Today’s PaperU.S.|Inside Starbase, Elon Musk’s New Cityhttps://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/05/us/elon-musk-starbase-texas.htmlShare full article8787Advertisement local residents who mostly work for Elon Musk’s rocket company voted to create an official city for themselves: Starbase By Junho Lee and J. David Goodman Share full article8787 Over the last few years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been building a kind of company town around its launch site in Cameron County Space X has used its launch pad to test and launch larger and larger rockets starting around 2019 It was the reason for the company’s move to this area along the Gulf Coast SpaceX closes the public beach during launches But a bill that would have allowed the new city of Starbase to approve beach closures on its own failed last month Portions of the two-lane highway are closed during launches This area has housing for employees of SpaceX which could eventually be expanded via voluntary annexation Here are the company’s rocket manufacturing facility and offices, which have also grown quickly. On one building, a huge mural depicts a colony on Mars, which Mr. Musk hopes to reach The city’s boundaries snake around various parcels of land owned by SpaceX including some that still appear to be vacant suggesting opportunities for further growth SpaceX is already building more than a dozen larger homes and is planning for retail businesses Its plans for the city also appear to include more housing which could require state or federal approvals But Starbase’s initial boundaries contain a relatively small 1.5 square miles or so and do not include all the property owned by SpaceX in the area but the testing site seen here is outside the city limits and the drive can sometimes take 45 minutes or almost an hour because of traffic and slowdowns at the Border Patrol checkpoint on Highway 4 between Brownsville and Starbase The New York Times; aerial image via Vexcel Imaging The creation of the city of Starbase followed one of the nation’s more unusual elections No campaigning took place and there were no yard signs or other evidence of a consequential vote in the area the measure passed by a whopping 212 to 6 — the kind of margin that had been expected but was very unlike most contests in a deeply polarized nation Under state law, a new city can be incorporated after a certain number of residents file a petition to do so, and a majority of voters approve it. Only registered voters who live within its proposed boundaries are able to take part in the election most of whom either work for SpaceX or have a relative who does A majority of the eligible voters registered in the area since the start of the year Many had never taken part in an election of any type before But turnout was more than 75 percent in this one voters also chose a slate of elected officials to run the new city the candidate for mayor had been a different SpaceX employee SpaceX has explained little about its plans for the new city beyond its intention to have Starbase take over some functions that the company itself has been conducting Some local residents said there had been talk of connecting the city to a local water system residents must have their water trucked in from Brownsville But the company has filed paperwork with the state to spend millions building the school power plant and the commercial center along with a sushi restaurant near Mr Share full article8787See more on: Elon Musk, SpaceXRead 87 CommentsRead 87 CommentsShare full article8787Advertisement (TNND) — The South Texas site Elon Musk and his SpaceX rocket company has been vying for has been approved to become an official city with the galactic name a vote to formally organize Starbase as a city was approved by a small group of voters who live in the area – most of whom are already Musk’s employees at SpaceX The vote tally came out to 212 in favor to 6 against according to results published by the Cameron County Elections Department Musk took to social media to celebrate the victory SpaceX has generally garnered support from local officials for its job opportunity and investment in the area the creation of an official company town has drawn critics who worry it will expand Musk’s control over the area with the potential to close a popular beach and state park for launch purposes Companion efforts to the city vote include bills in the state Legislature to shift that authority from the county to the new town’s mayor and city council These measures come as SpaceX is seeking to increase the number of South Texas launches from five to 25 a year “We need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote to local officials in 2024 in the request to get the city issue on the ballot The letter also said that the company already manages roads and utilities as well as “the provisions of schooling and medical care” for those living on the property SpaceX officials have told lawmakers that granting the city authority to close the beach would streamline launch operations Doing so would require the closure of a local highway and access to Boca Chica State Park and Boca Chica Beach Critics say beach closure authority should stay with the county government which represents a broader population that uses the beach and park has said the county has worked well with SpaceX and there is no need for change The Associated Press contributed to this report Elon Musk’s SpaceX has a company town in Texas after residents in the area voted to create the new municipality on Saturday On May 3, voters approved a measure that allowed SpaceX to incorporate its South Texas rocket launch site as a new city called Starbase mostly SpaceX employees who have moved out to the roughly 1.5 square mile area in Cameron County approved the small city for Musk’s company by 212 votes in favor to 6 against according to the Cameron County Elections Department “Starbase, Texas Is now a real city!” Musk celebrated in a post to X TRACKING WHAT DOGE IS DOING ACROSS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT The news gives Musk greater control over the area where Space X launches its rockets, expanding the company’s ability to control local planning, taxation, and other issues, such as extending housing and managing road closures during rocket launches it could also potentially be handed powers to close a nearby beach and state park for launches Cameron County denied Space X’s request to build more housing for its employees Starbase will now be able to approve construction projects itself allowing up to approximately 3,000 employees who commute from nearby Brownsville to live where they work.  Given its new designation as a Type C city meaning the municipality must hold fewer than 5,000 people Starbase will also hold the power to levy a property tax of up to 1.5% on residents On Saturday, voters also approved measures, electing senior SpaceX executive Bobby Peden as mayor and creating positions for two Starbase city commissioners two bills running through the Texas state legislature would give Peden and his cohort the authority to close a local highway and limit access to the nearby Boca Chica Beach and Boca Chica State Park instead of being required to coordinate through Cameron County for approvals.  During rocket launches and other company activities such as engine tests access to those locations must be restricted or eliminated altogether The two companion bills running through the legislature would shift authority over access away from Cameron County to the new city’s mayor and city council including Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino The United States has a long history of company towns. In the late 1880s, Pacific Lumber Co. developed a site in California for loggers and mill companies that lasted for over 100 years; in the early 1900s Milton Hershey formed a company town that helped take his famous chocolate utopia to the masses Other prominent examples include George Pullman’s company town in Chicago that housed an estimated 12,000 railway workers and their families the creation of Starbase highlights the shift away from industrial hubs toward the tech-based industry And Musk’s SpaceX is only one of multiple Big Tech companies in recent years that have looked to expand corporate power through the company-town model MUSK GETS HIS TEXAS WISH. SPACEX LAUNCH SITE IS APPROVED AS THE NEW CITY OF STARBASE Meta, Amazon, and Google are among other companies looking to set up company towns, according to Business Insider.  ‘We can create an ideal city and ideal world,'” Grant Bollmer a senior lecturer in digital media at the University of Queensland in Australia “‘We can structure it according to the principles that are built into these technologies that we’ve created and the values that we’ve created.'” On Saturday, those who live around SpaceX’s rocket launch site in South Texas will vote on whether to incorporate the area as the City of Starbase That’s because most of the voters work for him that means at least two-thirds of the eligible voters either work for SpaceX or have already indicated their support for the new City of Starbase The eligible voters include everyone from plumbers to engineers and the CEO himself It’s unclear whether Musk plans to show up for the vote SpaceX may be the first company to actually incorporate its own town in Texas and could lay the groundwork for similar cities Musk plans to found here in the future modern compound that runs for miles along State Highway 4 The state highway winds past the SpaceX rocket launchpad. The road ends at Boca Chica Beach a public beach popular with locals that hugs the border with Mexico Boca Chica Village, a small beach town founded in the 1960s SpaceX has bought up almost all of the houses there adding Airstream trailers and tiny homes for its employees SpaceX officials say only 10 of the properties are not owned by the company Musk has wanted Starbase to be its own city since at least 2021 when he posted the idea on the social media site X Creating the city would “streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live,” said Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders in a letter to the county judge obtained by The Texas Tribune She said the company already established a clinic and school and Starbase could take over those responsibilities as an official government body Starbase would also need to hold regular open meetings and share information about its spending and revenue with the public This might open up the company itself to more public scrutiny and transparency “To continue growing the workforce necessary to rapidly develop and manufacture Starship we need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Lueders wrote Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño ordered the incorporation vote after at least 10% of the proposed city’s residents signed a petition Local leaders do not have the power to block a new city from incorporating if this threshold is met If the vote goes Musk’s way, the city would become official as soon as the county finalizes the results. Treviño said Starbase would be the first new city in Cameron County in 30 years It is opposed by county officials and local environmentalists The new city would only include the area immediately around the SpaceX compound according to a copy of the new city map provided by county officials This includes Boca Chica Village and a smaller area down the state highway where a handful of executives have larger homes The city would be small, with fewer than 5,000 residents. Three people want to be the city’s new elected leaders. They all have links to SpaceX Company towns may seem like an anachronism But tech leaders in recent years have taken the concept into the modern age with companies like Meta and Apple creating corporate campuses in Silicon Valley to draw and retain the best employees in their fields Musk may be the first among these modern entrepreneurs to take the idea of his own city this far he has built his corporate compounds in rural unincorporated areas where he is subject to fewer city rules and regulations he has a corporate compound in Bastrop County adjacent to Austin where X Corp and the Boring Company He has also floated the idea of also incorporating a part of that complex — called Snailbrook — as its own town A closer comparison than Apple or Meta might be Gary Steel not only made many of the big decisions in Gary it was so involved that it even laid out the street grid for the town “Every company creates a certain atmosphere,” Green said they often leave the place with a “Big Brother-like feeling.” The upshot is that company towns that are run well end up being “showpieces” that provide amenities for the workers and give good publicity to the corporation — like Hershey “The town itself was like Willy Wonka-ville,” he said “You're coming to this town where the very air smells like chocolate.” So what does Musk want with his company towns he appears to be putting his own twist on an old concept “There's nothing new under the sun in a way But I think that he'll try to make what he does seem unusual,” Green said “He wants to be seen as futuristic and defining new frontiers.” is directly inspired by previous Diamondbacks jerseys along with "the state's rich cultural diversity and Arizona's desert surroundings," according to a news release A prominent part of the first City Connect uniform "Serpientes" -- Spanish for snakes -- reappears on the front of the newest design Serpientes appears on a bold purple background The threads will debut Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Arizona's first night of Mexican Heritage weekend They will be worn every Friday home game throughout the rest of the 2025 season Arizona's 2001 World Series victory is referenced on the jersey's sleeves which have a darker look compared with the main colorway The Diamondbacks clinched the championship while wearing white uniforms with dark purple sleeves The sleeve trim is a modernized version of what the franchise donned from 1998 to 2006 on its alternate uniforms A flag patch is on the darker purple colored sleeve of the uniform. (Photo by Kelsey Grant/Arizona Diamondbacks)On the front of the jersey is a snakeskin evolution pattern which were worn during the same time frame as the sleeve trims Contrary to their first City Connect design the Diamondbacks' cap will include the "S" logo in "Serpientes." It makes its on-field cap debut alongside a purple and teal colorway Arizona wore its typical cap logo "A" in the original design References to Arizona are still prominent on the uniform while "Arizona Born" appears on the collar The jock tag is a silhouette of the state of Arizona with 1998 in the center "Our new City Connects are uniquely special to our organization embodying every facet of what makes us the Arizona Diamondbacks These uniforms represent a great sense of pride for our history a celebration of our state's deep-rooted culture whose unwavering dedication and passion for this team is depicted in the jerseys' colors," Derrick Hall CEO and general partner of the Diamondbacks told ESPN Newcity Art by Rachel Dukes | May 5 installation shots of “Harlequin Choreographies,” 2025 at cam.contemporarie/Photo: Natasha Moustache A recent fall that left a small wound on the palm of my hand has caused me to think about my connection to a somewhat unfamiliar lineage painful gash exposed layers of skin that looked like the strata of a rock and made me wonder “What if each of these layers is the skin of my parents but the question of what parts of my lineage live within the palms of my hands lingers in “Harlequin Choreographies,” Erol Scott Harris excavates the forgotten and hidden parts of himself that were revealed through a