NYC NOW - July 30, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Police say a man opened fire into a crowd near the Randall's Island migrant shelter early Monday morning during a celebration. The shooting killed one woman and seriously injured two people. Meanwhile, the city's transportation department reports the number of overweight trucks on the BQE has decreased by thousands since weight sensors were installed. Also, the MTA will end a pilot program offering free bus service in every borough by the end of August. Plus, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has announced his candidacy for the 2025 mayoral race, challenging Mayor Eric Adams. Former city comptroller Scott Stringer and state senator Zellnor Myrie are also running. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with reporter Liz Kim about what this means for next year’s primary. Finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talks with food writer and chef Farideh Sadeghin about the food scene in Astoria, Queens, known as “Little Egypt."

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Tuesday, July 30th. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. Police say a man opened fire into a crowd, a crowd of people near the Randalls Island migrant shelter. Early yesterday morning, the shooting killed one woman and seriously injured two other people. NYPD chief of patrol John Shell says the crowd of people. people had been celebrating. There was roughly 50 people celebrating the presidential election in

Venezuela, right here by Reynolds Island, specifically in lot number 71, which is about a quarter mile from the facility. Authorities say the alleged shooter is a victim of a gunpoint robbery and may have been acting in retaliation. The male suspect fled the scene on a moped and is still being pursued by police. A critical section of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway is seeing thousands of fewer trucks that exceed the highway's weight limit after the city started using weight sensors for automated enforcement. The city's transportation department says the number of overweight trucks, which are more than 40 tons, dropped by nearly two-thirds since the sensors were placed along that section last fall. It's the portion of the highway between Atlantic Avenue and Sand Street

and Brooklyn Heights, known as the triple cantilever. Officials say the enforcement is prolonging the lifespan of the structure, which has received multiple rounds of repairs since October. The MTA pilot program that brought free bus service to every borough will end next month. The BX-18 AB in the Bronx, M-116 in Manhattan, B-60 in Brooklyn, Q4 in Queens, and the S-4696 in Staten Island have all been free since last September. But after an MTA meeting yesterday, the agency says the program will expire at the end of next month. The program didn't receive any funding in the new state budget. The year before, lawmakers allocated $15 million to the free bus pilot program. 82 degrees now. Chance of rain this evening. This is WNYC.

Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC on Michael Hill. Another candidate has thrown their hat in the ring to challenge Mayor Adams in New York City's primary next year. New York City controller Brad Lander announced his candidate seat this morning, joining former city controller Scott Stringer and state Senator Zellnor-Mire. W in my C's list. Kim joins us now to talk about the contenders. Hi, Liz. Lander had already been raising money for a bid,

so this announcement doesn't seem very surprising, does it? No, you're right, Michael. If anything, people in the city's political world have been talking about this for weeks, if not months. Now, Lander is in his first term as city controller, and he is virtually guaranteed a second term as an incumbent. The question always was, Would he want to take a risk to risk a sure thing to run against an incumbent mayor?

That's actually a very rare challenge. And Lander obviously decided that Adams is beatable. We're at a moment where we have an incumbent mayor, but he's shown to be vulnerable. The approval ratings have not been good for Eric Adams. And Lander would have the most name recognition among the challengers. Yeah, Lander has been a vocal critic of Adams. we have had several of his reports and audits of so forth of reviewing city finances right here on WNYC. The other two candidates, Scott Stringer and Zelner-Mirey, are also running to Adams' political left.

How much daylight is there among the three challengers to have announced so far? Well, we're going to learn more about them policy-wise in the coming months, I expect. But in terms of strategy, they're all taking the same one, which is that they're attacking the mayor's skills as a manager. A manager in terms of how he's handled the migrant crisis, the budget, and other issues. This shows you that they all see this as his essential weakness. What do we know about the fundraising of all three of Stringer, Miery, and Lander? Well, they've all raised respectable six-figure amounts over the last six months. Lander has an advantage because he's been raising the longest, and he can transatlantic.

for his funds from his controller campaign to the mayoral campaign. At the end of the day, he expects to have over $2.5 million. But I should state that the mayor has a really formidable war chest. He is expecting to have $8 million at the end of the year under the city's very generous matching funds program. And Liz, has the mayor? Has Mayor Adams said anything about running again? Well, yeah. Michael, the mayor is kind of. out fighting. You know, he has said for weeks now that the press and critics are not giving him enough credit for his record. Under his tenure, crime has gone down. Maybe not to pre-bandemic levels, but there is a downward trend. And job growth continues to be strong. The complicating factor

for the mayor is that both of these issues are tied to national trends. And it's the quality of life problems that he's really taking a hit on during town hall meetings and surveys. But the mayor has a big advantage from the rest of these candidates, and it's a bully pulpit from which he can campaign. And he's been doing exactly that in recent months. Liz, quickly here, are we expecting any more people to announce they're going to challenge Adams next year? Well, it's getting kind of late, Michael. You know, late in terms of fundraising, late in terms of putting together a campaign and putting together a message. I mean, a lot of people thought that this was rather late for Lander.

We were waiting for quite a while and wondering, is he going to do it? Is he not going to do it? So I'm not sure, but never say never. You know, it's always possible that if something were to happen to the mayor, for example, that it might draw more contenders. All right, that's WNIC's Liz Kim on Lander announcing he's running for mayor, along with Scott Stringer and Zellner Myrie. Liz, thank you.

