NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: NYPD Detective Shot in Queens, Dangerous Rip Currents Persist, a Digital Divide in the Bronx, and Red Hook’s Pinball Museum

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

An NYPD detective is recovering after he was struck by gunfire from his fellow officers during an incident Friday morning. Plus, the National Weather Service warns of life-threatening rip currents through Saturday at regional beaches. Meanwhile, a quarter of residents in the Bronx don’t have broadband internet access at home. And finally, there's a new entry in Red Hook's collection of oddball delights; a pinball museum.

An NYPD detective gets shot in Queens. Dangerous rip currents persist, thanks to Hurricane Aaron. A digital divide in the Bronx. And we explore a pinball museum in Red Hook, Brooklyn. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. We begin in Queens, where an NYPD detective is recovering in the hospital after he was struck by gunfire from his fellow officers during an incident Friday morning.

Police say it happened around 9, near the White Stone Bridge, when the officers sought to arrest a man who was trying to steal an Uber driver's car. The detective was shot in the leg and hand and taken to Jamaica Hospital in stable condition. Police are identifying the suspect as 28-year-old Kevin Dubuisin. He was arrested at the scene and was uninjured. Information for his lawyer isn't available yet. meteorologists continue to warn of life-threatening rip currents through Saturday at regional beaches. That's due to the impacts of Hurricane Aaron, which is moving east over the Atlantic Ocean.

The National Weather Service says Jersey Shore and Long Island beaches are under high rip current risks until Saturday evening. The agency recommends again swimming for the time being and is also warning of coastal flooding in vulnerable areas. Meanwhile, weather conditions are expected to be sunny and mild this weekend. It's 2025, and yet a quarter of the residents in the Bronx don't have broadband internet access at home. After the break, we look into the digital divide there. Stay close. A new report finds the Bronx has the largest share of families who don't have a computer at home or have access to high-speed internet. WMYC's Caring-Y reports on what that looks like for New Yorkers. Along the busy East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, it's not hard.

to find residents who don't have high-speed internet at home. You pay for internet? No. I can't really afford it. It's kind of like, kind of too expensive. 59-year-old Al Christian says he can't do much without it. And I can't listen to YouTube. I can't listen to music.

I can't see my daughter. I can't. There's a lot you can do without that internet. Christians is among the nearly one in four households in the Bronx that lack broadband. That's according to a report by the, the Center for an Urban Future. It also found one in three Bronx families don't have a computer at home. The digital divide has become a major driver of inequality in New York. Eli DeVorkin helped write the report and says the biggest challenge is affordability.

It is separating New Yorkers into those who not only have access to computers and broadband, but with those things, access to a full world of opportunity, from education to job training, to opportunities to connect with programs and services that could change the trajectory of their lives. That's why nonprofit groups like Lyft, New York, which aim to break the cycle of generational poverty, are offering free laptops to parents who need them, like 37-year-old Malika Butler.

Yo, here we go, it works. All right, you're in. We're in. This is beautiful. I like this. Butler is a mom of three, but doesn't have a computer at home for her or her kids. This laptop, she says, will be for her oldest.

son, who was headed to trade school to become an auto-mechanical engineer. Oh, this is really nice. The second-guessing is giving us to the void. Butler says she knows how difficult it can be to do schoolwork without a laptop. She applied to Metropolitan College of New York on her phone. Sometimes it starts. Sometimes your phone freezes. Sometimes you lose internet service.

She hopes her son will have an easier time navigating school and work. Having a laptop is going to help him, not only help him. to be able to be successful and to be able to do his goals and complete everything that he needs to. But it also gives mom a little bit like a relief. Giseli Bellows is a program manager at Lyft and says with the rising cost of food, rent, and child care, some families can't afford their internet bills that can cost up to $100 a month. It's not always easy to pay $70 when you're a single parent and maybe receiving public benefits. Those $70 can purchase diapers.

Those $70 are purchasing clothing. school supplies, other basic needs. Advocates say it's going to be even more important to get residents connected, as federal cuts to programs that help people buy groceries and afford health care take effect. That's WMYC's Karen Yee. A spokesperson for the Adams administration says the city launched free broadband to thousands of NITHA residents in the Bronx and provides free internet to 2,000 households in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, along with digital literacy support.

