Good Morning, New York!
Did you know? On today’s date, November 26, 1945, the United Nations chose New York City as its permanent home, transforming a post-war real-estate deal into a political capital of the modern world.
In today’s NYC Newsletter:
Holiday events and popups
Padel, science, salons, and sauna
Local headlines this week
Let’s get to it.
– Sofia Kurd.
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New York Question Of The Day
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Top 10 Best Events
Wed, 7pm — “Not In My Backyard!” Political Comedy Roundtable @ UCB (East Village)
Comedians, journalists, and actual NYC policy people arguing about the kind of hyper-local drama that normally lives in neighborhood Facebook groups. Hosted by Cody Lindquist + Charlie Todd. $10–15.Wed, 7:30pm (and Sun) — Chloe Radcliffe: Special Taping Warm-Up Show
Chloe (Fallon) runs an hour of new material ahead of her taping. Union Hall on Wed, Q.E.D. Astoria on Sun. $10–15.Thru Jan 19 — Sixties Surreal @ The Whitney (Meatpacking)
A major new exhibition on how ’60s American artists used surrealism to respond to a chaotic era. More than 100 artists featured, including Diane Arbus, Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama. $30 general, free Fridays 5–10pm, free second Sundays, free for 25 and under.Fri — Record Store Day (Fall Edition)
Citywide vinyl drops, exclusives, and rare reissues at participating shops.Fri–Sun (11am–7pm) — Collective NYC Holiday Marketplace @ 57 Bond St (NoHo)
A polished indie holiday market with small-batch gifts, jewelry, and design objects.Sat, 12–5pm — Queens Craft Brigade: Small Business Saturday @ Q.E.D. (Astoria)
A monthly maker fair spotlighting Queens creators—prints, food goods, handmade pieces.Sat, 2:30–6pm — PokéMarket Pop-Up: 21+ Arcade Edition @ Wonderville (Bushwick)
A Pokémon-trading pop-up inside a retro arcade bar. Cards, cocktails, and nostalgia.Sat + Sun (11am–7pm) — Taste of Africa Holiday Market @ Hillel Plaza (Flatbush)
Fashion, food, textiles, art—one of the most lively markets happening this season.Sun, 10am–5pm — Grand Holiday Bazaar @ 100 W 77th St (UWS)
Indoor/outdoor vendors, antiques, jewelry, seasonal bites. Peak UWS energy.Sun, 12–6pm — Moshimoshi Market @ Japan Village (Sunset Park)
Japanese snacks, ceramics, stationery, and cute gifts inside Industry City.
We’ve tracked down some great hidden gems in the city to try this fall:
DeSci NYC (Chelsea / rotating locations)
A meetup for the city’s niche science-and-crypto crowd—biohackers, computational biologists, founders, and weird intellectuals showing off strange experiments. Sessions range from genetic engineering demos to philosophy-of-science debates. Feels like a modern-day version of a 19th-century scientific society.Padel Lessons @ Padel Haus (Williamsburg)
Padel Haus runs small-group beginner lessons that feel like a mix of cardio, tennis, and social club culture. It’s easy to learn, weirdly addictive, and the courts are indoors—making it perfect for winter.Interintellect Salons (Online, rotating locations)
Interintellect gathers writers, founders, academics, and extremely online thinkers for long-form conversations you never get in normal social settings. Each salon centers on a theme—AI, underground culture, psychology, philosophy, modern dating, the future of cities—and the group dives in for two to three hours, guided by a host who keeps the energy sharp but conversational.Othership Immersive Sauna (Flatiron)
An underground wellness gem disguised as a sleek bathhouse-meets-club. Guided breathwork sessions are run through the sauna and hot and cold baths.Museum of the American Gangster (East Village)
A tiny two-room museum hidden above a former Prohibition speakeasy on St. Mark’s. It covers NYC’s bootlegging era, mob history, and the criminal underbelly that shaped the city. Tours include access to underground tunnels used by rum-runners—one of the city’s strangest preserved secrets.
Local News
Zohran Mamdani hits halfway mark on his transition fundraising: $2M raised toward a $4M goal in under 20 days
Mamdani’s rapid fundraising shows he’s serious about gearing up early.NYC rolls out a high-tech Emergency Communications Vehicle (ECV-1), built to keep 911 & first-responder networks live during disasters and big events
A mobile “lifeline on wheels” for the city — the ECV-1 is meant to ensure communication even if infrastructure goes dark.Pedro Hernandez to face a third trial in the long-running Etan Patz case (1979 disappearance)
Decades after the child vanished — and after a previous conviction was overturned — prosecutors are trying again, reigniting one of NYC’s oldest tragedies.Con Edison cancels promised e-bike-battery charging pilot at NYCHA buildings — even as battery-fire risks remain unresolved
A small broken promise on paper — but potentially a dangerous one for riders who counted on safer, city-supported charging.Staten Island opens a major compost facility that aims to turn NYC’s food waste into usable compost
A quiet infrastructure win — if this catches on, NYC might turn a massive waste problem into a circular-economy advantage.Retail shake-up: Top Manhattan locations among the biggest retail-building sales in October 2025, hinting at shifts in the city’s commercial real estate market
Buyers, sellers, investors — lots of movement. For locals, could mean rising vacancy or new retail concepts.NYC shifting into holiday mode — The city teases what’s coming for December with previews of major seasonal events & markets
From tree lightings to holiday markets, the city’s gearing up early. Good time to start drafting that “NYC winter bucket list.”God's Love We Deliver expands with a new massive facility in Sunset Park — boosting capacity to deliver 6.5M meals a year
A win for civic infrastructure and community care.Many NYC public schools may sunset thousands of landline phones in favor of modern communications tech
Old-school meets new-school — could modernize outreach to families and staff.
NYC Fact Of The Day
In the 1930s, Central Park had a real sheep meadow with actual sheep grazing on it daily. They lived in a stone building called the Sheepfold, tended by a park shepherd, and their presence was meant to make the park feel more pastoral and European. New Yorkers would picnic while woolly flocks wandered in the background like a countryside painting dropped into Manhattan.
The sheep stayed until 1934, when they were moved to Prospect Park over concerns they might be stolen and eaten during the Depression. The Sheepfold was converted into what we now know as Tavern on the Green.
New Yorkers Through History
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton grew up in the rarefied world of Gilded Age New York—the mansions along Fifth Avenue, the rigid social codes, the quiet wars waged over invitations and lineage. Wharton wrote about the city’s elite as an observer who saw the emotional cost of all that privilege: the arranged marriages, the hidden desires, the quiet tragedies behind perfect manners.
Her novels—The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome—turned New York society into literature that still feels modern in its psychology. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but she never stopped being a New Yorker at heart, even after moving to Europe. Wharton captured a version of New York that no longer exists, yet her portraits of ambition, restraint, and reputation still echo through the city today.
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