NYC NOW - The Brooklyn Dance Party Bringing Everyone Together

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Stories from this episode: Luigi Mangione enters guilty plea in NYC federal court: https://gothamist.com/news/luigi-mangione-enters-guilty-plea-in-nyc-federal-court Some New York lawmakers are pushing a bill that would mandate insurance coverage for egg-freezing. https://gothamist.com/news/aoc-is-freezing-her-eggs-some-new-york-lawmakers-want-insurance-to-cover-it Now in its fifth year, Public Service is a series of free, outdoor daytime parties co-founded by DJs Mickey Perez and Cesar Toribio.  https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/it-is-a-bit-utopian-why-public-service-is-brooklyns-favorite-dance-party Is the “All you can eat” Buffet still a thing in NYC? https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/is-nyc-an-all-you-can-eat-buffet-town-a-5-year-old-investigates Subway commuters unite in hatred of A.I ads https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/it-is-a-bit-utopian-why-public-service-is-brooklyns-favorite-dance-party Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. The hottest dance party in Brooklyn. Is the buffet still a thing in the city? And New Yorkers fight back against fake AI ads on the subway. That's some of what we'll be discussing on our bi-weekly check-in with WNYC's Arts and Culture Desk. But first, here are some of the headlines we're following. Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges stemming from the killing.

of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. The 28-year-old Ivy League grab faced charges in both state and federal court related to Thompson's killing. Federal prosecutors accused him of stalking Thompson to New York City and shooting him outside a Midtown Manhattan Hotel in the early morning hours of December 4, 2024. In court, Mangione admitted that he planned the attack on Thompson, and now he faces up to life in prison. Ben Fewer Hurd covers public safety.

and policing for WNYC and Gothamist, he joins us now to explain the plea and what comes next. Ben, welcome to the show. Hey. Before we jump into all of this, can you first walk us through what happened in Court Friday? Yeah, so Mangioni pleaded guilty to the two counts, as he said, that he faced in federal court

for the killing of Brian Thompson. And in a lot of ways, it was this pretty standard plea hearing where a judge asked him a number of questions prior to him pleading guilty about his frame of mind. And the judge asked things like, have you taken any drugs in the past few days? Is your mind clear today? And that's just to ensure that Mangioni was pleading guilty willfully and he understood what he was doing. And probably the most interesting part of the hearing was when he described his actions the day of the killing on December 4th, which is also standard at plea hearings like this.

And he started by saying that he struggled for years with severe pain from a broken back and had difficulty navigating the U.S. health care system. So he said in 2024, he decided to research the annual investors conference held by United Healthcare. And he said he ended up traveling to New York, emailing United Healthcare, posing as an investor to figure out where the conference was actually being held. And the company ends up getting back to him and he figures out where the conference is. He goes there at the day of the conference and assassinates Thompson. And he said prior to traveling to New York, he printed out a 3D gun, put a silencer on it. He said he went to New York with the attention of killing Thompson. And at one point in his remarks, he just straight up told the judge that he shot Thompson and killed him.

I read on Gothamist, your piece that you worked on with our colleagues, Samantha Max and Walter Woodman, that Luigi Mangione said, quote, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died. And Ben, I know that Mangioni had previously pleaded not guilty. Why change his plea now? Yeah. Our colleague Samantha Max, as you mentioned, had a good testimony. story about this today. She spoke to a few attorneys and legal experts. Some who basically said he's trying to cut his losses here. One made the point that when you strip away all the publicity

around this case, the dialogue that had sparked about the U.S. healthcare system, it's basically a straightforward murder case with absolutely no legal justification. So Mangione may be trying to make a sort of last-age effort to not spend the rest of his life in prison. The judge will decide his sentence. But in general, judges like it when defendants who are guilty accept a responsibility for what they did and own up to it, even though it's their right to go to trial. So if someone pleads guilty, it's not unusual for defense attorneys to highlight that when they submit what's called a sentencing submission and argue for a more lenient sentence for their client. And the other piece of this is his attorneys are trying to get the charges that he faces brought by the Manhattan

District Attorney's Office dismissed. Yeah, Ben, let's talk more about this. because Mangione still faces murder and weapons charges in state court. What does this plea mean for that case and what happens next? Yeah, so Mangione's attorneys have already filed a motion in the state case to dismiss the remaining murder and weapons charges there. And they argue it should be dismissed for a number of reasons, including what they view as a violation of New York State's double jeopardy law. And basically what they say is that the U.S. Constitution allows for prosecutions

at both the state and federal level. But New York State's double jeopardy law goes further than that. They say it gets triggered when there's a resolution to a case through a guilty plea or at trial that bars prosecutors from bringing another case for the same crime. So interesting, you know, legal theories that play there. Yeah. But the Manhattan DA's office responded to the filing with a statement basically saying it's not as cutting dry as that the statement says they're prepared to litigate the defense motion. So there's definitely going to be more on that front. Yeah, definitely going to keep my ears to the ground to see what happens there.

