and mental health care workers to assist police. Cuomo and Mamdani are in a crowded general election for New York City mayor, along with Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sleba and incumbent mayor, Eric Adams. Up next, Williamsburg has become one of New York City's best food districts.

We'll have more on that after the break. Food writer Robert C-Sysburg. has been taking us to some of the city's most traveled to neighborhoods this summer. This time he joins my colleague David First to talk about Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which he calls one of the best neighborhoods for eating in New York City. Williamsburg. It's become shorthand for trendy, hipster New York City, but has long been home to many different communities. If you don't know it, the neighborhood sits on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge and extends to Bushwick Ave along the eastern edge.

Robert, give us a little flavor of this neighborhood and how Williamsburg has evolved over the years. Well, it started out as marshy farmland in the 18th century. You're really going back. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But by 1827, it had become a village unto itself and then a city. If you go across the Williamsburg Bridge, you're going to see these old, old downtown Williamsburg buildings like the domed Williamsburg Savings, Bank, it's magnificent. And if you compare it to the kind of vernacular architecture all over the rest of Williamsburg, it's like, how did this get here? Well, Williamsburg, before it became incorporated into Brooklyn in 1855, was like an economic powerhouse. It looks like a little mini Manhattan or something.

But that completely peters out going in all directions where you suddenly have this kind of frame architecture dating from the 20th century, early in the 20th century, when it was largely a slum. As indicated, if you've ever read a tree grows in Brooklyn, it's about like a hard-up Irish family that lives in Williamsburg. Of course, one big change was when Williamsburg was incorporated into Brooklyn. It lost the H at the end, right? Now it ends in a G. Exactly. Me and my friends used to go there looking for adventure in the 1990s. They had underground clubs and fly-by-night art galleries, and it was an exciting time. It kind of recreated the history of the East Village in the 90s. And then the rich people started moving in and giant towers were constructed. So now you have a

gorgeous mosaic in Williamsburg of people of different income levels, all sorts of different restaurants, many of them very exciting. A gorgeous mosaic. Well, let's explore it. Your full list of where to eat in Williamsburg is up on our news site, gothamist.com today. But let's hit a few highlights. Where should we start? Let's start at one of the oldest restaurants in the city. Bumontes. It's in a little wee red house under the BQE, and it was founded by immigrants from the town of Nola in 1902. There must be like on the roof a secret vat of red mariner sauce that is brought down to the restaurant in pipes and kind of like squirted into many of the dishes in the open kitchen that supposedly is there, and I'm not making this up, because mobsters were

afraid their food was going to be poisoned and they wanted to see what was going on in the kitchen. So that is the start of the open kitchen, not a place for celebrity chefs to swan around in. The food here is still fantastic. I mean, what you should do is kind of put on your best clothes because the waiters will be wearing tuxedos. You have like Roman dishes on there, like their famous egg drop soup called Spadini Romana. But you can never go. wrong by heading for the dishes that were made by immigrant housewives using the things that were abundant in the new world. Anything with ricotta or mozzarella, any baked pastas of all different sorts, any seafood like the stuffed clams called clams oreganoata formally, those are absolutely

great. So that's a wonderful place to go. It's a little more expensive than your corner kind of bistro, but it's not that expensive. But go to Beaumontes to eat the red stuff. Okay, where should we head next? Let's go to a diner next. Who doesn't love a diner? Let's go. Kellogg's diner is right conveniently located, right over the G and the L stop at Lorimer Street. You pop up and there is this thing gleaming in front of you, like a 1950s car, or streamlined chrome all over it. And this is one of those diners that one suspects was endangered for a long time. But the people that owned it, loved it, and they decided, why not revamp it a little? We'll keep some of the old dishes.

But what do you think we should add that everyone would love, or at least the youngsters, would love? Well, the answer is Tex-Mex. So they're making stuff like meagas and nachos, San Antonio-style cheese, enchiladas. But that's a section of the menu, and you can still get your hamburger, your chef salad. All the diner classics. All the diner classics. And not that, I would say, for about 50% more expensive than the actual diners that still exist.

That's food writer Robert Sitsima in conversation with my colleague, David First. In an earlier newscast, we said the Education Department reported more than 130 school buses with air conditioning issues. that was incorrect. The department actually confirmed more than 130 violations related to AC problems in July, but did not specify how many buses were involved. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson.

We'll be back tomorrow.