choreography of care and curiosity The body of work in his solo exhibition at cam.contemporarie emerged from a rediscovered relationship to his grandparents he absorbed silent aspects of their histories now unleashed through his living performance What a surprise to discover that his grandmother wanted to be a tap dancer and his grandfather wanted to go to school for architecture Though their journey ultimately led them to the vinyl flooring industry what might be considered unfulfilled dreams became a living part of him The exhibition title draws from a photograph he came across of his grandmother Behind her hung a painting of a Harlequin—nothing particularly outstanding and from an unnamed artist but treasured enough to migrate from Mexico to Chicago with their family Harris came across a book called “The Stage’s Glory,” where he traced the choreography of the harlequin character studied the scores of notes on performance strategies and reexamined the spirit-led gestures that were sometimes misperceived as thoughtless improvisation which happens to be their name spelled backwards shortening the distance between him and his relatives in terms of years and borders This treasure hunt intensified when a fire broke out in his grandparents’ living room scorching the vinyl flooring his grandfather had laid The home that evidenced the physical labor and hidden desires of his family became the theater as he was now confronting the parts of his family’s legacy that were previously buried “Always A Stack In The Studio (Urban Dictionary: “A Stack”= $1,000 [one grand]),” mounted center stage unwinds layers of flooring and objects that were saved from the fire I was invited to join in the dance after rising from the floor and noticing a glistening gem burrowed within small which reminded me of the various relics I saw while moving around the floor installation The prints that wrap around the gallery portray a light game of tug of war between Lore and Erol the piece “Taproot 0.2” displays Lore’s use of his body as an instrument and captures his harlequin performance at one moment in time Another wall spotlights monoprints made from tiles Erol dug from under the layers of burnt flooring engaging with the idea that things will disintegrate much like the performance of excavation from which this body of work emerges may one day be buried under another set of linoleum floors but that it exists in a new way that requires another kind of choreography to rediscover “Erol Scott Harris: Harlequin Choreographies” is on view at cam.contemporarie Rockland County Business Journal The nonprofit Rockland Housing Action Committee is partnering with Regan Development to construct 17 duplex-style homes at 55 Schriever Lane in New City The team appeared before Clarkstown’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) last week and located to the west of and behind a group of commercial properties on South Main Street in New City zoned R-15 (single-family homes on 15,000 square foot parcels) is surrounded by residential neighborhoods of single-family homes to the north The development team plans to offer the individual units for sale to eligible first-time home buyers earning 80% of Rockland County’s Area Median Income (AMI) as set by HUD (Housing & Urban Development) a family of four can earn up to $124,400 to be eligible by incorporating $462,143 of subsidies per home the purchase price can be reduced from $768,384 to $306,241 so a low-income buyer earning up to 80% of Rockland County median can qualify for a mortgage to purchase a home The development will be called Homesteads At Demarest The development plan is complicated by new New York State DEC regulations on wetlands To mitigate the impact of wetlands on the site the developers have proposed clustering the houses on a portion of the property outside the wetlands Approvals for cluster developments require reviews by both DEC and the Town of Clarkstown No Rockland County GML review is required based on the location of the property The plan was originally introduced to include 20 homes Clarkstown’s code provides cluster development as an alternative in residential zones “to enable and encourage flexibility of design and development of land in such a manner as to preserve the natural and scenic qualities of open lands in order to preserve the natural and scenic qualities of open lands.” the entire almost three acres of wetlands on the site will remain undisturbed Without clustering a portion of the wetlands The wetlands are associated with a tributary of the Demarest Kill which runs along the eastern edge of the site from north to south The clustering plan would also override the zoning codes requirement for lot size and side-yards that are traditionally part of the R-15 single-family zone To protect the environmentally sensitive area around the wetlands the developer would likely give the Town of Clarkstown conservation easements the buyers of the houses would be deed restricted from increasing the homes’ footprints or size Rockland County’s need for affordable housing is acute and ongoing the County of Rockland commissioned a Housing Needs Assessment from Pattern for Progress The report found that there was a lack of housing in general and that the available housing was insufficient to meet the needs of Rockland County residents Regan Development Company, a large regional affordable housing builder, along with its nonprofit partner Rockland Housing Action Coalition (RHAC), also plan to build 52 affordable units of 55-plus senior housing at 250 South Middletown Road in Nanuet Plans for the $24 million development call for razing the Chase Bank to build the housing project on 2.5 acres that are within the Nanuet Hamlet RHAC is a 20 percent partner in the redevelopment deal The nonprofit will manage rentals once that project is built The project will be available to seniors who are qualified as low-income renters at or below 80 percent of the AMI (Area Medium Income) in Clarkstown Clarkstown residents will get a preference on the units Rockland County awarded Regan Development $5 million in a revolving loan fund for the project through its Housing Actions Loan Opportunity (HALO) program Projected rents for the units in Regan’s Nanuet project are $2,330 monthly for one-bedroom apartments; $2,796 monthly for two bedrooms FranchisesD-backs to debut new City Connect jerseys FridayBy Mike Mazzeo05.05.2025 The Diamondbacks will wear their new Citi Connect jerseys for the first time on Friday Kelsey Grant The D-backs will debut their City Connect Serpientes (Spanish for Snakes) uniforms on Friday and every Friday home game the rest of the 2025 season The purple and teal jerseys feature the motto “Arizona Born” on the collar; a flag patch with the team logo; the state outline featuring 1998 for the year the D-Backs were established; and original pinstripes and a snakeskin pattern ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS D-backs' Corbin Carroll in the City Connect uniform and jersey shoot on April 11 (Photo by Kelsey Grant/Arizona Diamondbacks) BY ALEX WEINER The Arizona Diamondbacks will wear purple once again The D-backs on Monday revealed their new Nike City Connect uniforms which harken back to the franchise’s purple roots albeit with a much different look than Luis Gonzalez When night falls, we begin to shine. pic.twitter.com/FF7k5qUdIL — Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 5, 2025 The uniforms continue to showcase “Serpientes” — the Spanish translation for snakes — across the chest like the first iteration of their City Connects as the uniforms bridge the Diamondbacks’ original colorway to their modern appearance and diamondback snakeskin patterns cover the jersey with black stripes The hats are purple with a Serpientes logo in teal The club teased this announcement Sunday on social media Fans have clamored online for the return of purple which the club ditched as a primary color in 2006 when it opted for a red remodel The D-backs have occasionally worn purple throwback uniforms since then although they have not worn the popular purple pinstripes since their 25th anniversary weekend during the 2023 season Ace pitcher Zac Gallen made his preference known at the time: Purple> Red. We should wear these more (permanently lol) 👀 https://t.co/0qLAtHU7V0 — Zac Gallen (@zacgallen23) August 13, 2023 These new digs are certainly quite different than any other uniform the club has worn President and CEO Derrick Hall told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta earlier this season they would bring a dramatic change compared to the original City Connects The Diamondbacks revamped their entire wardrobe last season with new white home gray road along with black and red alternate uniforms As has become typical of MLB’s City Connect uniforms Various fan creations circulated social media some of which were pretty close to the mark A new development occurred when a version of the Diamondbacks’ purple City Connect hit eBay last month which showed a similar design to the real thing but with “Arizona” across the chest above “Diamondbacks.” These are reportedly the Diamondbacks new City Connects (via @UniWatch) pic.twitter.com/FwraLzkt9j — Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 22, 2025 The actual uniforms appeared to have leaked late last week WORLD'S FIRST LOOK at the @Dbacks city connect jersey 💜 https://t.co/XcuLlF4vYf pic.twitter.com/HhvDJxsknT — Romeo (@EldenMonitors) May 1, 2025 The D-backs will debut the purple look on the field Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers They plan to wear the jerseys every Friday home game moving forward Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins have all revealed new City Connect uniforms this season Follow @alexjweiner Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights sustainability and space.Follow AuthorMay 05 02:48pm EDTShareSaveCommentA sign that reads "Starbase" is seen near the SpaceX facilities in Brownsville Tech billionaire Elon Musk's dream of gaining city status for his SpaceX spaceport in the southern US state of Texas became a reality on Saturday when voters overwhelmingly backed turning his Starbase into a new municipality which also named a senior SpaceX representative as its mayor with 100 percent of the early vote (Photo by Gabriel Cardenas / AFP) (Photo by GABRIEL CARDENAS/AFP via Getty Images) Voters in a remote corner of Texas near both the Mexico border and the Gulf of Mexico have overwhelming conveyed a new informal title on Elon Musk: Starbase town patriarch by a landslide decision of 212 votes in favor and just six against The new municipality measures less than 2 square miles in area as it’s believed the vast majority of voters work at Starbase Local Cameron County officials have also regularly touted SpaceX and Starbase as an engine of economic development for the area Starbase voters also elected three SpaceX employees to serve as the town’s new mayor and a pair of commissioners including mayor-elect and company VP Bobby Peden Converting Starbase into what will pretty clearly be a company town puts certain zoning infrastructure and public services decisions and administration under the control of the new municipality The local government can also pursue other powers like the ability to close the local beach for weekday launches something that currently requires authorization from Cameron County Such authority would require approval from state legislators and is opposed by otherwise supportive county officials like Treviño Jr Despite the overwhelming vote to incorporate including some locals and activist groups in South Texas who cite environmental concerns over the rocket production launch facility and purported “Gateway to Mars” envisioned by the company Several dozen people attended a demonstration on the beach in opposition to Starbase’s incorporation, according to a post from the South Texas Environmental Justice Network Musk has long envisioned Starbase as a key epicenter for his ambitions to sprinkle more humanity throughout the solar system starting with a settlement on the surface of Mars via numerous Starship flights The massive space vehicle has so far been exclusively developed although it’s possible it could also one day launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida 2021: SpaceX prepares for its next mission with the Spaceship SN15 at .. More the high bay at the Starbase Space Facility in Boca Chica Starship is also scheduled to ferry astronauts to the moon in the coming years as part of NASA’s Artemis program In addition to the Starfactory rocket manufacturing facility and launch infrastructure Starbase also provides support for employees and tourists SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment on future plans for the new city The Arizona Diamondbacks' Nike City Connect 2.0 uniforms have arrived The team unveiled the new mostly purple "Serpientes" uniforms early on May 5 and the Diamondbacks will debut the uniforms for their May 9 game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Chase Field The Diamondbacks will wear the jerseys and purple/teal caps again on May 10 and then every Friday home game for the rest of the 2025 season The uniforms are the second version of City Connect fits after the team first sported sand-colored "Serpientes" uniforms in 2021 The jerseys are inspired by the team's original purple and teal colors from 1998 48 to honor when the team joined MLB and Arizona being the 48th state and the words "Arizona Born" on the inside of the collar The snakeskin-patterned pinstripes harken back to the original team uniforms instead of an "A" or "D" for Arizona or Diamondbacks features the "S" used in the Serpientes wordmark Starting May 5 at 10 a.m., fans can find the new City Connect gear at the Chase Field team shop. The team shop also opens when stadium gates open around 5 p.m. for the Diamondbacks' 6:40 p.m. game against the New York Mets on May 5 'They're pretty sick': Diamondbacks players evaluate new Nike City Connect uniforms On May 31, the Diamondbacks will give away Geraldo Perdomo City Connect bobbleheads to the first 20,000 fans in attendance. That giveaway had been announced, but no photo of the bobblehead was available on the team website so as not to reveal the look of the new uniforms. I love a CliffsNotes condensation of a place All of Rome in ninety minutes gave me a Visigothic sense of accomplishment untarnished even when my tour bus’s automated audio commentary got out of synch implying that the Pope lived in the Trevi Fountain I was once shepherded through Beijing’s Forbidden City by the voice of Roger Moore coming from a stuttery tape recorder; while visiting the Teotihuacán ruins I was de-toured to a basilica housing the cloak of the Virgin of Guadalupe It looked like a dry-cleaned blouse still covered in plastic that some consider Herodotus the father of the travel guide account of Egypt arguably invented the form and it even included the obligatory section on public rest rooms: “[The Egyptians] established for themselves manners and customs in a way opposite to other men in almost all matters  the women make water standing up and the men crouching down.” it never occurred to me to be a tourist in the city where I’ve lived for forty years—namely which received almost sixty-five million visitors in 2024 I learned so many factoids that I am practically a walking almanac of New York City with a useful appendix listing Some Amusing Things You Can Say at Cocktail Parties Among the tours I didn’t take were “Smelling Bushwick,” “Death in New York,” and one of Ellis Island Hospital and traipse through infectious- and contagious-disease wards as Samuel Johnson said of the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland (some forty thousand volcanically formed basalt columns sticking out of the sea) New York: A Centenary IssueSubscribers get full access. Read the issue » was raised in the ultra-Orthodox upstate village of Kiryas Joel (“It’s a different planet,” she said.) Vizel was set up at eighteen with a man she married after a thirty-minute meeting; fifteen years ago An outsider who knows the ways of the insiders She has two hundred and sixty-four YouTube videos on topics ranging from female head shaving to Hasidic wedding-night sex which have been watched millions of times; 2.3 million have viewed her TikTok on kosher phones (i.e. flip phones or browser-free smartphones that can’t access social media petite blonde whose face was partially concealed by sunglasses Of the three Hasidic Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn Williamsburg is the “most Amish.” She meant the most insular Pointing to a squat building across the street from a luxury high-rise where Justin Bieber used to live “Does anyone know what architectural detail tells me this is a Hasidic apartment house?” Answer: the balconies are arranged in a staggered pattern so that the terrace on one floor is never directly above or below the terrace on another stipulates that you must eat all meals in a hut open to the sky (“Camping vibe meets Christmas vibe,” she said.) We stopped at Brachsoni Shirts a pickleball-court-size store carrying nothing but stacks of identical-looking men’s white button-downs then paused in front of a parked B110 bus to Borough Park—D.O.T.