I'm sure you didn't expect this as you woke up on a Friday morning, right, Ben? Yeah, eventful newsday for sure. Definitely. Ben, fewer, it covers public safety and policing for WNYC and Gothamist. Ben, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. In other New York City news, some state lawmakers are pushing a bill that would require insurance coverage for egg freezing. The procedure is getting more attention because of online posts from Congress member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She says she's spending thousands of dollars to freeze her eggs. State Senator Michelle Hensky hopes that attention will help build momentum for the bill. She says coverage for egg freezing is still spotty. More and more people are using it, but the people who have access to it are folks who either have disposable income or who happen to work for a company that have Cadillac benefits. The bill has passed the state Senate twice, but has stalled in the assembly. The State Health Plan Association says the mandate could increase insurance costs. If you want to learn more about these stories, you can find links to our full coverage on our new site, Got the Mist, in the show notes.

It's time now for our biweekly arts and culture check-in, a look at what's coming across our Arts and Culture Desk here at WMYC. Joining me is editor of that desk, Matthew Schnipper. Hey, Matt. Hey, Janay, how's it going? Pretty good. missing you here in the studio, but I know your parents miss you a lot more. I am set up in my parents' basement. Yeah.

Yeah. The WMIC Home away from home. Yeah, well, I hope it's been nice for you. It's nice. It's been a good day out of the office. Glad to be working on my daughter's nap time. Yeah. We are approaching another New York City summer weekend.

Can I take it back to this past weekend, though? Because it was bananas. The city put on its first Jamaica Day parade. and have you seen the videos? Oh, man. Yes. Did you see the video of the white lady of Flapush getting arrested? Man, that was crazy.

But yeah, the Jamaica Day parade was insane. Plus, I know your desk covered Brooklyn's favorite dance party. That's public service. Can you talk a bit about that? Public service, yeah. It's funny. A few people this summer have come to me and been like, we got to talk about public service.

Look, this is an idealistic, Eden-like dance party. It happens. There are two vinyl-only DJs. They play in parks across Brooklyn, and it's a free party. They do raise funds via GoFundMe, but you can show up and attend. These are authorized real legal parties. And they had one this past weekend, and it was at Stoibin Playground.

If you've ever come off the BQE by the Kent exit, it's in this kind of no-man's land space between kind of Navy Yard and Williamsburg. But anyway, this party is like everybody from all walks of life coming and listening to salsa, disco, R&B, older songs, newer songs, but all on vinyl. And it is not a music snob party. It is not a party that targets one demographic or another. We did the story. And what was really interesting was the quotes really said, everyone is here. We got gentrifiers.

We got the people getting gentrified upon. We've got everybody who lives in Brooklyn coming together. And it seemed like a party that is happening without any sort of tension. Obviously, you would hope a party is a place where that would happen. But it does seem like this is a really blissful event. It's not like it's meant to be like, we're going to play the most cutting edge, funkiest, weirdest music, and it's going to be this thing. And it's only for the heads.

It's a weird. This is for everybody kind of party. Yeah. And I mean, that was certainly illustrated in the Gothamist story that I read about this one. It's really all people of all ages, of all backgrounds. It's really New York City. And I think that that to me is a really cool thing to see. Yeah.

Because I do think about events that you go to and you go, oh, well, you know, this is for this demographic, and this is for this demographic, and this. And you can kind of go around and see, like, who fits in over here. And, you know, and maybe you can even fit in in a couple of different places. But it's not often, I feel like that you're out in New York and you go, okay, everybody is here. everybody of socioeconomic levels, like, you know, age, race, class. Like, it reminds me kind of like a more official version of St. James Joy, which is a block party that happens on St. James Place.

Even that is like, that's a house music party too. This is a kind of, this is an everybody party. There's another public service party coming up, right? Yes, there is one last chance to join this utopian party, September 13th at Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick. And Matt, can you talk about these two DJs behind this one? Yeah, there's two guys named Mickey Perez and C. Caesar Tourapio.

