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Hello New York! Today we cover the best things happening in the city this week, from cherry blossoms to Tartan Week, a Keith Haring pop-up, and art fairs. Plus, Mayor Mamdani just hit 100 days in office.
Let's get to it.
– Sofia Kurd.
Best Events April 13-17
• Thurs 5pm: After-Hours Truffle Tasting at Urbani Truffle Lab — An exclusive behind-the-scenes experience inside Urbani’s truffle lab in NYC. You get up close with fresh truffles, learn the grading process, and do a guided tasting. Urbani has been the world’s largest truffle supplier since 1852. Limited capacity.
• Sat + Sun: A Current Affair Pop-Up Vintage Marketplace — A curated, high-end vintage marketplace at Industry City in Brooklyn. Think designer pieces, rare finds, and carefully selected sellers, not a regular flea market. 10am-5pm. $20 admission.
• Thru Apr 19: Keith Haring: On The Street — Two of Haring's original painted cars, a 1963 Buick Special and a Land Rover Series III, on display in a former 19th-century carriage house in the West Village. Includes original works, photographs, and events with artists who knew him. Free.
• Sat 11am-7pm: NYC Buskerball — All-day festival celebrating busking musicians, poets, dancers, and performers in Tompkins Square Park. East Village. Free.
• Sat + Sun: Renegade Craft Spring Fair — Indie makers market at Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea. Ceramics, prints, jewelry, candles, and more from independent artists. 11am-5pm. $5 suggested donation.
A former 19th-century carriage house in the West Village that's been turned into a temporary gallery for Keith Haring's painted cars. The kind of space most New Yorkers walk past without knowing what's inside.
A quiet car experiment on the Q train — Author Nicole Kelner is turning an entire subway car into a silent reading room this Saturday at 11am. Bring a book, knitting, or a notebook. RSVP gets you a free copy of her new book about the quietest places in New York.
A $1 record sale at Black Gold in Carroll Gardens this Sunday. The coffee shop doubles as a vinyl store, and they're clearing inventory. 10am-5pm.
Local News
• NYC’s first city-run grocery store is slated for East Harlem — The concrete local angle from that speech was the site selection: Mamdani said the first city-run grocery store will go at La Marqueta in East Harlem. The pitch is straightforward — use city-owned space and capital funds to create a lower-cost grocery option, with one store per borough by the end of the term. Whether the economics work is still the open question, but as a headline, this is one of the more distinctive policy moves out of City Hall right now.
• Mamdani marks 100 days with affordability push — supporters see momentum, critics see optics — Mayor Zohran Mamdani used a Queens rally to frame his first 100 days around cost-of-living issues: child care, potholes, faster buses, and a headline proposal for city-run grocery stores. The message is simple and intentional — make government visibly deliver on everyday problems, not abstract policy. Supporters argue this is a disciplined shift toward tangible wins that actually affect daily life.
Critics, though, are already calling it heavy on optics and light on execution. The grocery store plan, in particular, raises questions around margins, supply chains, and whether the city can realistically operate retail without losses. Others point out that many of the “wins” are announcements or pilots, not yet fully implemented results. The real test will be whether these ideas translate into measurable outcomes over the next 6–12 months.
• The Giants’ draft party is moving to Hudson Yards — Because MetLife is tied up with FIFA World Cup preparations, the Giants are holding their April 23 draft party at Hudson Yards instead. It’ll be free, open to the public, and set up as a fan event with legends, merch, food, and live coverage of the first-round pick. Not huge civic news, obviously, but definitely a real city item that will draw a crowd and gives Hudson Yards another big branded activation.
How One Wellness Brand Is Helping America Sleep Better
You know the importance of sleep, but actually getting enough is easier said than done. One wellness brand decided to study the problem and whether CBD could help.
CBD users have long reported feeling calmer and sleeping better, whether taking the compound by itself or with related hemp-derived compounds like CBN and THC. But rumor isn’t research, so CBDistillery conducted two sleep studies: a 2021 study into CBD and CBN, and a 2023 study with technology app Releaf into CBD, CBN and THC.
Study participants who took CBD and CBN reported falling asleep easier and sleeping an hour longer per night, on average. Study participants who took THC as well as CBD and CBN reported improved quality of sleep and waking up more refreshed the next morning.
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New York Trivia
Question: What is the name of the barge in Brooklyn Bridge Park that hosts free chamber music concerts?
A) The Floating Stage
B) Bargemusic
C) The River Concert Hall
D) Brooklyn Soundbarge
Reply to this email with your response. The answer will be revealed in the next newsletter. No cheating!
NYC Featured
Most people think of tartan as Scottish, but New York has one of the deepest Scottish roots of any American city. The NYC Tartan Day Parade has been running for 28 years, making it one of the largest celebrations of Scottish heritage outside of Scotland. The connection goes back centuries: many of the city's original builders, architects, and financiers were Scottish immigrants, and the influence shows up in everything from street names to the design of Central Park (co-designed by Calvert Vaux, who trained in the British landscape tradition). This Saturday, the parade runs down 6th Avenue starting at 44th Street at 2pm.