-franchised but operated by a private company and used mostly by Hasidim any female passenger who dares to sit up front must be O.K My favorite stop on the tour was a variety store called Lee Avenue Photo—specifically Vizel explained how the assortment of playthings reflects Hasidic family values: for instance A “Babysitter Set” of miniature dolls includes one baby-faced babysitter and nine very young children which is three more offspring than Angelina Jolie has Five male dolls accessorized with seven different hats each worn by various members of the Jewish diaspora—and a hat brush and box A standout was the crunchy fried lox on a bagel that we were given at Williamsburg Bagel the Dutch began building Fort Amsterdam to keep the Natives (and the English) out a trained geologist with a background in archeology who is also a former park ranger at Ellis Island livened up the tour by periodically pulling items out of her messenger bag She started by brandishing a giant oyster shell half the world’s oysters were in New York Harbor some so big that their shells were the size of a pro basketball player’s shoes.) Next came a nutmeg (the spice was so valuable that in 1667 the Dutch ceded control of New Amsterdam to England in exchange for a teeny Indonesian island called Run which was then one of the only nutmeg sources in the world) and a copy of a map of New Amsterdam drawn in 1660 by the surveyor general of New Netherland Edgecombe explained that when the British took control of New Amsterdam couldn’t get anyone to join him in resisting the invasion he received a letter signed by ninety-three townspeople,” Edgecombe told us We don’t give a shit about New Amsterdam.’ ” She went on there’s a chance that you wouldn’t want to go back home to your family because life with the Natives was much more culturally warm and safe.” (The Patty Hearst story prefigured!) Edgecombe dispensed a bit of historical trivia that delighted me: the Lenape were called “the old women” by the neighboring Iroquois At the start of Rock Junket’s “East Village Rock n’ Punk” tour ($47) and I thought I would tell you I made that name up because the majority of people I’ll speak about today had stage names—all the Ramones who said that he worked in marketing and sales at various record labels from around 1990 to 2010 speaks with the relaxed cadence of a late-night radio announcer who needs to inhale only once an hour He had on a baggy Rolling Stones sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and his platinum-blond hair was styled in punky spikes Pinn preferred not to divulge his age (“Rock and roll’s a young business,” he said) but if I had two guesses I’d say “Sixty-three but looks fifty-three” or “Fifty-three but looks sixty-three.” “You guys have any favorite bands?” Pinn asked me and my six tour-mates accompanying his seventeen-year-old drummer son and a sixteen-year-old guitarist nephew; and a guy studying music theory at Juilliard lived in a four-hundred-square-foot apartment until his death Pinn explained that Johnny Ramone walked a straighter line than his bandmates “I don’t know if you guys remember that Johnny went to military school as a kid,” said Pinn “so he was a bit more orderly around the guys than I think they were hoping for Johnny would always request a couple of cold six-packs of Yoo-hoo.” There were plenty of other rock tidbits For instance: an annual readers’ poll in a 1973 issue of Creem named the New York Dolls both the best new group of the year and the worst new group of the year Pinn lowered his voice to a reverential register and explained that when the club was forced to close over a rent dispute a lot of famous people pissed in these.’ ” Not everyone on a tour is a tourist. Because the Mount Vernon Hotel Museum and Garden a restored antebellum day resort at 421 East Sixty-first Street ($15) is situated in a neighborhood dense with doctors and hospitals—sometimes called Bedpan Alley—it attracts locals looking for diversion when visiting a sick friend or family member The tour starts with mandatory viewing of a quaint introductory video (“What was America like when the hotel operated here [1826-33] narrated by a woman in a puffy-sleeved frock of a sort that the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe might wear when she has company including a women’s parlor with sewing equipment The property was originally owned by President John Adams’s daughter who sold it in 1796 after Smith lost all his money it is owned and operated by the Colonial Dames of America who seem to have bought it from the Standard Gas Light Company My favorite antediluvian bit of gossip: in 1806 the ne’er-do-well Smith (about whom President Adams wrote “All the Actions of my Life and all the Conduct of my Children have not disgraced me so much as this Man”) stood trial for treason for trying to free Venezuela from Spain which would largely be conducted from the Subaru Outback of the guide Our excursion through the cemetery’s four hundred and seventy-eight acres ignored whatever is left of such famous residents as Leonard Bernstein and instead focussed on the graves of an 1857 murder victim and a former lover of his We hopped out of the car only occasionally who had on a parka patched with reflective tape published a book called “Butchery on Bond Street.” The salacious crime in brief: body of scummy but prosperous dentist Harvey Burdell found in “pool of gore,” his “torso stabbed 15 times with pig sticker.” (Actually a dirk.) Did Emma Cunningham a widow with five children and a faked marriage certificate calling Burdell her husband Feldman told us that before the trial the coroner considered allowing the deceased’s eyeballs to be examined was that the retinas of a corpse retained an image of the last scene viewed before death he was less expert in the guiding part of tour-guiding getting us lost in the boneyard more than once in which bystanders are a part of the show How to describe THE RIDE (almost always printed the lab results would reveal it to be thirty-one per cent Broadway musical whose badinage is corny but crowd-pleasing (Host 1: “We are on a mission today to find out what makes New York City such a magical place!” Host 2: “Where millions of people come to visit each year Where millions more live on top of each other As THE RIDE pauses frequently along its 4.2-mile loop allowing RIDE-ers to take in a string of staged-to-look-spontaneous performances—for example an out-of-work actor dressed as a UPS man doing a hip-hop dance; a “street-cleaner” tap-dancing with his broom; two pedestrians (really ballet dancers!) who pretend to bump into each other If it bugs you that actors in musicals break out inexplicably into song these bits will make you break out explicably into rage You also won’t love the part where the hosts make everyone on board belt out “New York screens display “fun facts” about the city—e.g. Liza Minnelli and David Gest’s wedding cost $3.5 million (Wrong.) The vehicles are tricked out with surround sound too; and at one point on our joyride the bus was jerked around by the bus driver to simulate the sensation of a subway speeding underfoot you must be willing to suspend being a snob for seventy-five minutes (give or take fifteen minutes You must become a hundred per cent tourist Julian Locke, the brawny middle-aged guy who devised and leads a New York walk called “Tour D’Trump” (NYC Tour Guys, $45) has had a hand in thwarting his First Amendment rights He’s been having a tough time promoting his tour but my boosts keep getting rejected,” he said a chipper sixty-one-year-old who moved to New York from Winchester conducted his tour group of two as if he were addressing the hugest crowd in history Locke was cagey about his own political leanings (did the red beanie provide a clue?) as he led us briskly along what he called the “resident to President” route “And Donald Trump does not like low-energy people,” he said “So I need to turn you into winners.” He then made us do what he called “a quick Donald Trump dance Then pinch your fists”—or did he say “punch” should I split the difference?—“and you just kind of move up and down where I tried not to think about the latent meaning in putting one’s daughter on the menu at one’s eponymous bar-and-grill (the Ivanka Salad and Locke held forth about the famous escalator He padded out the hour with some Trump show-biz trivia: when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired “Home Alone 2,” in 2019 it cut out the scene that featured Trump saying a line “This sent Donald Trump ballistic,” Locke said Locke handed out complimentary Donald-faced key chains to all participants but for the most part they were led by official New York City Sightseeing Guides Just as you need a license from the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (D.C.W.P.) to become an official Bingo Game Operator do you need a license from that department to lead tourists around town “You must have a Sightseeing Guide license to guide or direct people to any place or point of public interest or to describe or lecture about any place or point of public interest to any person in connection with any sightseeing trip or tour within the city.” Applicants are required to take a written exam and you’re allowed to fail it twice; after that you’ll need to pony up another fifty dollars The test consists of a hundred and fifty questions and you must answer at least ninety-seven correctly here are some examples of what might appear on the exam: 1 What arcade game was banned by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in 1942 What was one of the first items sent through the New York Post Office’s pneumatic-tube system Where does the blind character played by Audrey Hepburn in “Wait Until Dark” live concerned by reports that some of the locals showing visitors around the Gettysburg battlegrounds were too creative with their facts This made Gettysburg the first federally regulated tour site in the country Those caught leading a group without a license were arrested The first Gettysburg tour took place not long after the smoke cleared the attraction had become so popular that an advertisement by a local hotel touted Greeters introduce out-of-towners to a few of their favorite spots in the city as though they were friends or family Gail Morse has been the organization’s director of programs and volunteers Morse explained that there are more than a hundred and eighty Greeters in the city; being Greeted is free The organization tries to match visitors and Greeters according to their interests “They get to know each other by e-mail ahead of time,” Morse said “So once they meet they’re no longer strangers.” She was emphatic about terminology “We don’t use the word ‘tour,’ ‘tour guides,’ or ‘guide,’ ” she said “If a visitor thinks they are booking a tour guide they’ll think they had a stupid tour guide who doesn’t know how many steps to the top of the Empire State Building That kind of information can be looked up on the phone.” an eighty-two-year-old retired adman who has been a Greeter for twenty-one years “A tour guide shows you the hardware of New York and we show you the software.” No two Greets are the same then he reeled off tales of the various new friends he’s made He recalled a couple who wanted to have a glass of wine at each of a series of New York bars the woman went to the ladies’ room and her husband told Barnett that she had a terminal illness “All she wanted to do was go to New York and toast each other all over the city,” Barnett said You enter people’s lives in a way that is astounding.” Morse told me that several Greeters have ended up being witnesses at the City Hall weddings of couples who’d travelled to New York to get married they might want to consider the “Divorce Party Jet Ski” tour the newly uncoupled and their guests can zip themselves into wetsuits and “glide up close” to the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge sights like these “can help divorcees bounce back: New research shows that experiencing awe like marveling at vast and powerful landmarks can reduce stress and improve overall well-being.” Herodotus couldn’t have put it better A long-ago crime, suddenly remembered A limousine driver watches her passengers transform The day Muhammad Ali punched me What is it like to be keenly intelligent but deeply alienated from simple emotions? Temple Grandin knows The harsh realm of “gentle parenting.”  Retirement the Margaritaville way Fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Thank You for the Light.”  Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Tired of seeing annoying ads (like this one!) on Uni Watch There’s a simple solution: Join Uni Watch Plus plus exclusive access to our UW+ discussion forums push notifications whenever a new blog post has been published a special UW+ badge accompanying all your comments on the blog and a 20% discount on our Teespring merchandise Already a member? Sign in here If the Titans were to have new uniforms for this fall there is almost a 100% likelihood they would have been unveiled prior to this year’s draft Last week, both the Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins unveiled their new 2025 City Connect uniforms The White Sox debuted theirs on Friday evening while the Marlins debuted theirs on Saturday As we saw when the ChiSox unveiled their uniforms, their CCs will actually have two caps — a black brim/red crown with black pinstripes as well as a solid black crown and a red brim It was a cold evening in Chicago on Friday so almost all players wore long black sleeves — and as you can see above and below the black sleeves combined with the black set-in sleeves really did give the jerseys the appearance of being a basketball tank top (which of course is the point since the CCs are basically a tribute to the Chicago Bulls) Say what you will about the look of the new CCs but the NOB and number are both easy to read Especially with the thick white outline on the black numbers Every player I saw was wearing their pants pajama style I had mentioned the team was given black CC socks and that probably wasn’t the best since CC socks (or any hosiery) work best when they contrast with the color of the pants You can see the first base coach sporting hose here and — as I had suspected — it doesn’t help in the least (and may even look worse than full-length pants) One thing we hadn’t seen in the unveiling is what sort of batting helmet the Sox would pair with the new CC For this game (and I could see them changing these up if they wear different caps) they wore a glossy helmet that replicates the red brim/black crown caps they were wearing not only does the team have two different on-field caps they’ll wear with the CC again wearing their red brim/black crown caps So we’ll have to wait to find out if their batting helmets will change with a change in caps The first video below is from Friday and the second is from Saturday made it look easy https://t.co/wLdLamprAT pic.twitter.com/LVH9SvFh7y — Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 3, 2025 put up a 3️⃣-spot in the 1st pic.twitter.com/NMzHliWAFp — Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 3, 2025 The Marlins also debuted their new CCs this weekend Also note that the Marlins have tweaked their advertiser logo colors to better match those of the CC My biggest issue with the new CC is of course the area code as the cap logo This is one case where the team would be much better served by wearing the CC jersey with their batting practice cap — which looks fantastic There’s even a second cap (which I believe is *just* a fan cap) seen here that would work much better But the gradient blue-to-pink crown and the area code just don’t work on a major league uniform So…the batting helmet has to be better The two-tone paint job, meant to replicate the gradient brim, looks as bad on the Marlins as it did on the Giants But the Marlins didn’t stop there with the color…they continued with blue accents on the right side of the helmet … it does look like “SOS” depending on the angle) really stood out I love the blue and pink accents in this uniform but putting them on the helmets was too much of a good thing Javier Sanoja rips an RBI double and the @Marlins trail 4-3 in the 5th. pic.twitter.com/QMSj0n2r2S — Marlins Radio Network (@MarlinsRadio) May 3, 2025 Retrowave Stowers Power! pic.twitter.com/QxXjQjDrLU — Miami Marlins (@Marlins) May 3, 2025 __________Of the six CCs to be unveiled so far I’d have to say these two were my least favorite (I think the CC 2.0 versions we have seen so far have been decent to good) That’s more a function that the CCs the White Sox and Marlins are replacing are superior to the new ones My biggest complaints are that I’m not comfortable with the White Sox doing a tribute to the basketball team (especially since both teams are owned by one person) I’m guessing we won’t see too many high-cuffers I’m also very thankful they wore solid black and not red pinstriped pants the “305” cap (and batting helmets) drop the overall look down a few grades If they had just paired the jersey (which I like) with a non-gradient brim and used the “M” sleeve logo for the cap/helmet now that you’ve had a chance to see them on the field Today’s scoreboard comes from Brian McGill The premise of the game (GTGFTS) is simple: I’ll post a scoreboard and you guys simply identify the game depicted I don’t know if I’ve ever completely stumped you (some are easier than others) try to identify the game (date and location If anything noteworthy occurred during the game please add that in (and if you were AT the game You’re welcome to send me any scoreboard photos (with answers please) location and final score of the game from the clues provided in the photo Sometimes the game should be somewhat easy to ascertain There will usually be a visual clue (something odd or unique to one or both of the uniforms) that will make a positive identification of one and only one game possible there may be something significant about the game in question like the last time a particular uniform was ever worn (one of Jimmy’s original suggestions) It’s up to YOU to figure out the game and date Today’s GTGFTU comes from Jimmy Corcoran himself Good luck and please post your guess/answer in the comments below …that’s going to do it for the early lede I’ll have a few more articles to follow so please do be sure to check back throughout the day and I’ll catch you all right back here tomorrow Neither the Bulls or Marlins look like what a professional team should wear The only positive with the White Sox are glossy helmets Like you I believe the BP cap with the teal bill would be a vast improvement On TV at a distance the uniform isn’t too bad The stripes weren’t visible but I fail to understand why the entire top doesn’t have stripes The leaked jersey reminds me of mashed peas The green is probably one of the ugliest shades of green The City Connect program remains a complete joke only one White Sox player definitely wore his pants “pyjama style” Not all instances of low socks are pyjama pants Since we are playing the semantics game here The socks they are wearing aren’t low cut It’s not semantics to differentiate between baggy pants that look terrible vs neat and tidy pants without high cuffed socks As for your point – you don’t know what kind of socks the players are wearing and it’s very common to refer to high vs I was surprised that as much as I don’t care for black pants that I wasn’t bothered by this as my personal sense of aesthetics likes the sharp neat line of the pants (at least the ones we saw) and I also wouldn’t have called them pagama pants However…they just look like any “jogger” or weekend pant that one would wear to the store or kid’s games 1967 LA Coliseum Washington Redskins 28 LA Rams 28 Roman Gabriel would throw a late TD to Bernie Casey (who most of know as an actor!) to salvage the tie both teams are wearing Sand Knit jerseys there in two seasons Washington will get new Rawlings ones and the Rams will switch to Rawlings a couple of seasons after that I know it’s insane health & safety-wise but I miss the aesthetics of QBs with single bar face masks and d-linemen with a two bars and a U bar The City Connect line hasn’t been perfect but I think its fun to switch it up from time to time but I think its okay from time to time to try new things I kind of liked the Marlins’ Sugar Kings CC’s so these are a disappointment in that sense And this is basically the same color scheme as their primaries I like the White Sox hats (both versions) but dislike the rest of the uni and like the Marlins uni but dislike the hat The Marlins unis are mostly fun and inoffensive The White Sox unis feel in every way like someone in the White Sox (and someone at Nike) was trying to suck up to Jerry Reinsdorf so… he’s sucking up to himself Think they’d work better for the Reds though Marlins batting practice hat should be their regular hat Font on city connects should be their regular font Agree on a baseball vest–would love to see the Reds reintroduce the vest into their rotation Loved the Randy Johnson era Diamondbacks vest I guess I appreciate the Marlins fully leaning into the Miami Vice vibe An MLB team needs to steal the look of the local NBA team for some bizarre reason You’re telling me they couldn’t have built the uniform around that graphic And why don’t the White Sox ever wear white socks??? white sox would;’ve looked better with the black pants in these too It makes no sense for a team named the White Sox to have black socks/hosery As a White Sox fan who is NOT enthusiastic about these City Connects I must agree that the red jacket is the best thing to come out of the program I just tried to read today’s ticker and the entry won’t open up Considering that the White Sox unis are a “tribute” to the Bulls I’m surprised Nike didn’t go all-in and go with the Jordan brand jumpman logo instead of the swoosh I’d be curious to hear what any Cubs fans out there think about this White Sox/Bulls mash-up Not your opinions on how the uniforms look More so your thoughts on the collaboration between the two organizations The font of the “MIAMI” chest and fan hat wordmark really look like the Miami University of Not Florida wordmark to me I stand by my take on the Marlins CC when it was unveiled: the jersey is good the hat is an affront to the Baseball Gods but if the jersey were paired with more normal elements The white Sox new CC’s look very good I like the arch lettering it looks much cleaner than the typically sloppy CC fonts The colors mesh well and the glossy helmets look awesome Marlins unis looked a lot better on the field But as you said the hats and helmets ruined them Was very happy the SOUTHSIDE trim looked like stripes I need one of those batting helmets – cherry on top The red is so rich and I like the idea of the black pants with this uni – although But pajama style is definitely better than those socks Would have looked good with red sox – but… So I was shocked and let out an audible “OH GOD” when I saw the batting helmets The stripes work better than I thought (although I kind of want them go three quarters not halfway) and while the hat is abomination they could easily switch the batting practice and this would be great The batting helmet is a choice but I don’t mind a silly batting helmet on an alt While their Sugar Kings one was really good this should be the template for a new permanent look instead of the half measure approach they took on their current outfit It looks like they are wearing track pants This is one that would be vastly improved with simple white pants The rest isn’t terrible but the pants kill the look With white pants this is a passable look that doesn’t look out of place as a White Sox uni i think just the fish on that bp hat (no M) would look best for the real uni Not a fan of the gigantic NOBs on the White Sox CC jerseys even if the team had been famous for giant NOBs in the ’60s Make the NOBs small and have them in the same black/white color as the number Sox look very amateurish in this red and black combo I do like the warmup jacket as a fashion item and website in this browser for the next time I comment Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Newcity Lit by Amanda Norton | May 5 It’s a compelling novel that fills one with an actual physical sense of dread highlighting the warmth and wonder of human existence Knapp employs an inventive structure in unspooling her domestic drama over three and a half decades with added remembrances that predate the saga that begins in 1987 with chapters identified by the three different names—Bear The “many worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics or the idea of a so-called “multiverse,” in which all potentialities unfold across infinite planes are usually a mark of science fiction; here though objective realism that simply sets out different possibilities stories that might have unfolded according to one pivotal decision Cora makes of what to name her second child One source of this book’s power is Knapp’s adept use of surprise and suspense murder—these things ripple outward in the novel even when perpetrators often take extreme steps to try to keep the impact of their abuse quiet Knapp renders this reality in searing brushstrokes large and small It’s rare these days that I devour a book and then immediately start to read it again I found myself wanting to take in the triptych a second time by flipping through pages to read each thread in sequence I longed to follow the delicately woven mysteries and absorb the characters’ joy and pain without the off-kilter feeling of unease that I had on the first read As Bear (a name chosen by the woman’s daughter with the hope that her younger brother might someday grow up to be “all soft and cuddly and kind” but also “brave and strong”) the young man makes an impassioned speech to his girlfriend after she’s almost been killed by a terrorist in Paris “I love that when you send me letters you sign off with your first and last name and I’ve never known why you do that but I haven’t asked in case it makes you stop I love that you add lemon to everything you cook I love that in winter you keep those weird heated handwarmers in your handbag to give to homeless people quotidian observations express a capacity for love that is worlds away from what Bear has learned through stories filled in his own home when he was born when Maia bestowed upon him the talisman of his name Knapp’s novel drives home the horrors that some humans inflict upon those they claim to love but also suggests that every moment is a fork—a place to choose to demonstrate with names words and actions what love and care really mean “The Names” Florence Knapp Pamela Dorman Books/Viking There are stories from the months before I was born when I was still nestled inside my mother like a Yonah Schimmel knish to go the city was overtaken by a heat wave so mighty that it made being inside without A.C unbearable—you had to stay moving just to create a breeze My mom remembers thinking that New York hadn’t felt so unhinged since the Summer of Sam that the heat lent an edge of hysteria to everyday interactions she ran into an equally sweaty and disoriented friend on the corner of Broadway and Houston who told her that the sculptor Carl Andre had been accused of throwing his wife the seminal Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta when my parents went to see a movie at Lincoln Plaza and the smell of other people’s buttered popcorn made my mom so sick that she had to leave halfway through my father—who has often been accused of charging ahead with little concern for those travelling with him—made a mad dash out of the train car just before the doors closed “I looked around and everyone was laughing,” she recalls she placed her hand on the glass between her and my father and burst into tears They’re about the struggle of living in a city where compressed like office workers in a stalled elevator a beautiful blond boy a few blocks over who had set off for the school bus one morning and never returned the local preschool playgroup began using a new contraption for walking toddlers to the park—a rope with a mitten attached for each child Covers by Christoph NiemannIt didn’t take long for me to grow into possibly the least adaptable native the city had ever seen the city takes a certain amount of chutzpah—you have to be ready rush to nab the last subway seat or the only on-duty cab You have to be unsurprised by the consistent surprises that come with a new day in New Amsterdam My parents had both been raised far enough outside the city to have childhoods that could be called idyllic but close enough that Manhattan exerted a strong pull Getting to New York was their ultimate expression of self-determination the place where they would shed preconceptions about who they were meant to be and create a new life among artists and experimental thinkers planting their seeds in the fecund soil of the city If we are to continue with the plant metaphor I was more like an avocado pit mashed into a cup of dirt by an excited third grader who then forgot to water it my parents ought to have been ashamed of the creature they’d wrought inevitably be littered with fresh obstacles scrappy child whose natural independence I envied—was riding in a subway car when a bomb went off She described being rushed through the resulting mayhem by her grandmother a glamorous woman with a bonnet of gold hair whom she called Dammy Isabel was back on the 2/3 line within weeks whereas I still stood at the mouth of the subway station Navigating the city on foot was only marginally better I hated the smell of rotting fish on Canal Street where I’d bury my nose in my mother’s pants as we walked to Isabel’s house I also hated Central Park—though we rarely went—because sitting atop what looked to be a nest of its own intestines I’d promptly thrown up in the bushes near Strawberry Fields I liked the local park on Thompson and Spring until one day I entered a plastic tube on the jungle gym to find a