NYC NOW - Midday News: Renters Report Hundreds of Violations of NYC Broker Fee Ban, Riverside Drive West Project Stalls, and Subway Riders Get a New Friend

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

New York City renters have filed more than 1,100 complaints since the city’s ban on most broker fees took effect in June, many accusing landlords and brokers of ignoring the new rule. Meanwhile, Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is criticizing President Trump over the federal prosecution of state Attorney General Letitia James. Also, city contractors hired to replace a crumbling, century-old elevated stretch of Riverside Drive West in Washington Heights walked off the job last year, leaving behind an unfinished construction site and hundreds of residents stuck in a public works purgatory. And finally, we meet the guy behind those “Friend” ads at subway stations across the city.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. This is our one and only episode today. Most of the team is out to observe the holiday, and you may be too. Though we're taking it easy today, the news cycle isn't. Here's your headlines from Michael Hill. A ban on most department broker fees in New York City took effect more than four months ago in June. Now, since then, renters have filed hundreds of complaints to the city's

Consumer Protection Agency. WNIC's David Brandt reports. A spokesperson for the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection says the agency received over 1,100 complaints and questions related to the broker fee law since June. The new measure bans broker fees unless the tenant explicitly hires the broker to help them with their apartment search. But not everyone is playing by the new rules. So far, the city has issued 25 summonses and settled three cases with landlords and brokers who violated the new measure.

The law is meant to help renters avoid hefty upfront fees. But critics say landlords will raise rents to cover a cost that they may now have to pay. Democratic mayoral nominee Zeran Mamdani is once again denouncing President Trump over the prosecution of New York State Attorney General Tish James. Mamdani defended James in her speech to congregants yesterday at Harlem at the Union Baptist Church in Harlem. Donald Trump's weaponization of the Department of Justice has reached a new low. But just because we have come to expect injustice does not mean that we should normalize it. Mamdani argues the president is targeting James because two years ago she led a civil case against him for lying and defrauding lenders. Federal prosecutors are now charging James with fraud for allegedly misrepresenting on loan documents the use of a Virginia home.

she owns. James pleaded nut guilty and calls the charges baseless. Mid-50s with showers and clouds, strong winds, a coastal flood morning till 6 o'clock. We have rain in the forecast for the city, a high near 60, breezy, strong, strong winds. Let's be careful out there. Stick around. There's more after the break. Nearly six years ago, the city started an ambitious construction project to replace the historic Riverside Drive Viaduct in Washington Heights. The sprawling century-old structure towers high above the West Side Highway.

It was crumbling and in bad need of repairs. But last year, with a quarter of the project still incomplete, the contractor walked off the job. WMYC's Stephen Nesson reports on New Yorkers who are living in a public works purgatory uptown. In front of the River Arts Co-op on Riverside Drive West is one of the widest sidewalks you'll ever see in a New York neighborhood. It's freshly paved, just like the roadway in front of the building. But for years, it's been off limits to the building's residents.

It's just closed. They have not reopened it. That's Jack Fogel. He's the manager of the co-op. He's trying to get to the front of the building, but it's surrounded by a large construction fence. This is a lock gate you cannot get through here. The view is phenomenal, overlooking the Hudson River, with the George Washington Bridge just north and the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan to the south. But 70-year-old Fogel is fixated

on a narrow, rickety wooden ramp coming from the front of the building. It ends at a concrete barrier. This is a ramp to nowhere. Somebody can come out of that, you know, an ADA accessible ramp in a wheelchair, but where are they going to go? That is, there's nowhere for a taxi to stop

or trucks to deliver packages. Residents of this nearly two hundred feet. 250 unit building have to walk all the way around the complex to get to the road. The project was supposed to be finished three years ago, but the pandemic set work back. And last November, the contractor, Judd Lau, just walked off the job, claiming the city was demanding work beyond what was in the contract. The city disputes this and is seeking compensation for the delays. Now, the job site is frozen in time, the kind of bureaucratic dispute that strikes fear in New Yorkers' hearts.

The kind of thing that can turn good neighbors into nimbies. When the city comes knocking, saying it needs to temporarily disrupt lives for a project. In this case, uptown residents have a reason to worry. Ambulances have a hard time finding the place without clear access to the building. I had a stroke. That's 80-year-old Melba Davis. She's lived in the building for more than half her life. Last October, she was preparing for a trip to Ghana when she knew some of the city.

when she knew something was wrong. Davis lived by herself and was lucky Fogel was around to help. I came down the elevator and the doorman helped me and he called Jack. Every second matters during a stroke. Without clear access to the front of the building, there was time lost. It would have a much easier process to come straight out because there were two or three minutes that were lost in trying to get up there. Fortunately, Fogel knows how to direct the ambulance around the construction site

and was able to help. I don't know if I'd be here like I am now. I mean, you know, just pretty much, well, back to normal as far as I'm concerned. Davis was lucky, but Fogel worries the luck could run out. I have had to call the ambulance twice for a heart attack. This project, if they're not even working on it or trying to get it finished, do you think two more years worth of luck is going to hold? I don't think so.