They met when one was working on a club, the other was DJing there, and they said, hey, you know, this is the kind of spirit that we want to bring. A very welcoming place, a very communal kind of place. And I think they set up a couple of not sanctioned outdoor parties. And then said, well, what if we made it official? And so they got the licenses. They brought in flowers. At the end of each event, they do a group photo of all the dancers and themselves.

I think they're two like-minded gentlemen who said, Like, how do we make people in New York feel like they love the city? Yeah. You know, they have a party that does that. Yeah. I'm looking forward to catching the next one at Maria Hernandez Park in Bushwick. Yeah, that's going to be fun. I think it's the last one of the season because it will be, you know, it'll start being cold.

Are there any other summer exclusive events that we should check out before the season ends? You know, there are two more warmups at PS1. And I was talking about that party at some point in the last couple weeks, I think, on the show. And on August 21st and August 28th at PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, if you've not been to PS1, to the museum, they have an enormous courtyard. And for years, they've been doing a party where they just have DJs and musicians play at the top of these steps. And then people dance out in front of the steps. So the 21st and the 28th are both good lineups. I would go on the 21st, if you could.

Doppler Effect is playing. And there's a group called Purelink who, I think, somewhat jokingly but lovingly has referred to themselves as an ambient music boy band. So if there's one more outside thing that you're going to do this summer, that might be a good candidate. Yeah, I mean, we're also coming up to the end of some of the last outdoor movie nights. Of course, that 8 p.m. sunset, it's gone until next year at least. Yes, it's kind of sad. Yeah, yeah. And but, you know, also, speaking of things that we should check out,

we'll get another chance to check out the Queens Night Market as well. So summer's coming to an end in a few weeks. A lot to knock out before it does. So please do that. I was thinking about this, you know, about stuff that you might want to do. And I think, yes, go to Queens Night Market. You should do that. You know, there are many fairies you can go on.

Awesome. Do that. But I was thinking, you know, things change so much when it gets cold. You don't want to be in your house all the time. So you do a bunch of stuff in the winter. You get bundled up. I was thinking, honestly, I was like, what do I feel like doing? I was like, I want to go to Fort Green Park and sit on a bench and read a book.

You know, there's going to be plenty of weird, random events. We're going to have a whole guide to the fall coming up soon on Gothamist on Mount WMYC from our desk in a couple weeks after Labor Day. But if I really could urge you to do anything, read a book. Outside. Put your phone down, go outside, read a book. That is my recommendation. Go to a park and read. Pick a book, any book. I can recommend you a book. M. Schnipper at WMyc.org, send me an email. Tell me what you want to read. I'll recommend you a book. Any book. Just read one. We're going to take a break here, but when we return, WMYC's Arts and Culture Editor Matthew Schnipper shares whether or not New York City is a buffet town.

Stay close. We're back with our biweekly arts and culture check-in with WMYC's Matthew Schnipper. I want to move on now to another story that was put out by the desk recently. Asking whether or not New York City is a buffet town. And I certainly hope not. Can you explain this story, please? So James Ramsey, who does the Looped In newsletter, which is fantastic. You can get it on email.

You can also check him out on TikTok and Instagram. It was like buffets, is that a thing? And he brought his daughter to figure out if it is, in fact, a thing. Can you go to a buffet in New York? The answer is, yes, you can. I hate that. But you're at your own risk, I think, is what he found. Personally, post-COVID, I have not really had a desire to eat at an open-air market.

Okay. Do you remember the last buffet you were at? Yes, I do. When I started at this job, about a year ago, people told me the only place they go eat is Essen, which is downstairs from our office. And Essen is a big expensive buffet. And I walked in there and I was like, I guess I'll have some chicken. You know, and when you first start a job, you don't know what's going on. You're like, everybody says this is where they go to lunch. And then I was like, I'm not going here.

You didn't ask me. Oh, well, this was before I was recruited. See, you would have told me where to get a tuna melt and be happy. And I did learn that on Downing Street at Daily Provisions. I get a tuna melt once a week now. But yeah, that was the last time I went to a buffet was early on last fall. And I have some colleagues. They swear by the buffet.

They're like, Esson, they go there. Do you get the buffet? I'm not really into buffets. Although I did have a favorite as a child. And do you want to hear this because you may have never seen this? I would love to know. Tell me. Pizza Hut used to have a buffet.