bald-headed man on his belly because I had seen a handsome young guy asleep on a stoop with a needle in his neck and I hated Sixteenth and Third—inconveniently the block my school was on—because I had once passed a dapper elderly gentleman in a camel overcoat then begun to twitch and let loose a sudden stream of shocking expletives after which he smiled again and kept moving we had found someone lowering his pants to defecate Every place where I had seen something or someone that provoked unease was deemed permanently suspect if you couldn’t return to the scene of some randomized chaos in pre-Giuliani Manhattan New York seems to open a portal to the expansive lives they had always felt they should be living the city constricted until the only place I felt safe was in my loft bed at the back of our apartment the faint sounds of the streets below my window like a white-noise machine that occasionally yelled which opened directly into our living space only to find a disoriented person wearing a tutu and smeared red lipstick advancing into our home “I think you are in the wrong place,” my mom said calmly and the person eventually left without incident But for months afterward I froze whenever I heard the elevator straining to lift off: I was in the wrong place All this may seem to imply some deeper judgment about the city—that I think it’s wanton and unregulated But I will always defend New York from those sorts of charges—after all no one can talk shit about my mother but me It’s that the city’s messy scrum was a poor fit for a chronically ill child with obsessive-compulsive tendencies and a preternatural inability to look both ways when crossing the street It took me years to understand that most people accept New York’s mayhem as some kind of toll a small price to pay for the panoply of delights available to them at a moment’s notice—whoever said “Nothing good ever happens after midnight” has never lived in New York But anyone who has ever fallen in love with the city knows that they will accept myriad slights just to stay in that relationship—cramped apartments How many Hollywood movie plots hinge roughly on the idea that the hero will do anything who had chosen that plot; I was simply the culmination of it whose house in rural Connecticut I considered to be the apex of peace—would sometimes shake her head and tell my parents to get me out of the city “It’s no place for a child,” she would whisper to me when my parents left the room noting my “terrible nerves.” But my father had felt the same way about his home town of Old Lyme which was so insular that nearly every business in the nearby neighborhood of Hamburg was owned by a relative we went back there to visit my grandmother’s grave on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her death Margaret—suggest a good Protestant stability “You can’t even imagine how small this place feels,” he told me “There’s nowhere I can look without being faced with a memory.” it hadn’t occurred to him that I might have similarly complicated feelings about New York I may not have come of age with a group of stiff Republican relatives whose offspring still own the local Subaru dealership but growing up is one of a handful of things that everyone has to do My father’s family was baffled that anyone would ever want to leave the bucolic world of Hamburg Mine seemed to wonder who could ever see New York as anything other than the center of the universe I loved spending time at my grandma’s house because of the slow pace of her days A trip to the grocery store to buy a half pound of London broil constituted a major outing took a break at five o’clock for peanuts and tonic water and I’d be safely tucked into bed by 8 P.M my mother could pack ten or eleven separate excursions into a single day—or spend hours wandering the floors of the discount department store Century 21 striking up endless conversations in the communal dressing room (another place I regarded poorly having seen one woman elbow another in the face over a cut-price Victoria’s Secret negligee) My mom and her sisters—Jewish girls at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Margarets I distinctly remember my mother repeating that “what I love about Manhattan is that if you really want to you can always get from one end to the other in twenty minutes.” (This is not and I blame the remark for my lifelong inability to properly judge commute times.) “Laurie is a ‘from’ girl—the lox is from one place the flowers from someplace else.” Knowing how to get the best out of the city—from discount Manolos to vintage buttons to a ten-dollar blow-dry—gives my mother the satisfaction of a chess grand master stumping her opponent with a series of unexpected moves But being a “from” girl is about more than the provenance of goods; it’s about living at such high speeds that your inner life can never quite catch up to you I couldn’t help but feel like a character in a children’s book where a sloth must attend school with human kids taking great pains to hide his true identity under glasses and a cardigan my celebrity look-alike—who lives essentially unsupervised in the Plaza “I am a city child / I live at The Plaza.” But this city child never seems to set foot outside: everything and everyone she needs exists within the walls of the hotel I persuaded my father to bring me to the Plaza to experience it firsthand as a stand-in for the slumber parties that other girls were having the two of us spent the night in a twin room on a low floor the hotel had passed through the hands of Ivana Trump and the space—drawn in the book with such vivid low-key glamour by Hilary Knight—was hard to recognize I asked for Eloise’s usual meal of beef medallions so we ate grilled cheese and watched “The Rainmaker” and I got a bloody nose my parents briefly considered moving us out of New York Like everyone during that endless “after,” they were stunned by the destruction and unsure of what could come next We piled into the car and drove up to look at a rental house on a rural stretch of road in northwest Connecticut My visit to Housatonic Valley Regional High School ended with a peek at the agricultural center where I dreamed of bottle-feeding baby goats and winning trophies in animal husbandry “I think we could have a wonderful life here,” I said again and again with the energy of Annette Bening’s character in “American Beauty” chanting “I will sell this house today!” But it was clear that though my mother might be worried for her family she could not be parted from her lover: New York This was the woman who had tried to pay extra to keep her 212 number when we moved to Brooklyn New York and I had a brief moment when it seemed like we might fall in love after all I was back from college (in the cornfields of Ohio which is a great place to send your kids if you want them to return with a fresh appreciation of what New York has to offer) and had only recently shed some of my fearfulness and begun dating in earnest I found myself waiting in a bar on Ludlow in knee-high boots and red lipstick excited to be crushingly disappointed; dancing to music by yet-to-be-cancelled men in basements in Chinatown; lying prone in a ransacked house share in Flatbush shivering with anticipation (or maybe just shivering) standing on the aboveground subway platform (much preferred to the other kind) in a dress that had seemed perfect the night before but in the glaring sun made its absurdity apparent and again on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade and once more eating fried clams on City Island I choked back unrequited passion looking at an installation at P.S wondering whether every artist had felt this way and whether that was why artists made anything at all—to hold on to the feeling It was during this time that I was able to write my own story about the city in the form of a television show How could they have known that the safest I’d ever felt in New York was either hiding under the covers or pretending to be someone else under klieg lights thought that New York held the key to all her dreams—but (I had been told by countless cabdrivers—soothsayers all of them—that I seemed like I was from someplace else because no matter how far off course they drove me and unlike other native New Yorkers I had no preferred routes.) Hannah was an expression of homesickness for a place I’d never truly lived in and of my hope that I could meet New York again under an assumed identity she left New York and boldly set sail for a story line that signalled how much of a question mark the rest of the world still seemed to me and yet I had a New Yorker’s certainty that there really wasn’t anywhere else to go I was deep in the kind of heartbreak that I now know is on the required curriculum for that stage of adulthood but that seemed As if some higher power were sensing my need but only to the equally bedevilling city of Los Angeles It was a sojourn fit for one of the Brontë heroines I had always loved (or so I thought not realizing the difference between the moors of Yorkshire and the Celtic rain forests of Powys—a place that Charlotte this break would provide a chance for New York and me to hook up with other people and then realize we were meant to be together all along We all know how well that plan usually works out for couples Wales—with woods so uncannily green I could compare them only to the computer game Myst—led to London and London shocked me with its reassuring differences from New York which is large enough to contain all five New York boroughs twice streets so wide that the buildings seemed to be stepping aside for me to pass Three decades of urban sense memory cleared as if I had woken up to a system upgrade and damaged files had been erased in the process the fact that I’d yelped in pain on exactly zero London street corners like walking into a house I’d been to only in a dream London Lena,” a friend cooed when I agreed to go out for a third night in a row My reputation back home was as a work-obsessed hermit with an inappropriate fear of the “human statue” performers in Times Square whether walking on Hampstead Heath or sliding into a black cab In New York—the fastest city in the world—days had felt like years so much so that I call seltzer “sparkling water” and settle for bagels that taste like caulk Even when Londoners remind me of New Yorkers the city doesn’t jangle me the way New York does a drunk man unzipped his fly to pee on my stoop not noticing my presence behind some overgrown ivy On my first journey back to New York after the pandemic—which had kept me away for nearly two years—the experience of walking out of J.F.K and into the airport cab line was so powerful I nearly keeled over One day back in the city left me breathless and panicky When friends and I made plans to get together I’d suggest restaurants that had been shuttered for years No matter how often I’ve returned in the time since I’ve found myself standing anxiously at crosswalks as if trying to hop into a game of double Dutch But now the sense of dislocation is temporary The three-decade fight to mold myself to the city is over In Joan Didion’s essay “Goodbye to All That,” about her own decision to leave New York for her native California she writes that New York is best suited to the very young My grandmother said that it was no place for a child All I know for sure is that it was simply no place for me—at least you both try to show your best and truest selves but still the other party sees only your worst this was the most mature sort of breakup—the sort where we can still have coffee sometimes It turns out that I felt about New York City the same way so many New Yorkers feel about whatever place they started: it’s just where I was born sticking with the “Serpientes” branding but switching to purple as the primary color a sort of homage to the early days of the franchise Not only have fans wanted to go back to purple for years (the organization stopped wearing the color after the 2006 season) Here is what some of the current players had to say about the new uniforms but for a lot of people I know who have grown up in Phoenix and Scottsdale everything about the Diamondbacks to them is purple For them to kind of take what the people from the community wanted and pay tribute to the history of what the purple uniforms have meant to the organization I think is really cool I think there are little subtle touches in them that people at first glance people won’t necessarily realize but once they get a jersey in their hand or see one they’ll pick up on some of the details that I think the design team did a good job with.” Geraldo Perdomo: “I think they’re pretty sick It’s like the old purple and teal that we had in 2001 Those are the best uniforms we’ve had so far I think (purple) has been a part of the organization’s history Pavin Smith: “I think it’s an ode to the old-school purple I think it’s going to be cool to see the uniform put together I haven’t gotten to wear it — a couple of guys did and did a photo shoot — but I haven’t seen them on me yet I’m sure (purple-haired Lourdes) Gurriel (Jr.) is going to love it with the purple Or maybe he likes to stand out with the purple and might hate it He might have to switch to green or something.” Ryne Nelson: “I think people associate the purple with the team that won the World Series and that stretch of the early days of the Diamondbacks We’ve worn the throwbacks before but only kind of as one-offs but it’s also bringing back a little piece of the history of the team I don’t remember watching games with them in purple but obviously you see videos of the Gonzo hit We all know what they look like and I think every one of us here wishes we could wear those uniforms again.” (Video courtesy of Arizona Diamondbacks Communications) The new jerseys feature a similar "Serpientes" wording on the front to their previous City Connect set, but sport a purple gradient as their main color, with teal lettering and a snakeskin-pattern design. Though the team has kept the "Serpientes" moniker, the new jerseys are intended to further reflect Phoenix night life, rather than the desert sand, in addition to paying homage to the D-backs' original, purple and teal jerseys from the early 2000s. Corbin Carroll, featuring Arizona Diamondbacks new City Connects / Arizona Diamondbacks CommunicationsThe Diamondbacks issued a press release on the new uniforms, which reads as follows: "The Arizona Diamondbacks have unveiled their new Nike City Connect Serpientes uniforms, a cutting-edge redesign representing the iconic Diamondbacks jerseys over the years, focusing on vibrant colors and reimagining traditional patterning to create something unmistakably Arizona. "The new uniforms will be debuted this Friday, May 9 during the Diamondbacks game against the Dodgers and the team’s first night of Mexican Heritage Weekend. The team will wear the jerseys again on Saturday, May 10, and every Friday home game throughout the rest of the 2025 season. "Following the success of the original City Connect jerseys, the Nike City Connect 2.0 "Serpientes" uniforms bring a fresh and visually dynamic interpretation of the team’s connection to Arizona, drawing inspiration from previous Diamondbacks jerseys, the state’s rich cultural diversity, and Arizona’s desert surroundings. The name “Serpientes,” Spanish for snakes, symbolizes the Diamondbacks’ fierce competitive nature and connects directly with the team's identity. The team described the significance of each jersey feature in the release: Arizona Diamondbacks City Connect jersey details / Arizona Diamondbacks communications“Arizona Born” Collar Graphic: The only major sports team born with Arizona in its name, this motto pays homage to a legacy rooted in the desert and built for the entire state. “Flag” Patch: The