New York City in brief

New York’s democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, found himself in the Oval Office pitching President Donald Trump, a fellow Queens native, on a $21 billion federal grant to deck over Sunnyside Yard for 12,000 affordable homes—half to follow a Mitchell-Lama model—plus parks and clinics. The city claims this would bridge divided neighborhoods and create 30,000 union jobs, but reconciling old cost estimates may take longer than the talks themselves.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani slipped into the Oval Office with a homemade tabloid, $21 billion worth of blue-sky ambitions, and a plea for federal support to deck over Sunnyside Yard for 12,000 homes. President Trump, who once demanded “big ideas,” seemed receptive, even greenlighting a student’s release at Mamdani’s request; housing for the masses may take longer than a headline or a presidential phone call.

Queens Mayor Zohran Mamdani made waves in Washington, pitching President Donald Trump on $21 billion in federal grants to jump-start the long-idle Sunnyside Yards housing scheme: 12,000 affordable units perched atop train tracks, with open space and the odd new station for good measure. Trump, channeling Gerald Ford, got a tabloid souvenir—though this time, “Let’s Build” replaced “Drop Dead.” Optimists might say hope is back on track.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority gave the U.S. Department of Transportation until March 6 to release $60 million in frozen funds for its $7 billion Second Avenue subway extension or face a lawsuit. Federal cash has been withheld since October amid rules on race- and gender-based contracting, stalling 18 billion transport dollars in New York. The feds’ radio silence might just rival the city’s quietest subway platforms.

A memo from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority suggests Governor Kathy Hochul’s climate mandates could cost upstate households over $4,000 in higher bills—no small sum when gasoline may add $2.23 a gallon. The governor, now hinting at rollbacks to the 2019 law, observes that “the world has changed dramatically”—though perhaps not in ways that make decarbonization any cheaper.