Do you remember this? Is it all you can eat pizza? It's all you can eat pizza. It's like a salad bar. It was with a Pizza Hut that's connected to a KFC. The KFC side also had a buffet as well. Throwback. Could you pay one price to have the buffet from both restaurants?

I'm not sure I was a child. Times were great. I was not paying. You weren't paying either way. I wonder if that's, you know, the combination Taco Bell Pizza Hut KFC. Like imagine if you had a buffet that was all of those, you know. And it was one price. Yeah, yeah.

I feel like the Indian buffet, I feel like I used to eat that for lunch at a former job. And that was pretty good with that. There was a great place in, I guess, in Marie Hill, actually. That was good. But it's just hard to imagine, you know, I mean, I'm pretty gross. Like, I'll eat kind of whatever. And if you told me you brought me some food and you were like it's from a buffet, I probably would eat it. But I feel like if you told me, let's go to a buffet, I would be like, do we have?

to. I feel like that's kind of, I sit in there. It's like I'm not against it, but I don't necessarily want it. Yeah, I'm against it unless I have one exception in 2026. Which is? Casino buffet, all you can eat snow crabs. Oh my God. If it's all you can eat crab legs, I'm in, okay? Is the snow crab like the really, really big crab? It's the one under the dungeonous crab. So it's not a Dungeon is crab, but it's like, you know, it's the one under dead. That's like how you're going to be like, they're going to be like, Matthew found dead under the dungeonous crab. I do want to know. There were two buffets that seem promising.

And one, it was the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. That is a breakfast buffet that is opened to non-guests, which is fascinating to me. You imagine being like, you know what I need to do? I need to go to a hotel buffet. in Times Square. Be like, you live in Astoria. Be like, yeah, I do.

I'm going to pass up all of the great restaurants in Astoria to go to breakfast in Times Square. I'm going to over to that Marquis buffet. I need to make my own waffle this morning. Hell, I need to make three to four waffles. And I'm going to finish maybe one.

James already came back. He came back. He also said the Daba Indian cuisine, which is on Lexington in the city. He said that's got a really positive. All You Can Eat Buffet. Yeah, it seemed like he went to both those places in the same day. Yeah, he went to both those places in the same day, and he also made his daughter go with him,

which I think is a sign of, you know, her love for her dad. For sure. It's a real commitment, you know. It's good dad. Yeah. Yeah, good dad. So, Matt, New Yorkers seem to be coming together on an issue, and you all, on your desk, you have explored that in a story that's highlighting how,

AI ads are bringing people together at subway stations? How did this one come about? Well, maybe about a year ago there were all those ads for friend, which is the sort of white orb that you wear around your neck, and it's supposed to be your best friend. It's always there with you, and it talks with you, and people were defacing those like crazy, like go talk to a human being.

But I would say those kinds of ads have not gone away at all in the last year, and they have proliferated, and they've gotten more. kind of absurd, you know, where it's like desk, the thing that's always there to support you, you know, like, but, you know, sometimes it's like, I can't even, I was going to say some like fake crypto slang words, but I don't even know what they are. But some guys who do took it about themselves to make a whole bunch of ridiculous fake AI ads and put them up in the subway. And they film themselves, they printed those on vinyl banners, you know, and this kind of went

viral on social media. They took the ads down pretty quickly. I think they didn't want to get in trouble. But they did have an official kind of show for these ads at the West 4th Street subway stop. And a ton of people showed up. And I think it's funny, you said, like, their New Yorkers are coming together. And in my mind, it's like, when New Yorkers come together?

It's like, well, the Knicks and when they can be haters. Exactly. And I think that this is, you know, we did the Knicks already. We're waiting for them to come back. And it's like, now you can be a hater. Nobody wants this. You know, nobody wants your data center. People in New York, like, friends are not, we can talk to other people, you know?

So we're not stressed about that. And so they have these ads. I love, they made the ads. The thing I love the most was they made little Kool-Aid containers with Sam Altman, Sam Altman's face on them, you know, just saying Kool-Aid, like you drank the Kool-Aid. Yeah, yeah. And I thought that was just great. I was like, these people are goobers, you know.

That's not nice. Like, I don't mean that. If you work in AI, it's your job. You're trying to survive. I get it. But, like, the marketing behind this is, it's, like, really, like, some lowest common denominator sort of stuff. It's weird and it's getting out of hand. Yeah.