flag patch unites the team and its state, a symbol of its unwavering connection. “Established” Jock Tag: The mark celebrates the establishment of the team (1998) and Arizona (48thState). "Jersey Details: The jersey pays tribute to the team’s history, blending elements of the original pinstripes with a snakeskin pattern. Sleeve Trim: The sleeve features a modern interpretation of the distinctive braiding from the team’s classic alternate uniforms. "The Cap: The “S” logo makes its on-field cap debut, standing out in the classic purple and teal colorway." Beginning Monday at 10:00 a.m., fans will be able to purchase the new jerseys, and similar related Serpientes-themed merch at the D-backs' team shop inside Chase Field. Supplies will be limited. The team will also give away a City Connect-themed Geraldo Perdomo bobbleheads on May 31, for the first 20,000 fans in attendance. The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit If you or someone you know has a gambling problem crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER Texas has a new city, largely thanks to Elon Musk's SpaceX Residents in Cameron County, Texas, voted on May 3 to officially create Starbase a new city along the state's southern border The area is home to SpaceX's rocket launch site and is where the company hopes to one day send humans to Mars. It's also slated to become the company's headquarters "Starbase, Texas Is now a real city!" Musk wrote on X SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY The newly formed city of Starbase is in Cameron County The area is along the southern perimeter of Texas and on the edge of the Mexico border. It consists of 220,000 square feet of buildings spread over 350 acres. More: $3 billion later, here's how Elon Musk and SpaceX changed this corner of Texas. election resultsOf the 218 voters who cast ballots to officially form Starbase as a city 212 chose to pass the measure while just six voted against it Voters unanimously elected a mayor, Bobby Peden, who works for SpaceX, according to his LinkedIn profile Two newly elected commissioners — Jordan Buss and Jenna Petrzelka — have also worked for the company, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Why it mattersSpaceX has not said why it wanted to form the town but given it's home to many of its employees the area's municipal government will likely work closely with the company "Becoming a city will help us continue building the best community possible for the men and women building the future of humanity's place in space," an X account for Starbase posted late Saturday The city houses a SpaceX landing pad, launch facility, launch control center and tracking station to test its rockets, including Starship, the most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, according to SpaceX A $100 million five-story office building was also finished earlier this year, according to records from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. Last year, Musk also announced plans to move SpaceX's headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the SAFETY Act into law Melina Khan is a trending reporter covering national news for USA TODAY. She can be reached at MKhan@gannett.com Elon Musk’s wish to create his own city just came true voters living around SpaceX’s rocket testing and launch facility in South Texas approved a measure to incorporate the area as a new city Cameron County election officials confirmed that overwhelming support among early voters clinched the election in favor of creating the City of Starbase Unofficial results later in the night showed the election was a landslide: 212 voted in favor; 6 opposed Musk celebrated the vote Saturday night with a single word posted to X: “S T A R B A S E.” But there were no signs of a celebration at Starbase itself Only 283 people, those who live within the boundaries of the proposed city, were eligible to vote in the election. A Texas Newsroom analysis of the voter rolls showed two-thirds of them either work for SpaceX or had already indicated their support The three unopposed people who ran to lead the city also have ties to SpaceX The vote clears the way for Musk to try to capture more control over the nearby public beach a few dozen activists who say the company has harmed sensitive habitats and ignored the cultural importance of the land rallied on the beach — with an Elon Musk piñata in tow “These hills here are sacred to us,” Juan Mancias chair of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas Company towns are also an undeniably American feature But Musk may be the first entrepreneur in modern history to incorporate his own town almost solely for his employees He’s also floated the idea of founding another city at his corporate compound outside Austin Musk and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the election voters wearing SpaceX and Starbase T-shirts and baseball hats strolled in and out of the special polling place set up on the company’s campus A man leaving the polling place cautioned that he was not authorized to speak to the media but said he supports the new city “I think it’s a net benefit for everyone,” he said “but not a lot of people will understand why.” who built their campuses in Silicon Valley SpaceX Starbase is perched on the far edge of Texas Next to SpaceX’s main building are the remnants of an old beach village Nearly all of the houses are now owned by the company who live in the village and said they don’t work for SpaceX were among the few opposed to the new city I’m sure we’re the only ones out here who did,” said the woman who did not want to give her name because of negative past experiences with the media Musk has been open about his desire to create a city here for years. By February, enough SpaceX employees had signed a petition to force a vote on the issue The new city will have approximately 500 official residents Starbase leaders have said incorporation will help the area continue to grow while giving them more control over functions it already managed City leaders could also adopt zoning ordinances that are more lenient than those of the county allowing them to build more homes on the lots they already own “Incorporating Starbase will streamline the processes required to build the amenities necessary to make the area a world class place to live — for the hundreds already calling it home as well as for prospective workers eager to help build humanity’s future in space,” Starbase Manager Kathryn Lueders said in a letter to Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño the rocket Musk means to eventually take humans to Mars The vote may also force SpaceX to be more transparent Starbase will be subject to state laws that require open meetings and the release of public records Just down the road from the SpaceX launch site is Boca Chica Beach A public strip sandwiched between South Padre Island and the Rio Grande The area has become less accessible in the years since SpaceX arrived That’s because it must be evacuated for safety each time a rocket is tested SpaceX is asking for approval to increase its launches from about five to 25 times a year Cameron County commissioners decide when to close access to the beach SpaceX is backing a bill making its way through the Texas Legislature that would shift the beach closure authority to Starbase city commissioners on weekdays It has already been approved by the Texas Senate and is pending a vote by the full House a Republican from Corpus Christi and the bill’s author said the purpose of handing over that power to the soon-to-be city was to streamline the current process said they worked well with SpaceX and found no reason to change the process the protesters said local politicians have not properly protected the land indigenous leaders and local fishermen said the beach needs to remain out of SpaceX’s control “It’s just such a disgrace on what’s happening out here,” said Rene Medrano “There’s a lot of upset community people who are seeing there’s a great chance that we may lose this beach “And now they’re starting to raise their voices a little bit a celebration of South Florida's culture while blending past The dark uniform is infused with teal and includes pink accents similar to the bright lights of Miami that "paint an electric glow in the city where the party never ends," the Marlins said in their release "Our new Retrowave uniform combines the Marlins rich history with an innovative forward-thinking approach that mirrors our organization's trajectory," Marlins president of business Caroline O'Connor said in a statement "We aimed to celebrate our club's storied past and special moments made in the teal all woven in a style that embodies the spirit of South Florida." it's the first time in MLB history a club has worn a city's area code on its hat A "Miami" wordmark in teal appears across the chest -- "channeling classic elegance," per the Marlins' release -- similar to the branding of the Florida Marlins which the franchise was known as from 1993 to 2011 before rebranding as the Miami Marlins The lettering is meant to reflect Miami's roots Numbers on the uniform are in a similarly colored teal The Marlins' first City Connect design included white pinstripes Reports that the Arizona Diamondbacks will wear their yet-to-be-unveiled Nike City Connect uniforms when they host the Los Angeles Dodgers either May 8 or May 9 seem more valid after a photo was leaked of what might actually be what the new jersey will look like The Diamondbacks have not made anything official and have apparently been waiting on Nike to decide when to share the uniforms with the public But indications are that an announcement is forthcoming as a throwback nod to the team's original uniforms when they first took the field as a franchise in 1998 Here's another leaked look at what appears closer to what the jerseys might actually look like It will be interesting to see what the hat that goes with the uniform looks like as well Photos of a white hat have been shared via social media This is to be the Diamondbacks' second City Connect jersey after 2021's sand-colored Serpientes uniform that drew a lot of positive reviews as they did with the original Serpientes jerseys four years ago could be an effective counter measure against the large contingent of blue that figures to be in the seats at Chase Field The San Francisco Giants and Miami Marlins have also unveiled their new City Connect uniforms by Brian Hieggelke | April 23 I’d visit the fair at Navy Pier with palpable enthusiasm albeit little knowledge about the dealers whose booths I was passing by physically exhausted and so mentally fatigued that I felt I’d fallen out of love with art my acquaintance with the forces at work in the art world grew as the Chicago International Art Exposition then the most important art fair in North America which moved from the Pier to a tent and then inside the Merchandise Mart and then In 2023 the multinational Frieze acquired Expo Chicago Newcity has had a close working relationship with the various iterations of the fair I have fond memories of the late Tom Blackman of Art Chicago scrambling around town trying to find some kind of electronic adaptor for a grungy punk-rock show he and Heather Hubbs had put together to appeal to younger artists and art schoolers as a counterpoint to the fancy nightclub event Newcity had put together for the art fair’s well-heeled constituents When the Merchandise Mart took over from Blackman they brought Newcity in to publish the official magazine of the fair a relationship continued by Tony Karman when he left to start Expo Chicago But as challenging as that is to our pocketbook it also liberated us to cover the fair unfettered we’ve tried to cover it in a way we’d never seen before with a mix of specific highlights but also a critical contemplation of the art world Ten years after he started his career as a senior editor here at Newcity where he described his high-powered job as basically that of a real estate salesman peddling the most expensive real estate in the world Spiegler’s no longer running the fair so he won’t be thrust into the art-fair arms race underway between Art Basel and Frieze we’ll be watching to see if much of what made the Chicago art fair special gets the deep Frieze instead portend even more reasons to spend a sunny spring weekend at Navy Pier There’s no question that Expo Chicago is changing under its new ownership the gallery mix is quite different than it once was There will be more galleries from South Korea than from Chicago which is great for those of us who don’t make it to Frieze Seoul but not so great for the locals who might feel their survival hinges on a local art fair Another intriguing change this year is the new “Contrast” section who is the head curator at Governors Island Arts which promises “eight contemporary galleries each presenting artists whose work explores contrasts in culture A seismic shift is the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Vernissage Party which made the opening night of the art fair the cultural event of the year held before the fair’s VIP opening on Thursday which might make for better art sales but weaker partying I originally planned to ask the fair about the Trump administration’s tariffs and how they might affect and be enforced at the fair but who knows where that will all be tomorrow there are only three galleries currently under tariff in this year’s fair the strong showing by Mexico City galleries in recent years is absent this year but a record number of Brazilian galleries—eight—will make an appearance or perhaps due to Frieze’s growing presence in Los Angeles some of the regulars from that market won’t be here this year we’re in a weak market for real estate measured in small squares of convention floor there will be more than enough art to leave you exhausted How to Expo: Collectors, Curators and Art Advisors Share Their Insights Into Doing the Art Fair Art for Art’s Sake: How to Get the Most of Expo Chicago if you just love art Five Brazilian Gallery Exhibitions at Expo Chicago We’re Excited About Five Chicago Gallery Exhibitions at Expo Chicago We’re Excited About Is the Best Art the Most Expensive? According to Larissa Buchholz, the answer is often no. Who Wants to Run A Museum? How the Directors Summit is Shaping a New Generation of Leadership The Puckish Side of the Art Market: A Conversation with Marion Maneker About “Wall Power” Newcity Music by Dennis Polkow | May 1 “When I first moved to Chicago,” says soprano Hannah De Priest It’s just been really in the past few years that my solo career has really taken off.” De Priest will sing the role of Dido in Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas” in a semi-staged single performance of the opera given by Bella Voce with its Chorus and Sinfonia conducted by artistic director Andrew Lewis with WFMT’s Oliver Camacho directing She will also make her Music of the Baroque solo debut as Amore this September when Music of the Baroque performs its first-ever “Orfeo ed Euridice” by Gluck under music director Dame Jane Glover which has featured De Priest twice—including in last summer’s stunning performance of Handel’s “La resurrezione” as Mary Magdalene—will feature her as Proserpina in Jacopo Peri’s “Euridice” this October “Andy [Lewis] was one of the very first people to hire me when we moved here so it feels like a major moment to do this title role of Dido now within an organization that has always been really supportive of local musicians and giving solo opportunities to really great ensemble singers Bella Voce pulls its soloists from the chorus of singers when we did Mozart’s ‘Requiem,’ all of the solo moments were divided amongst all of the singers in the choir That gives this great textural variety