Thanks, Michael. I'm Sean Carlson for WNYC. Along a section of Steinway Street and Historia, Queens, is a Middle Eastern community that first took root back in the 1960s. The area is known as Little Egypt, where you can find delicacies like lamb coftah, kebabs, and fatir. joining us now as chef and food writer Faraday Sadigan who recently visited this part of Queens. She's been bringing us regular stories of New York neighborhoods through food and culture.

Okay, Faraday, to start, can you just describe Little Egypt? What did you see? What did you smell? So when you arrive in Little Egypt all along Sinai Street, there are markets and restaurants and hookah bars. So you can smell the hookah kind of along the street. There's a mosque right there too. So depending on the time of day, you might hear the call to prayer as well. How would you describe Egyptian food to someone who isn't familiar with it? So I wasn't really that aware of what Egyptian food was before I went out there and tried a lot of it, to be quite honest.

But it's a lot of seafood, especially coming from the folks who came over from Alexandria. And there's a lot of vegetarian food as well, a lot of lentils, legumes, stuff like that. So it's really flavorful, really just kind of simple also, not too complicated. A lot of hummus, a lot of very similar to a lot of other Middle Eastern, Zine, but again, a lot more seafood than I was expecting. Okay, so let's get into all of the food that you tried. You stopped by to eat seafood at a place called Abukir Seafood. Tell us about what you ate there.

Yeah, so as soon as you walk into Abukir, there's little tables everywhere, and the servers kind of put down some brown paper on the table for you, and there's no menu. You just go in the back, and all the seafood is on ice. So I got a whole fish, a branzino, some octopus, and some shrimp. And the bread there is baked fresh, and it literally is just puffy, fluffy. As soon as you pull it open, steam just kind of pours out of it everywhere. And I also got, all the sides are really good. There's like this eggplant dip that obviously dipping that PETA into is quintessential.

You have to do that. And then they have this Egyptian rice. I met the owner, Ahmed Ibrahim, and he described to me what Egyptian rice is like. Egyptian rice is white rice, is caramelized onions. and also that's some tricks when you cook the onions. You know, in the same time, you need the colors, you know, to change it, you know, on the test of the onions. Yeah, as long as you know how to cook the onions,

you don't burn it, you know, you know what time exactly to drop the water, what time you drop the rice, how long. These are the tricks, yeah. That's what you call Rosa Sayadaya. That's like exactly like we say it back home, Rosa Saadayadeo. Yeah. Interesting.

There's definitely an art to caramelizing onions, that is, for sure. Faraday, you also visited, if I'm getting this right, the first Egyptian-owned restaurant in the area called the Kabab Cafe. Can you tell us what you tried there? So Ali El-Said actually opened up Kabab Cafe in 1989, and he moved to the United States from Alexandria after traveling through Europe. Essentially, his restaurant, it's a one-man show. He's the one cooking, he's cleaning, he's the dishwasher, he's serving you, he's doing everything. And the menu changes every day. So you kind of don't really know what he's going to be serving until you get there.

It just depends on what he finds at the market and what looks fresh and what he kind of feels like making that day. I got a platter with hummus, fava beans, falafel. There was fried lettuce, which a lot of people don't really know or like think about doing with lettuce, but it was delicious. And then a stewed cauliflower salad that had pomegranate molasses. The cauliflower was so melt in your mouth tender. And the pomegranate just kind of like really added a nice sweetness to it. And then we also got a pile of pita bread, and there was little side plates that had spices and sumac and sesame seeds on it. So anytime you put anything on your plate, it kind of absorbed those seeds, which I thought was a really nice touch.

Faraday, you also tried flaky pastry. It's called Fetier at a place called Mumfatier. Can you just describe what it is? Yeah, so there's two versions. There's a sweet version and a savory version. I tried the savory one, which essentially it's like a really flaky pastry that is filled with different. different kind of things. I got savory stuff, so a lot of cheese, it had peppers, onions, and like kind of the stuff that's like similar to pastrami. They also have sweet ones that have

custard in it. And then it's also, there's pastry on top of it, which kind of shatters as soon as you kind of crack into it. So some people compare it to pizza, which I feel like is doing it a disservice, because, you know, a lot of times the Egyptians use Fetir as an offering to the gods. And I mean, at the same time, though, I mean, I guess I would offer pizza of the gods, because I love pizza. So who knows? Yeah. And finally, you finished your day at Al-Sham's sweets and pastry. Tell us about the desserts that you tried there. Yeah. So they have a lot of different varieties of Middle Eastern pastries and desserts, not just Egyptian, but they do specialize in baklava and Kanafa. The baklava was amazing. It had a lot of pistachio in it, and it's really sweet. You know,

after leaving there, you really kind of want to go get a cup of tea or something because, you know, just to balance out the sweetness, a cup of tea would kind of warm. wash everything down really nicely. So yeah, definitely try. There's way too many things there for me to have tried in one visit. So I'm definitely going to have to go back and try more. But the Baklava, I highly recommend. That was Faraday Saddick, and who's been bringing us regular stories of New York neighborhoods through food and culture. Faraday, as always, thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives.

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