NYC NOW - June 4, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

A 19-year-old man is still awaiting official charges for allegedly shooting two police officers in Queens on Monday. WNYC’s Brittany Kriegstein spoke to his mother in Colombia. Meanwhile, Senator Bob Menendez is not on Tuesday’s primary ballot in New Jersey, but he has filed to run as an independent in November. WNYC’s Nancy Solomon reports. Plus, WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with arts and culture reporter Ryan Kailath to learn about some fun and free ways to enjoy the big apple in June.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Tuesday, June 4th. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. A 19-year-old man is still awaiting official charges for allegedly shooting two police officers and Queens yesterday. WNYC's Brittany Kriegstein spoke to his mother in Colombia. It took hours for news of Bernardo Raul Castro Mata's alleged involvement in a shooting to reach his mother in Colombia. She says she was at work at a restaurant in Mideen and was so distrapped that she immediately had to go home.

Her biggest worry, though, is Castro Mata's infant daughter, who she says he brought across the border with him to the States for a better life. Irani Mata says the little girl is undocumented and the family has no idea where she is. Matta says her son needs to pay the consequences if he really shot the officers. Senator Bob Menendez is not on the primary ballot in New Jersey today, but as WNYC's Nancy Solomon reports, he has filed paperwork to run in November as an independent. Menendez is currently on trial, accused of bribery, corruption, and working on behalf of a foreign government.

He lost the support of the Democratic Party. party in New Jersey after the indictment was announced last fall. In a video recording in March, Menendez said he couldn't run as a Democrat because there would be no way to focus on all that he had done for the state. Unfortunately, the present accusations I am facing of which I am innocent and will prove so will not allow me to have that type of dialogue and debate with political opponents that have already made it the cornerstone of their campaign. Andy Kim, who's running for the seat called the Menendez announcement selfish. 76 degrees.

An air quality alert in effect today. This is WNYC. Stay tuned. There's more up next. On WNMIC, I'm Sean Carlson. June is year with perhaps the highest concentration of those few perfect days we get here in New York before the stickiest part of summer sets in. And WDNYC's culture in. March reporter Ryan Kyloff is here to talk about some free and cheap ways to enjoy the city this month.

Hey, Ryan. Hey, buddy. All right. Now, first, June is Pride Month. That is a whole conversation on its own. But just give us a teaser here. What's one of the many, many, many free Pride events in town this month? Yeah, a lot of talk lately about how Pride parties have gotten really expensive.

Some of the most famous, popular biggest ones, tickets are like $100, $150. And of course, the big Pride parade, the Pride March, is free. Yeah. But that's June 30. That's the last day I'm long. We got a whole month of stuff to do. So one great free series I like is at the Whitney Museum. They're doing a bunch of free events all month long.

I think they're starting or near the start is a Legends of Drag review. So this is with older stars of the scene. There's another event at the Whitney, a queer teen night. They are doing special tours of the collection that highlight sort of LGBTQ plus components. They're doing a radical joy ball. one day near the end of June, which is like celebrating queer folk with disabilities and making it a very accessible sort of dance party. It looks like a really fun set of events.

Okay. Now, a favorite summer tradition for a lot of New Yorkers is Shakespeare in the park. But while all the world's stage, yes, apparently that is not the case at the Delacourt Theater in Central Park, which is closed for renovations. So what's happening with Shakespeare? One major production, even though it's not at the Delacourt. They are doing the comedy of errors. It's going to be performed in English and Spanish, and it's a road show.

So like you so brilliantly set up, the Delicourt is closed, but what they are doing instead is taking this show on the road, the comedy airs. It's going to be at different parks in all five boroughs on different nights. So there's 28 performances in June. Reservations, as always, are free. It might even be easier to get this year since it's not in the Delicourt. Don't quote me on that later. Schedule's on the website. There's also a map with all of the various.

park locations. It's nice that they did that work for you so you don't have to look up all 28 of these parks. Yeah, true. Okay, what if you just want to get out of the city for a day? Oh, yeah. You mean to my second and third homes? Of course. I don't have those. But two great day trips, I think. One, people might know Breakneck Ridge. It's like one of the most popular hikes in the area. Now, on the weekend, horribly crowded at this point. But if you have the kind of life where you can get away for a day during the week, it's still. gorgeous up there and the weather is perfect this time of year before it gets too hot. You can take the metro north to cold spring New York.

It's a short trip from there. And my second is Fire Island. Okay. Fire Island feels far. It feels inaccessible, but I've done it. And for me, in Manhattan, it was two hours door to door on the Long Island Railroad and then the ferry. You know, Cherry Grove and the pines, especially in June, are the famous popular ones. But there are 17 different communities on Fire Island.

So there's quiet ones, there's nature ones. You can even camp out on the dunes at one end of the island. So that's my other suggestion for a day trip. Ryan, you've written about this for our news site Gothamist 2. This is the last summer of outdoor dining as we have come to know it, right? Oh, yeah. So before the pandemic, there were about 1,200 sidewalk cafes in New York. That's it.

During the pandemic, that exploded 10fold. There were about 12,000, according to city records. And in August, a number of those might go away. So, you know, it's been a free-for-all Wild West, no rules. Obviously, the city was trying to get our restaurant industry through this crisis. Now it's time for rules. We've all heard the debates and complaints about rats and the sheds and, oh, no, my parking space and safety concerns, et cetera. Rules and regulations are coming.

And anybody who doesn't apply for the new program will have to take their roadside shed down by August 3rd. I also talked to a bunch of restaurants who said, you know, hey, those extra seats, those are the things that made my business work. You know, we added 40, we doubled our capacity with these outdoor seats and losing them in a time of high inflation, in a time of changing dining patterns. Losing those seats might mean losing my business. So kind of a bummer note, but I will say we do have this summer. So enjoy it because, yeah, it's the last summer of the outdoor dining experience that we've gotten used to. It's WNYC Arts and Culture Reporter, Ryan Kailoff. Ryan, thanks. See you out there.

Thanks, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.