{"id":208419,"date":"2026-04-24T15:28:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/208419\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T15:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T15:28:26","slug":"fridays-headlines-menin-wants-to-take-this-outside-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/208419\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday’s Headlines: Menin Wants to Take This Outside Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

City Council Speaker Julie Menin wants you to know she\u2019s serious about bringing back year-round outdoor dining<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m deeply committed to fixing the broken dining program that was passed by the last iteration of the Council, and I say that it was broken because it wasn\u2019t year-round,\u201d Menin told the crowd at the annual Public Space Awards hosted on Thursday by Open Plans.<\/p>\n

Menin, who used to own a restaurant in Manhattan, called the seasonal restrictions enacted under her predecessor Adrienne Adams \u201cabsurd,\u201d and committed to lowering the fees for restaurants and bars that want to set up al fresco.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s not like you have all this space to store restaurants and chairs,\u201d the speaker said. \u201cIt really deprived not only restaurants but the public writ large from the benefits of open dining \u2014 so we are fixing the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event in Brooklyn marked the fourth year in a row that Open Plans, which shares a parent organization with Streetsblog, has hosted the Public Space Awards.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s honorees were:<\/p>\n

Council Member and Transportation Committee Chair Shaun Abreu, who received the Clean Streets, Clear Sidewalks Award for his leadership in bringing trash containerization to his Manhattan district.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Longest Table\u201d founders Andy Lerner and Maryam Banikarim, whom Open Plans named its \u201cMost Inspiring Community Connectors\u201d for bringing communal dining to streets across the city and globe.<\/p>\n

City-As-School Assistant Principal Carl Oliver and teacher Maria Berm\u00fadez, who received the Students First Streets Award for their work organizing the Clarkson Street school street.<\/p>\n

And following Mayor Mamdani\u2019s re-commitment<\/a> last week to citywide trash containerization launched by his predecessor, Abreu gave a spirited defense of the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people complained, but I said, \u2018It\u2019s ok. If it doesn\u2019t work, we can go back to litter.\u2019 But they\u2019re not complaining now,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to go back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more about the awards and honorees here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other news:<\/p>\n

We missed this, but over the weekend President Trump said he doesn\u2019t want to move Madison Square Garden to renovate Penn Station. (NY Post<\/a>)<\/p>\n

And conservative talk radio host Andrew Cuomo agrees! (WSJ<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The MTA wants Amtrak\u2019s Penn Station far away from its LIRR concourse. (Gothamist<\/a>)<\/p>\n

More Amtrak-MTA tensions: The federally owned railroad sued the MTA for not letting it test its new Acela trains on Metro-North\u2019s Hudson and New Haven lines. (Gothamist<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Something Cuomo\u2019s WSJ column failed to mention: the absence of public seating at the ex-governor\u2019s crown jewel Moynihan Train Hall. (Places Journal<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Advocates hope the mayor\u2019s free bus vision won\u2019t get in the way of \u201cFair Fares\u201d expansion. (amNY<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Cops made one arrest in the chaotic car \u201ctakeover\u201d incident from the weekend, with seven other suspects still at large. (Gothamist<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The Daily News<\/a> Editorial Board wants recidivist reckless drivers to lose their licenses \u2014 though, lest we forget, unless the car itself is immobilized, drivers frequently keep motoring even on a suspended license.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Hit-and-Run Driver Is Killing Geese on Long Island.\u201d (NY Times<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Will Mamdani cut the cord on Eric Adams\u2019s $2-billion deck over the remainder of Hudson Yards? (NY Times<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The mayor expressed sympathy for New Jersey\u2019s approach to World Cup train fares. (amNY<\/a>)<\/p>\n

More IBX public meetings<\/a> are scheduled for the coming weeks. (amNY<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Unions want the mayor to veto a bill creating \u201cprotest buffer zones\u201d around schools and educational facilities. (The City<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The MTA wants your input on its forthcoming renovation of the LIRR\u2019s Jamaica Station. (amNY<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Eric Adams \u201cloyalists\u201d remain stashed away in city government. The Mamdani administration fired one such official in January who\u2019d been placed at DOT by the outgoing administration. (Politico<\/a>)<\/p>\n

And finally \u2014 it\u2019s no longer news that the mayor loves Citi Bike, but that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re tired of it:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council Speaker Julie Menin wants you to know she\u2019s serious about bringing back year-round outdoor dining. \u201cI\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-208419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}