to any show that you go to “So while I’m not singing any of the chorus numbers as Dido ‘Dido and Aeneas’ is actually the perfect opera because it has all these really beautiful little vignettes and step-out parts and the choruses are just absolutely beautiful So I think it’s kind of the perfect show for an organization like Bella Voce Will De Priest be tempted to join in on the choruses during “Dido and Aeneas” out of old habit I feel like Dido is one of the shortest roles that you can still call a title role it’s just that everything she sings feels really iconic because it’s such a famous and such a beautiful opera But I think even if somebody doesn’t know it from anything else “The thing with Dido specifically is creating a character arc can feel like a challenge because she spends the whole opera feeling like a portent of doom She feels like something bad is going to happen really the whole time there are varying incredible emotional depths to what she says I just think trying to pace it so that her flashes of anger in her last interaction with Aeneas when she calls him a crocodile and sends him on his way it needs to feel like it’s come from the same woman who starts the opera by singing this beautiful first lament it’s Purcell and Benjamin Britten who really knew how to set English operatically in a way that is just so satisfying to sing but also just makes so much sense from the listener’s perspective And everything just flows so beautifully in this opera from Dido’s recitatives to then Belinda’s beautiful airs and the choruses and then the witches come in And then I did my first Dido last year in Atlanta Mary Magdalene was honestly quite similar in that I would call it a lyric-soprano role It’s really that you’re calling on your sense of line You are embracing darker colors and I love roles like this And it’s a great joy to kind of flex into this territory more and more as I go through my thirties.” How often has De Priest had a chance to return to a role because I do so much work in this Baroque opera space A lot of that I find myself doing is either modern premieres or very rarely performed works So I feel like I’m constantly learning all-new roles with the understanding that I might not get to do a revival anytime soon “The one exception is ‘Messiah,’ which I return to quite happily And even though it’s only been one year that’s a year of vocal development and life experience the choices I made last time won’t be a one-to-one sort of transference “One of the main things that always attracted me to the space of Baroque opera was that there was a little bit more kind of flexibility around casting Most of my vocal development has happened kind of at the tail end of my twenties when nobody was asking me to sing anything I tried out lots of different kinds of repertoire lots of different roles from Baroque to things like Puccini and Verdi I opened up my voice in ways that I think I had kind of put myself in a little bit of a box in terms of what I thought an early music sound was lots of companies around the world have a more expansive view of what a soprano who sings Baroque opera can sound like casting an opera is really about creating and casting different vocal colors and vocal weights rather than having everyone sound like Emma Kirkby “Sopranos can be told a lot of messed-up things that can lead to them having underdeveloped voices because they’re trying to achieve a feminine sound or they’re trying to achieve a sweet sound But I think that anyone who is an adult woman as many of these characters that we’re portraying on stage are we’re capable of lots of different kinds of sound and I think embracing the fullest possible palette is just a really important thing like the widest range of colors and timbres available to us to pluck at any moment How did De Priest come to be involved in early music but they treated us like we were a professional theater troupe at age fourteen And then I came to classical singing through choir and then fell in love with it light voice that sounded very good doing Baroque arias ‘This is a direction you might want to be aware of because this could work for you.’ And it did for a long time my space in the industry has just opened up in a beautiful way and I’m really grateful for that early instruction and also grateful for the ways in which it’s continued to be true even though my voice has changed quite a lot since I first got that advice “I was very selective about the kinds of choral singing I wanted to do And you get a front row seat to a lot of incredible performances I was sitting in the Music of the Baroque Chorus who’s one of my idols and now a friend of mine Your proximity to the front of the stage is so tantalizingly close I think it’s one of the most beautiful kinds of music making it’s a rarer thing for me now to sing in a choir And I treasure those experiences all the more it’s really more about you being part of a section so you have to get comfortable being yoked to other voices Andy always seems to have a really great sense of voices that’ll work well together in a singing context And when that’s the case and you feel really comfortable and you know your other section mates really well there isn’t really a huge amount of thought that has to go into fit better here.’ You just can really sing but sing with your voice and trust that the sound will get balanced out with the voices that you’re surrounded by It’s kind of a magical alchemic thing I’m not really sure how choral conductors do that but through seating in a certain way and programming sensitively and dividing up the voices Coming full circle and singing a title role with the Bella Voce chorus she was once a part of represents a “mountaintop moment” for De Priest Does she see a moral in “Dido and Aeneas?” “I think the story of Dido is the story of a woman who’s been wronged These are questions that will always be tantalizing to people to think over and mull And Dido offers a really cathartic way to do that How much is fate a real thing and how much of it is just a trap that women build for themselves Could it have gone another way or was she really doomed to die like that And I don’t think you have to know the answer to that question and we were watching an early Hitchcock movie last night ‘Suspicion.’ It’s about this woman who finds herself in this marriage that she eagerly jumps into and then realizes that she has married a con man Is she noble in her grief or is it just sad But that’s the great thing about art It’s like a prism and depending on who you are on Sunday you’ll walk away from it with a different opinion But I do think it’s a beautiful story and the music is truly stunning.” Hannah De Priest performs in “Dido and Aeneas” on Sunday, May 4, 4pm, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 939 Hinman Avenue, Evanston. Tickets are $35-$70 ($20 for children and $15 for students), available at bellavoce.org. By The Associated PressWire Service Texas (AP) — The South Texas home of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company is now an official city with a galactic name: Starbase A vote Saturday to formally organize Starbase as a city was approved by the small group of voters who live there and are mostly Musk’s employees at SpaceX according to results published online by the Cameron County Elections Department Musk celebrated in a post on his social platform Breaking NewsGet the latest breaking news from North Texas and beyond GoogleFacebookBy signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy Starbase is the facility and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program that is under contract with the Department of Defense and NASA that hopes to send astronauts back to the moon and someday to Mars SpaceX has generally drawn widespread support from local officials for its jobs and investment in the area But the creation of an official company town has also drawn critics who worry it will expand Musk’s personal control over the area with potential authority to close a popular beach and state park for launches All these measures come as SpaceX is asking federal authorities for permission to increase the number of South Texas launches from five to 25 a year The city at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexico border is only about 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) crisscrossed by a few roads and dappled with airstream trailers and modest midcentury homes Musk first floated the idea of Starbase in 2021 The proposed city at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexico border is only about 1.5 square miles SpaceX officials have said little about exactly why they to want a company town and did not respond to emailed requests for comment “We need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote to local officials in 2024 with the request to get the city issue on the ballot The letter said the company already manages roads and utilities as well as “the provisions of schooling and medical care” for those living on the property and even just moving certain equipment around the launch base requires the closure of a local highway and access to Boca Chica State Park and Boca Chica Beach Another proposed bill would make it a Class B misdemeanor with up to 180 days in jail if someone doesn’t comply with an order to evacuate the beach The South Texas Environmental Justice Network which has organized protests against the city vote and the beach access issue held another demonstration Saturday that attracted dozens of people whose young daughter was building sandcastle nearby said she was taking part to try to ensure continued access to a beach her family has enjoyed for generations a member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas tribe said his ancestors have long been in the area By VALERIE GONZALEZ and JIM VERTUNO Associated Press Residents – most of them SpaceX workers – in remote Texas community approve plan to create new city Voters in a small patch of south Texas voted this weekend to give Elon Musk a town to call his own officially creating a new city called Starbase in the area where Musk’s SpaceX holds rocket launches A couple of hundred residents of what was previously known as Boca Chica decided to make their unincorporated neighborhoods into a town that will grant them the authority to pass city ordinances The ballot, which also named a senior SpaceX representative as its mayor with 100% of the early vote Most of the 283 eligible voters were SpaceX employees or had connections to the company whose billionaire chief has long wanted a human mission to Mars “Starbase, Texas,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X His post came after polls closed and unofficial results published by Cameron County showed an unambiguous 97.7% backing for the project but the South African-born 53-year-old had yet to cast his ballot when the early voting period closed on 29 April The town’s new mayor, 36-year-old Bobby Peden, has worked at SpaceX since 2013 and is vice-president of test and launch operations in Texas. Peden, along with two other city commissioner candidates who are also SpaceX employees Starbase sits on a tiny piece of land near the Mexican border on a small bay that feeds into the Gulf of Mexico Airstream trailers and palm trees line the streets An imperious golden bust of Musk stands nine feet tall outside the town A plaque on its pedestal reads “ELON AKA Memelord” Last month, vandals defaced the statue by peeling off layers of foam and fiberglass from its cheeks There is an employee-only restaurant called Astropub with a neon red “Occupy Mars” sign behind the bar One of the main boulevards is called “Memes Street” Free weekly newsletterA weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives The incorporation of Starbase has also faced protests and pushback from others in the area The South Texas Environmental Justice Network activist group has been holding protests and urging Texans to email their state representatives to oppose the incorporation The group argued that creating Starbase would allow SpaceX to close access to the public beach in the town whenever it wants and block others from using the public land not Elon Musk to control,” the organization said in a statement on its site residents have visited Boca Chica beach for fishing and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe has spiritual ties to the beach Musk has in previous years made grand pronouncements about the future of Starbase while urging employees to move to the town “Starbase will grow by several thousand people over the next year or two,” he posted on X in 2021 SpaceX has become an increasingly valuable part of Musk’s empire as Tesla’s performance has tanked and the government has turned to SpaceX for billions of dollars in contracts related to space travel Musk has relocated his primary residence and businesses to Texas in recent years. He lives in a $35m sprawling compound in Austin that houses three separate mansions During his backing of Trump’s re-election last year he temporarily uprooted and moved to the swing state of Pennsylvania Musk then took up residence in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building while serving as senior adviser to Donald Trump but left the White House in late April as he shifts back to overseeing his companies Agence France-Presse contributed to this report Mayor Quinton Lucas and the Kansas City Council will soon decide who will lead the city in one of the most powerful positions in local government Lucas expedited the search for a city manager after the council fired Brian Platt from the role in March Platt was suspended and fired after the city lost a whistleblower lawsuit that cost it nearly $1 million Lucas said that the case and other lawsuits damaged the city’s reputation and that Platt was ineffective at handling personnel matters inside City Hall Lucas recently said the council lost confidence in Platt’s leadership abilities He also said Platt did not communicate well with city staff and elected officials The new city manager will be charged with correcting these issues and patching up the city’s image They will also have to be ready to jump into negotiations with the Royals over a downtown stadium continue World Cup preparations for next year help guide the city’s public safety policies and strengthen public works and infrastructure projects Kimiko Black Gilmore has filled in as interim city manager since Platt was fired The city launched an abbreviated city manager search at the beginning of the month While the position was open to outside candidates the city did not conduct a national search Here’s what to know about each of the finalists: Gilmore would be the first Black woman to serve permanently in the role Gilmore has worked for Kansas City off and on since 2000 Senate staffer and chief of staff at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Before being appointed interim city manager last month Gilmore worked as the deputy city manager and executive director of convention and entertainment facilities In her role with convention and entertainment facilities Gilmore partners with VisitKC to promote the city both nationally and internationally to bring more conventions to the area and update the buildings Gilmore also helped craft the city’s bids for the 2023 NFL draft and the upcoming World Cup in 2026 Gilmore said she is guided by the belief that “government should make people’s lives better Vasquez would be the first person of Latino descent to hold the role of city manager if selected by the city council He currently serves as the assistant city manager and director of city planning and development the city planning and development department worked to match demand for more investment in the city