I think that's what people are feeling like. They're like, I don't want to see this all the time. And so these ads, I think, the fake ads, I think got people together to kind of go, okay. You know, and what was most interesting to me was that people who work in this industry showed up to this event. Our reporter talked to them. And they were like, yeah, we get it. You know, there was a guy who worked, I couldn't believe this, honestly, who worked at Palantir, which is, you know, this AI company that is well known for working with the defense department. People are really displeased with Palantir.

And he said, oh, no, no, I don't work for the bad part of Palantir. What I do is fine. Oh, okay. And I thought, oh, my gosh. What a amazing way to segment who you are, you know, to kind of validate what you do. You know, in some way, I was impressed with these sort of workings of delusional workings of the human mind. And other ways, it kind of made me a little bit sad. I was like, this is a whole thing that's actually just like kind of clowning on your lifestyle and you've showed up to sort of promote it.

Yeah. It's like, why show up, man? Stay home. Watch it on Instagram. Yeah. You and I are not going to the public radio is losers convention. Like, you know, like that's not where we're going. Well, I don't work for the loser part of it, you know.

That's not how it would go. Well, I'll turn the tote bag inside out. So, Matt, you briefly mentioned the NICS. And I got to bring this up because that brings me to a really big announcement. We learned that the NICS will be facing LeBron James and the 76ers in their season opener in October. Yes. Excited because that's Banner Night. Are you excited to spend $700 billion to get a ticket?

Man, I heard how crazy these tickets are. It sounds like it's a playoff game. Yeah, I think so. I mean, we also like official tickets haven't been out, but most next tickets are season tickets, season ticket holders. I'm sure prices will go down, but right now you can only buy them from season ticket holders

who have, you know, who are reposting them on Stubh, et cetera. And they are not cheap. But yes, the first game on the Tuesday, October 20th, banner night, ring ceremony, championship banner, the works. It's going to be like a kind of, it'll be a nice revisiting of what things were like when they won the championship. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm curious to see, are people going to keep it up and kind of keep projecting the games on the walls of the bodega or whatever else? Are people going to be outside or if they kind of forgotten about the mix? They definitely haven't forgotten. And I will say at least that first game will definitely be on city streets. again, at least I got my folding chair ready. Dude, that's cool. I think, like, to me, like, if that actually kept up, it would be really nice, you know? That was a moment of kind of pure love in the city that is rare, and it would be cool if that just,

even if it's like, oh, we're all coming together to hate on LeBron, you know, like, sure, you know, like, whatever it takes. Like, I think it would be cool. I think World Cup had that, but it's still, like, kind of in, in patches, like, because it wasn't, you know, a New York team. So it will be awesome people who are just stoked and outside in the same way. Yeah, I mean, the league really did their big one with this one, though. I mean, the Knicks are going to get their ring and then play the 76ers. That'll be their first game, too.

And the first time King James, you know, plays with this team. But we'll see what happens. I'm excited for the team. For the 76ers or for the Knicks? For the Knicks. For the Knicks. I mean, it's just checking. I want to say this also.

As much as like I'm not rooting for LeBron in this, homie is looking at houses in New York City. I heard that he was thinking about commuting to Philly. Yeah. You know, a reverse commute, I suppose. Yeah. Do you think LeBron is going to listen to WMYC? No.

LeBron, if you're out there, give us a call. Or Brani. Now we know you're listening, Ronnie, great. Whatever. We'll take either of you, put them right on LeBronyC. Lera show. Yeah. Also, full NICS schedule is going to come out next week.

So be on the lookout for that, everyone. Matt, I know you want to get back to your vacation. But before I let you go, will you be back next week? Yeah, you know I don't have that many vacation days. Of course, I'll be back next week. I'm just making sure because I have another event I want to tell you about, we are hosting a live podcast event called In Conversation, the Affordability Crisis. And this is happening on Thursday, August 20th.

The team and I are going out to Astoria Queens. I'm inviting you and all our listeners out because we're talking about housing affordability in this crisis that most New Yorkers are feeling right now. So come on out if you're about it. That sounds really cool. Yeah, yeah. So for more information on this event coming up

and for tickets, you can visit WMYC.org slash events. We'll also drop the link in our. show notes. Sounds great. Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be a good time. All that's a wrap for this edition of the Arts and Culture Checking with WNYC's Matthew Schnipper.

Thanks a lot, Matt. Thanks, Jene. And thank you for listening to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. See you next time.