New York City in brief

Mayor Zohran Mamdani warned that, without Albany’s blessing for higher taxes on millionaires and major companies, New York City may resort to a 9.5% property tax hike—an unlovely fix targeting 3 million homes and 100,000 businesses to mend a $12 billion budget gap. Unsurprisingly, Staten Island’s officials had little time for “taxmail”, but even a Rainy Day Fund seems less reassuring under such clouds.

A surprise resignation by Alex Armlovich from New York’s Rent Guidelines Board has handed Mayor Zohran Mamdani the chance to appoint six out of nine members, clearing the decks for his vaunted rent freeze on a million rent-stabilized flats. Armlovich, decamping to a philanthropy on housing supply, dubbed rent controls a “short-term patch”—though tenants, we suspect, may dream of patches that last a little longer.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s $127 billion budget envisions plugging New York City’s multibillion-dollar deficit with higher property taxes—unless Albany taxes the wealthy, to which Governor Kathy Hochul remains reliably allergic. While the City Council and Comptroller Mark Levine propose belt-tightening over fresh levies or dipping into the city’s record $8.5 billion reserves, we suspect the city’s fiscal “conversation” will produce more talk than new taxes—at least for now.

Construction crews on New York’s $16 billion Gateway tunnel, meant to replace the rickety Hudson rail link used by 200,000 daily commuters, have swapped hard hats for protest signs as work freezes amid a funding spat between Donald Trump and state officials. Washington released a trickle—$107 million of the $200 million owed—but unless full funds flow, concrete will set only in protest, not progress.

With the last prison barge finally gone from the East River, New York City is floating a “Blue Highways” pilot, enlisting diesel-powered barges to move tonnage from Hunts Point Market—source of nearly half the city’s fish and a quarter of its produce—by water rather than by the 15,000 trucks that roll in daily. If the plan holds water, fewer Bronx kids may need their asthma pumps—but we’d settle for smoother traffic.