NYC NOW - Midday News: City Council Moves to Track Supportive Housing Vacancies, Natural History Museum Resumes Sleepovers, and Prospect Park Hosts Lenape Nations Pow Wow

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

The City Council has approved legislation requiring New York to publish detailed information on every supportive housing unit, after reports showed more than 5,000 of the city’s 40,000 units sat empty as recently as June. Meanwhile, the American Museum of Natural History will resume its popular children’s sleepovers in October for the first time since 2020. Plus, Prospect Park will host the Second United Lenape Nations Pow Wow this weekend, organized with the Eenda Lunaapeewahkiing Collective. Brent Stonefish, cofounder of the group, joins us to talk about the event and its celebration of Lenape life and culture.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, September 12th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Each year New York City and state agencies fund about 40,000 apartments with on-site services for people with serious mental illness and other special needs. But more than 5,000 of those units were sitting empty as recently as June. Not a city council has approved legislation that requires the city to publish detailed information on every supportive housing unit. Councilmember Lincoln Wrestler introduced the bill. It is as shocking as it is disgraceful that there are 5,000 vacant units of supportive housing in New York City.

A spokesperson for the city's social services agency says the new rule will help identify apartments that need repairs. Councilmember wrestlers encouraging the department to use the apartments as a way of addressing the city's ongoing homelessness crisis. Your chance to spend a night at the museum is back. The American Museum of Natural History says it's sleepovers for six to 12-year-old children and their caregivers will resume monthly, starting the end of October after being paused in 2020. Sleep under the big blue whale and take flashlight tours at the museum. People also get bedtime snacks. and a complimentary breakfast.

Member pre-sale begins the 30th for tickets. General admission will be available starting October 7th, and tickets cost $225 per person. Enjoy. Stick around. There's more to come. You're listening to NYC now. This weekend, Brooklyn's Prospect Park is hosting a celebration of Lenape Life and Culture with the Second United Lenape-Linapa.

Nation's powell. Brent Stonefish is a co-founder of the Enda Linapau-Akin Collective, known as the EL Collective. They are partnering with the Prospect Park Alliance and the American Indian Community House to put on this event. Brent, Stonefish joins us now. Brent, good morning. Willik Nyapowni. Good morning.

Prospect Park, Brent, has a history with this. The park hosted formal powwows from 1916 to 1972. But this will be the first one. held in the park since then. And I understand it's only the second ever Linape Linapeau Powell in New York City. Tell me how this all came together, Brent. It all started with my cousin and co-founder George Stonefish, who had a vision of having a United Lenape, Linapau, Powell, in New York City. He organized the first one in 2018 around Thanksgiving. He brought me in as a co-planner and we had planned to do it annually but then COVID happened and so it's taken us two years

to be able to have a two-day pow-wow. The first one was a one-day pow-wow, this one's a two-day pow-wow. And we actually had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it happen, getting in front of the cultural committee for the city council in December. Once we got the okay, that's when we started planning for our second annual. But this all goes back to George's original vision of bringing together Lenape, Linapa, people. Brent, was there any pushback from the city at all on this? No.

One of the things we made the case that, you know, we are the original inhabitants of New York, and this is the land of the Lenape. And so they agreed that we should give. this special permission to the original inhabitants. Brent, I was saying that I had seen a powell in Iowa in the summer of 2019. It was just one of the most extraordinary things I'd ever seen. For those who might never have been to one, what should people expect at the powwow?

A lot of dancing. We have opportunities for the crowd at large to come out and dance. We have a lot of competition, so you're going to see world champion dancers, listen to the drumming of the drum groups that we have. We also have a lot of craft and artisans that are going to be there. We have a lot of things going on. There's going to be corn husk doll making and just, you know, the camaraderie and just celebrating life because that's what a pow is about is celebrating life

and bringing friends and family together just to enjoy and, you know, be chill and a good vibe. Brent, who is this event for? Is it for the members of the nation or for those who want to learn more about it? Well, it's actually for both. It's a homecoming for Linapa, Lanapi people, and it gives us a chance to share our culture, language, and heritage with all New Yorkers. And that's the reason why we had partnered with Morgan, Monaco, and the Prospect Alliance. friend, tell us more about the food.

What's going to be offered and what do you recommend? There's going to be a lot of stuff. I know there's going to be traditional foods that use traditional and natural ingredients that are indigenous to North America. And then you're going to get into other things like fry bread, which is like, you know, deep fried dough and Indian tacos. And then you're going to have venison burgers and buffalo burgers. and different stuff like that.

What else are you personally most excited for there at this powwow, Brett? Well, why? I'm one of the co-MCs, so I'll be on the mic the whole weekend. But just to witness that bringing together Lenape people and sharing that experience with, you know, New Yorkers, to let people know that we aren't gone. We might not live in the city. but the Lenape and Linopal people are alive and vibrant and still believe in celebrating life.

Brent Stonefish is a co-founder of the Enda Lanapau-Akin Collective. The powell is free and open to the public. And Brent, thank you so much for this. Anishik. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every week. day three times a day for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your