Monday’s Headlines: Memorial to Memorial Day Edition

Photo: Gersh Kuntzman
Photo: Gersh Kuntzman

Yes, we know you’re dying to have a big Memorial Day blowout barbecue, but please don’t, because if you do, plenty of people will be dying before your Labor Day blowout barbecue. It sucks, but please stop the spread of COVID-19.

That said, the mayor says you can still go to the beach (yay!), but you can’t swim (boo!), a weird policy that the City Council is certainly questioning on equity grounds (Gothamist). If you we can social distance on the sand, certainly we can social distance in the water, right? The Daily News offered a guide to holiday rules, while the Post covered Curtis Sliwa’s defiance of the mayor’s no-swim policy (slow news day).

Well, it’ll all be hashed out in the coming days — when the mayor realizes that he can’t close playgrounds and public pools without giving kids some way to cool off (unless he can figure out how to open all the fire hydrants). Until then, let’s get to the weekend’s news that you might have missed.

  • Gothamist offered its beginners guide to biking to the beach, and it was pretty comprehensive — full of plenty of mayhem intersections and general mistreatment of cyclists. Bottom line: A day at beach is no walk in the park.
  • Like Riders Alliance last week, the MTA is doing its own rider survey to help plan the post-coronavirus world.
  • The Long Island Rail Road will inch back to life this week with longer trains to promote social distancing. (NYDN, NY Post)
  • The Daily News had more details about the Staten Island man run down and killed by a pickup truck driver on Friday — but the tabloid “hearts and flowers” treatment shed no new light on the crash itself — like whether the driver was drunk, distracted or speeding when he went through a stop sign and killed Zudi Daci. (In an atypical response, the Staten Island Advance focused on street safety advocates calling on the city to do better.)
  • The Times followed last week’s excruciating story about how great it is to drive in New York City with a story about how great it is to motorcycle in the city right now. Is it too much to ask that the Paper of Record stop glorifying the burning of fossil fuel in the middle of a respiratory disease pandemic that is exacerbated by pollution?
  • Finally, we’re no fans of the drive-in movie revival because it’s inherently inequitable. (amNY)

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