New York Today: The Animals of 2016
Good morning on this cloudy Tuesday.
It’s been a wild year.
While much of our attention was focused on a divisive presidential campaign, an explosion in Chelsea and powerful New York State politicians on trial, 2016 introduced us — lower on the news food-chain — to a pack of animals that managed to make a splash. Or a hiss, a squawk or a squeak.
This year, we learned a few things about local animals, and ourselves.
We learned that turtle walking is a real job — and that competition for it is fierce — after hundreds responded to a posting on Craigslist.
We learned that wild turkeys can be absolutely terrifying. Just ask a New Jersey postmaster.
And we learned that Representative Carolyn Maloney still really wants to bring a giant panda to New York.
Strange sightings abounded this year, including those of a humpback whale in the Hudson River, a pack of raccoons in Central Park and a number of sharks off Coney Island.
Sadly, we also lost a few of our animal companions.
Like Bretagne, a golden retriever thought to be the last surviving search-and-rescue dog that worked at the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
And Pedals, the black bear from New Jersey, who wowed the internet with his upright gait before he was believed to have been killed in the state’s annual bear hunt.
And Sonja, a wheaten terrier whose frequent walks with Raymond Goynes, a homeless man, helped him move off the streets.
May they, and all the beloved pets across the city who died this year, rest in peace.
Perhaps their owners can take some solace in the fact that it became legal this year for pets to be interred beside humans at some cemeteries.
Here’s what else is happening:
Weather
It’ll be cloudy, and it’ll be cold — highs will just barely break 40 degrees.
And as for those snow rumors? They’re not not true; but if we get a dusting at all, it won’t be until Wednesday night or Thursday.
(And allow us to gently remind you: It’s not even winter yet.)
In the News
• Brooklyn artists express frustration, and determination, after the Oakland, Calif., warehouse fire. [New York Times]
• After a succession of child deaths, the head of the city’s child welfare agency, Gladys Carrión, is resigning. [New York Times]
• A flight bound for Germany was diverted to Kennedy International Airport after a bomb threat. [New York Times]
• All eyes are on the M.T.A. as the agency races to meet its Dec. 31 deadline for the long-delayed Second Avenue Subway. [New York Times]
• The Department of Transportation will soon test allocating 600 public parking spots to private car-sharing companies. [Streetsblog N.Y.C.]
• Taxi companies and Uber are competing to show the M.T.A. they can better serve the city’s disabled and elderly than the current providers of Access-A-Ride can. [Crain’s]
• The weeklong series from WNYC, Mall Madness, continues. Here is Part II, about one mall’s struggle to prove its worth as shopping centers around the country are closing their doors. [WNYC]
• A shooting took place outside the Hells Angels headquarters in the East Village. [E.V. Grieve]
• Verrazano or Verrazzano? Revisiting the debate about fixing this decades-old typo. [Brooklyn Paper]
• No flirting allowed in your UberPool. [DNAinfo]
• A woman always eager to help others, even after enduring personal trauma, finally gets a little help of her own. [New York Times]
• Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “Watch Where You’re Going”
• Scoreboard: Rockets blast past Nets, 122-118.
• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Tuesday Briefing.
Coming Up Today
• Mayor Bill de Blasio will hold a news conference on job creation at the Alexandria Center in Midtown. 10 a.m.
• … And the mayor will meet with the departing secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, at City Hall. 4:20 p.m.
• A screening of part of the series “Good Girls Revolt” at Columbia University in Morningside Heights, followed by a conversation with Lynn Povich, whose book inspired the show. 6 p.m. [Free]
• A conversation on the author James Baldwin at the Greater Astoria Historical Society in Long Island City. 7 p.m. [Free]
• Lectures on the history of food in space and in pop culture will take place at the Bedford in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 7:30 p.m. [Free]
• A drinking game and staged reading of “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” at Littlefield in Gowanus, Brooklyn. 8 p.m. [$10]
• The “Elements of Oz” mixes theater and technology in its take on the “Wizard of Oz,” at the 3LD Art & Technology Center in Lower Manhattan. 8 p.m. [$25]
• Islanders host Capitals, 7 p.m. (MSG+). Rangers host Blackhawks, 7 p.m. (MSG2). Knicks at Suns, 9 p.m. (MSG).
• For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.
And Finally...
One more animal announcement: The Christmas Bird Count begins tomorrow.
From North America to the Caribbean and beyond, thousands of volunteers will spend the next few weeks observing and recording bird species in their communities.
The data collected during the count has helped organizations like New York City Audubon measure the health of bird populations since it began in 1900.
And, as with many enduring ideas, this one started with a New Yorker.
Frank M. Chapman, a self-taught ornithologist and assistant curator at the American Museum of Natural History, proposed the idea in place of the traditional Christmas Day hunts of the past, when sportsmen would go, as he put it, “on the cheerful mission of killing practically everything in fur or feathers that crossed their paths.”
His idea wasn’t just for the birders — it caught on with hunters, as well.
This weekend, you can join a Christmas bird count in places like Brooklyn, Central Park, Harlem, Riverside Park, and Staten Island.
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P.C: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/nyregion/new-york-today-the-animals-of-2016.html
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