NEW YORK — Offices, public parks, bars \u2014 watch parties popped up at all the usual spots for Wednesday\u2019s semifinal World Cup match. But one was in something of an unusual location: New York\u2019s sprawling Rikers Island correctional facility, better known for its overcrowding and violence than for hosting social events.<\/p>\n
More than 100 inmates dressed in tan uniforms took seats at tables facing a projection screen showing the game in a gymnasium at the complex\u2019s main intake center to watch the semifinal match between England and Argentina. Colorful balloon towers topped by soccer ball balloons framed the screen.<\/p>\n
The jail has been hosting watch parties since the tournament kicked off last month for inmates who have shown good behavior, including being incident free for at least 30 days.<\/p>\n
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani rolled up shortly before the game’s kickoff. His trademark dark suit jacket was off and his white dress shirt sleeves were rolled up. <\/p>\n
The Democrat took a seat at one of the first tables and immediately started chatting about the tournament.<\/p>\n
One of the inmates told others at the table that he expected Argentina to prevail over England and go on to face Spain, which had defeated France the day earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never know,\u201d said Mamdani, a professed Morocco fan. <\/p>\n
At another table an inmate said he was going home later today. \u201cThat\u2019s amazing,\u201d the mayor said, shaking his hand and patting his back.<\/p>\n
At about the 20-minute mark of the game, Mamdani headed out.<\/p>\n
There have been 90 such events with about 4,500 of the roughly 6,600 inmates participating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Offices, public parks, bars \u2014 watch parties popped up at all the usual spots for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12541,417,9,56,63,65,64,4719,400,319,421],"class_list":["post-297355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-general-news","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-prisons","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297355","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=297355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}