Now to Red Hook, Brooklyn. The neighborhood can sometimes feel like it's from a different era. It's known for its bluegrass jams, key lime pies, and art studios on its gentrified west side. Now, there's a new entry in Red Hook's collection of oddball delights. WMYC's Ryan Kylath has more. Seaborne is the name of a cocktail bar on Van Brunt Street. Like a lot of the neighborhood, it features a nautical theme

and a cool weirdo with a pet project. It was this guy, Al. He passed away during COVID. He had machines here, and they got taken out by his family. What's Al's last name? You know, I have no idea. But he went by the pinball rasta. So he was a white guy who went by pinball rasta. A legend, yeah. Al the pinball rasta, rasta in peace, kept pinball machines in the back room at the Seaborn years ago. Kevin Murray, who you just heard and his friend Wesley Machalski, had no idea of this back room's history as a gaming parlor. They asked the owners to put it. in their own pinball collection, which they call... The Red Hook Pinball Museum and Red Hook Brooklyn.

To the extent that you know pinball, Mischolsky says, you probably know games from the 80s and 90s. Taxi, bad cats, attack from Mars, medieval madness, Champions Pub, Twilight Zone. That is not what these guys are offering. They've got games from the so-called classic era. We got Diamond Lil from 54, Majorette's 64, Diamond Jack, from 67, dimension from 71, and Bristol Hills from 71.

Murray and Michalski are in their 20s. When they go to pinball conventions, they say, it's pretty much them at a bunch of retired guys, pinheads, hanging out. Talking about what woodrail we got recently and what crazy trip we went on to get this. Woodrails, as they're called, the ones with the wood trim from the 50s. Just, they're beautiful. These old games are beautiful. They're entirely analog, running on electromagnetic switches,

with dings and chimes and whistles and bells. Unlike today's digital machines, basically video games that talk and play music and pictures. These 20-somethings are both musicians, living nearby, who got the pinball bug early in life and love to tinker. During COVID, I was obsessively learning how to read schematics and watching YouTube videos on how all these different, you know, stepper units and relays work

and how the logic works. A couple days ago on Wednesday night during the storm, I went over to Kevin's house, and we sat and polished pins for a 1931 game for five hours, and that's kind of what we do a lot of. Their bedrooms are full of parts and supplies and gear. Mischolsky says restoring each machine in the museum takes two to four hundred hours of labor. These old broken games are pretty cheap to buy online, and as they worked on them, buying old out-of-print pinball encyclopedias and electrics manuals.

We were just like, there's so much here. We just wanted to, like, tell the story of this stuff a little more. It's not just like, oh, look at these weird old machines. It's like there's a whole history here. We got Whiffle from 1931, and we also have one from 1886 in the corner. It's called a parlor bagatelle. Now, I could listen to this stuff all day, but I'll just give you a taste of what happens when you wind these guys spring. In 1980s.

And 1871, this guy, Montague Redgrave was a French guy. He was the guy who patented the spring plunger. So before that. The museum's main event right now is a lot of the museum's main event right now is a lot. an open house every second Sunday of the month. Murray says it's full of pinball friends and local families. We got little stools, so there's all these kids standing on milk crates, you know, playing pinball. One in particular, it was so sweet. Him and his mom came, and they brought their own stool. And she was like, yeah, he loves pinball, so we bring our own stool so we can go play pinball

at different places. The museum's totally free to visit and free to play. Donations are encouraged, since it's a labor of love. Murray and Mischalski say they're definitely putting way too much time and money into this thing, especially when they were getting ready to launch. We would walk home at like 4 a.m. being like, what are we doing with our lives? But it's all paid off. It's totally worth it. It's been a blast overall and made a lot of great memories with Kevin. It's not a very practical hobby, they'll admit. But in Red Hook, it's kind of a perfect one. This is a neighborhood where the past isn't preserved behind glass, but it clinks and clatters and comes to life, one play at a time.

That's WMYC's Ryan Kyla. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Have a lovely weekend.