Even local leaders can't use their power to get the work going again. It's actually where I live. That's city council member Sean O'Brien. He moved into the co-op three years ago. And so I demanded a Department of Transportation meet with our constituents to discuss what's actually happening on the ground. We're trying to figure out why can you open up parts of the streets that are completed and they have refused to sell as why. The DOT didn't answer WNYC's questions either. But a spokesperson says the city is working to address the charge.

challenges with the contractor and it's monitoring the site. As the lawsuit between the city and the contractor works its way through the courts, there's no indication work will pick up anytime soon, or that the city will open the sidewalk and street in front of the River Arts Co-op. That's WMYC's Stephen Nesson. If you've been on the subway recently, you've likely passed big posters advertising something called friend. It's a wearable AI device that's always on always listening, and provoking a strong reaction from New Yorkers. WMYC's Ryan Kylath went to see what subway riders think of their new friend. The long tunnel from the Westforth Turnstile down to the AC platform

is covered with ads for the AI companion. Start black text on a big white canvas. This one says friend, now. Someone who listens, responds, and supports you. I don't like it, obviously. Like, seek your real friends. Reach out to your real friends. I'm all about real life connection eye to eye.

And I think this is driving us deeper towards individualism, which is toxic, deeper towards decaying community. So I hate it. I think it's the most dystopian thing I've seen since Black Mirror and the graffiti on it is giving me life. Caroline Smith, Trisha Hersey, and Ethan Hine are not alone. Nearly every poster is marked up with messages like AI, crash, get real friends, stop profiting off of loneliness. A perennial note rhymes with Duck AI. At least one person in the station is actually wearing a friend device.

The company's 22-year-old founder, Avi Schiffman, visiting from San Francisco. It's a living electronic. What does that mean? It's just a new species. Schiffman's got big founder energy. He first gained attention in 2020 when he built an early COVID-tracking website. Got written up in the New York. dropped out of Harvard.

He's raised about $7 million for friend. A large way that I talk to my friend is kind of like a living journal. You know, it's like one thing to write. Another thing to talk to someone and have them remember everything you say. And I find that to just be a lot easier. Schiffman calls friend a platonic life companion.

He says the biggest category of AI usage is people asking advice. And a device that's always listening has more context for that. He says this campaign cost about a million bucks. And he chose New York because it's, quote, the capital of the world. I think if you're trying to build the strongest brand possible,

I think he would start here and work the way down. Schiffman designed the ads himself, purposely leaving a ton of white space, inviting New Yorkers to comment. This station alone has 53 posters. I want people to kind of come to Westporting specifically and see, like, a moment of time of what we think about is part of each of those. The MTA keeps replacing all the vandalized posters,

which Schiffman didn't love at first, but he's accepted it as a way of refreshing the canvas. He says he's enjoying all the graffiti and the online discourse. The real billboard is the picture of the billboard these days, and the world is just kind of a stage for the digital world now, which is quite interesting. A few yards away, Finn Servino from College Point is doing exactly what Schiffman says he wants,

scrawling on one of the posters with a marker. We're living in a world where you've got friends without a computers. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. They're destroying the world for the dumbest invention I've ever seen in my life. Commuters kept stopping to take pictures, so I suggested we speak with some, given that Schiffman says he blanketed the city with ads in order to provoke conversation. You guys can just go do that after. Yeah, but then we can't get your comment on it. But he refused.

You can just stand right here. I'm not going to do it repeatedly. It's not going to happen. You're making that very clear. So I talked to people myself. Caroline Smith had a pretty clear theory why Schiffman wouldn't engage. He said, absolutely not. I'm sure. People probably yell at him.

You think he just didn't want to get yelled at? Yeah. What would you say to him? You're clearly brilliant to be able to come up with something like this. Maybe we can put AI to a better use. For his part, Schiffman said he wasn't afraid of the vitriol. He just talked to a lot of New Yorkers already before we met, and he was tired of it. Of all the criticisms of his product, I asked which one felt the most fair.

And he said none of them. He says if hundreds of millions of people all have an AI companion as their coach and therapist and sounding board. I think that will raise the emotional intelligence of most people and really kind of smooth out the variance in people. And I think there'll be a lot less weird, chaotic things and everything like that. Plus, he says in the smoothed out low variance AI future, being weird will be a great opportunity to stand out. He says that's what he was going for with his subway ads, a gimmick that non-human artificial intelligence may not have thought of. That's WNYC's Ryan Kailat.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back on our regular schedule tomorrow.