Eater just named their picks for NYC’s best sushi restaurants and we technically have two out of the 31; technically because one of the restaurants named is Sugarfish, though they listed the Flatiron branch of this Los Angeles-based chain instead of the SoHo location at 202 Spring St (corner Sullivan). We’ll take it anyway! Their other pick is the impeccable Sushi Izumi at 135 Sullivan (just above Prince), which is a perfect ten counter seat jewel box of an omakase restaurant, owned by the chef and sake sommelier Hirohisa Hayashi, whose namesake restaurant Hirohisa just a few feet away at 73 Thompson is also a delight and quite honestly deserved to be on Eater’s list too. (Eater)
This Curbed piece about the twilight of the 79th Street Boat Basin‘s liveaboard community, which will be evicted and may never return after the imminent multi-year renovations is quite moving; most residents are senior citizens who have been there for at least two decades, many have raised children there, and may have to leave the Upper West Side altogether. (New York Magazine)
Gothamist has a pretty comprehensive look at the MTA’s new R211 subway cars from Kawasaki Rail Car Inc, which should all arrive and hopefully up and running in about a year. The R211s will have wider doors for faster boarding, improved interior signage and lighting, and new signal technology that should mean faster times between stations. (Gothamist)
The Atlantic‘s recent Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong explains three simple variables to understand how the vaccines and the Covid-19’s new super-transmissible variants interact. It’s an easy read, despite the technical topic but the TL;DR is: the vaccines are working but we’re probably going to need boosters, the variants are pummeling the unvaccinated, and our long term safety requires vaccinating more people.
Finally, congratulations to our neighbors down in Tribeca who rallied, sent letters, made calls, and even slept in tents in Rockefeller Park during the heat wave—the state has relented and will relocate the planned essential worker monument elsewhere. (Tribeca Citizen)