The department expanded its project services increased staff for the permitting division continued to use third-party inspectors to reduce delays and implemented a project management office for large-scale projects Vasquez has worked for Kansas City since 1997 working his way up to assistant city manager through the development department Vasquez said he will approach the city manager job “with the mindset of a coach Klein previously worked as the director of aviation where he oversaw the Kansas City International Airport and Charles B including the construction of the new terminal at KCI after a career of more than 25 years with the city in which he began as an analyst Klein was the assistant city manager from 2012-2017 where he worked as the liaison to the aviation department For a time, Klein served as the city’s interim spokesperson, including in the aftermath of an explosion at JJ’s restaurant near the Plaza in 2013 that killed two people. Klein has not held a job since his retirement two years ago — his LinkedIn page lists his current role as a “Recovering (Retired) Aviation Director and Local Government Executive.” Klein said he chose to come out of retirement to apply for the role because he loves Kansas City the City of Tigard hired Brent Stockwell as its new manager who comes to the job following a decade as the Scottsdale was unanimously approved by the City Council with a $225,000 annual salary during an April 23 meeting in which his hiring was the sole agenda item The several-month recruitment and application process to find a successor for former city manager Steve Rymer included an all-staff town hall and a panel interview with the community “We got a bunch of good perspectives and council heard all of those taking into consideration all of the feedback we got and was pleased to recommend the appointment of Brent Stockwell,” said city attorney Shelby Rihala Stockwell will oversee day-to-day operations and work with City Council to implement community initiatives and Council priorities “I’m honored by the trust that you are placing in me,” Stockwell told Councilors “I’m really excited to serve the people of Tigard with you I’m excited to move forward and build on the excellent work that’s already been done.” In his 23-year career with the city of Scottsdale Stockwell additionally worked as an assistant to the mayor and city council served as a liaison in the Citizen and Neighborhood Resources Department “We had many really great candidates and (we’re) excited that Brent has agreed to join our team,” said Mayor Heidi Lueb Tigard Council members echoed Lueb’s enthusiasm before voting to make it official throughout the entire process,” Councilor Jake Schlack told Stockwell “I think you’re going to bring a lot of knowledge and new perspectives to the team and help us take Tigard to the next level.”  Councilor Jeanette Shaw cited Stockwell’s “expertise in economic development ensuring that our city puts a plan in place that moves forward with growing our jobs (and) also prosperity for our community members.”  While Councilor Yi-Kang Hu praised Stockwell’s “previous commitment to being present and engaged with his community,” he added “leadership is about building trust and listening and being visible to the people we serve.” Stockwell has a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Washington and completed the Harvard Kennedy School Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program Before beginning his two-plus decade run with the city of Scottsdale and as a youth director with an Arizona non-profit — Residents of Flint's Third Ward are witnessing renewed efforts from city officials despite lacking formal representation on the city council for nearly seven months The city is actively engaging with residents to bridge this gap Third Ward residents gathered to learn about new city-wide initiatives and home assistance through the HOPE program The ward has been without a city council representative since the passing of Quincy Murphy Mayor Sheldon Neeley emphasized the importance of outreach in the ward ahead of the upcoming primary election "Right now we've had a lot of failures on city council So we definitely need good representation of people that reflects the goodwill of all the residents here in the Third Ward," said Neeley The city aims for these programs and future leaders to address the needs and potential of the community they serve The special primary election for the Third Ward is scheduled for Tuesday Voters in McAllen have elected two new members to the city commission Unofficial results released after polls closed on Saturday show that Tony Aguirre won the District One race against Timothy Wilkins Rolando Rios was also the predicted winner of the District Three race against Omar Quinanilla Voters in Hidalgo County rejected tax rate increases in three of the county’s four emergency service districts while voting to create two new districts in the western part of the county TX) — Cameron County is getting a new city Voters approved the incorporation of Starbase in unofficial results released over the weekend Two-hundred and 12 people voted for the incorporation Bobby Peden ran unopposed and will be the first mayor of the new community Voters in the county shot down a proposed multi-purpose arena that would have been located between Brownsville and Harlingen It’s the third time the arena proposal has been rejected by voters Confirming the earlier leak this afternoon the Miami Marlins officially unveiled their new City Connect uniform These have now all been revealed — and shockingly — the unveiling focused almost entirely on the new cap and jersey (I wonder why?) Past, present, and future–the love for beísbol and the mix of cultures create a rhythm that’s loud and proud. pic.twitter.com/Ll1ejaKuqE — Miami Marlins (@Marlins) April 30, 2025 The team is using the term “Retrowave” to describe the uniforms calling them “a symbol of Miami’s identity—bold and united Understandably, since the entire point of the CC program is a merch dump, the team focused on the two most saleable items, the cap and the jersey. And after their first CCs — which were excellent — were roughly based on the Havana Sugar Kings they seemed determined to make their CC 2.0 about Miami or at least the version of Miami they want to project the black has been mixed with generous amounts of teal (an original color) and pink They’re not quite “Miami Vice” — but they’re close they have continued the very tired trope of highlighting the area code They have blended the old marlin logo with the “305” area code (The area code 305 covers Miami and surrounding areas in southern Florida and Key West and is one of the original area codes in Florida While there are existing overlay area codes the “305” is the “original.” It’s rendered in teal The brim of the cap is a pink-to-teal gradient but contains ample doses of teal and pink as well (the team refers to them as “pinstripes”) The wordmark reads “MIAMI” in teal Miami is rendered in a font that is reminiscent of the original used back when the team began play in 1993 You can see the similarities to the original below: Aside from the teal/pink lines which are thickest on the players’ right side and which fade to black as they progress across the front and back of the jersey One sleeve (the other has an ad) contains a custom logo combining the “M” and the marlin logo also used on the cap The rear of the jersey features NOB and player number in the same style of teal showing the outline of the State of Florida in teal The team also unveiled new pants — which I had thought going in might be black — but they are white with a thick pink to teal stripe running vertically from hip to hem The pink section of the pants is at the top which gradually fades down to teal at the base — sadly there were almost no few full views of the pants during the unveiling (one of the storytelling bits does show them and the CC socks) UPDATE: This graphic gives a much better look at the pants (and gradient stripe): this is the only full look at the pants and socks the socks also will have a teal-to-pink fade the inside of the collar features “MIA305” in the same teal with black and pink outlines as the other elements here’s the handy-dandy explainer that really the team really should have included with their hype video and which does a good job of breaking these down The Marlins’ new City Connect uniforms combine the threads of their past with the bright lights of their future 🤩 Check out a full explainer of all the uniform’s details ⬇️ https://t.co/5Mnvs6OcRb pic.twitter.com/pqd0gogZy3 — MLB (@MLB) April 30, 2025 I’m going to need to see these on the field to render a full judgment but I guess I’m not particularly surprised at what the full kit looks like I actually like the jersey — the “pinstripes” are kind of a cool look and my OCD greatly appreciates the symmetry of always using teal (be it for the wordmark The cap, on the other hand, is awful. The tired trope of putting either an airport or area code on uniforms is well past its expiration date, yet the Marlins have doubled down with this. I’m sure this will appeal to some, but if they had just stuck with the logo that’s on the sleeve I’m also not a terribly big fan of the brim having a teal-to-pink gradient but at least that will tie in with the CC socks I’m actually surprised the pants are white and not black as we seen with several other CCs that are mono-black (or mono-very dark) I don’t love the thick stripe having the pink-blue fade The current Marlins uniform rotation includes white jerseys for weekday home games black for Fridays and gray for all other road games The “Retrowave” City Connect will be worn 11 times during the 2025 season: and also the most significant downgrade from the original CC they just had to slap the Big Ol Honkin 305 on it and ruin it I wish Nike would stop pretending like every team that features their area code is doing something fresh and unique It is as pedestrian a move as you can imagine at this point I really cannot believe that Nike looked at the horrendous City Connect cap they gave the Brewers and said “yeah lets do that again.” I’m certain this will be an outlying opinion here Dare I say I actually like it more than their current black alternate and I think it contrasts with the pink in an interesting way but I don’t mind the gradient on the pants stripe I think I’ve heard a few people call this next batch of CC’s “Team Connects,” and I think that this may be another case of that and pink are the stereotypical “Miami Vice” colors But instead of wearing light blue (already a team color) a color more associated with the Florida Marlins days than with the city of Miami I’d be on board for them getting a full uniform set in this style and that they should just return to the mid-90s unis) Ok this was point out elsewhere but “305” from a distance looks like “SOS” Not quite the toliet humor Cards but kind of weird I love the color scheme and the updated classic Marlins logo (which should be on the cap) Black is fine as the Vice style color scheme really works well I don’t like the horizontal striping and would preferred classic pink pinstripe but I’m guess this isn’t going to show much on the field Otherwise it’s a good look and this falls into the rare category of being a good basis for a rebrand (along with Cleveland I dont know any Marlins fans or the fanbase in general but a question i have… Do the majority of the fans prefer the Miami Marlins brand or the Florida Marlins brand Every time I see the old FLA Marlins jerseys I think: Man The original Marlins vests with teal sleeves were perfect Then they started removing the teal and focusing on black At least now they’ve got teal in there again Those “pinstripes” have me all pumped for an HBO Feature Presentation (And the hat screams “SOS” to me I dunno – appropriate given their current record This is the first CC where I’ve loved the jersey and hated the hat The overall uniform looks better than I thought it would the teal and pink work well with the black base looks good and you no longer have the Marlin look like it’s got a UTI The hat though would have been nicer if they had left the area code off and chose either teal or pink for the brim The cap would be great if not for the big ol’ area code and the jersey would be great if not for the weird horizontal stripes is it weird that I kind of wish they used black pants with these The only white in the rest of the uniform is in the ad patch black pants in south florida are probably a non-starter anyway these would look great with black pants with either a teal or a pink stripe The old marlins city connects were way better and I think these could be 33% better if the sleeve logo and the hat design flipped places Huge downgrade from the Sugar Kings uniforms given the Marlins’ last-in-the-league payroll Feels like a cop-out that they’re calling them “Retrowave” instead of “V A P O R W A V E” and make the bill on the hat one color and you have a near-perfect city connect This hat is the 2nd worst CC hat of all time ahead of only the Brewers’ M1KE4 hat or whatever they tried to do If they had gone with with the sleeve patch logo on the hat and kept all other details the same (including the tye dye brim) It’s sad when two guys stand back-to-back and look like they’re wearing different jerseys They should have at least used the Miami Vice font this is at least 30 times better than the White Sox clown suit it doesn’t look like anything a professional team should wear I also like that this is a fake vest like the White Sox and Diamondbacks I couldn’t imagine wearing black or a dark color in the heat and humidity of many teams home cities This is what CCs should be about… given how many Miami teams have had Miami Vice alts recently its a fun look for the MLB club to get on the act and connect to other teams in the city but there is more than enough there to give a distinct look without all the other gimmicks (ie I can’t think of many other cities that have this similar alt look going on Philly with the colours of the city flag come to mind But I reckon once the NFL rivalry CCs come along and we see Miami Vice for the Dolphins and Blue/yellow for the Eagles I’ll have had more than enough by then… This whole area code nonsense is just that Marketing to those weak minds that dream of the importance of apparel adding to “Street cred” … repeating that crap doesn’t make it true People haven’t used that term earnestly in decades Why does every uni element that follows a decent original uniform have to look like a bootleg something selling at the Costa Maya cruise ship dock Flea Market although I may change my mind when I see them in action It looks strangely boxy near the bottom right I’d be okay with that as a fan merchandise cap (which but that looks stupid as an on-field players’ game cap The socks would be fine without the area code I predict a pink batting practice cap will be introduced soon The area code on the cap?!… Lame… Real real lame If they had used the sleeve patch as the cap logo I don’t like the SOS logo on the hat but these colors speak to the 90s child in me but I wonder how it’ll look on the field which is appropriate for the Fish this season so it’s kind of impressively honest for the team to lean in and own their on-field performance I don’t hate the idea of the pink-blue gradient but applied left-right on the visor will always be a mistake The rest of the uniform I’d give maybe a gentleman’s C grade if I didn’t know what the old CC uniform looked like by ghosting the 3s on the M-1 shield (or rather D-1 as they replaced the block M from the state route shield with the Old English D) considering that’s probably the only element of their CCs that I don’t hate (but then again I can’t believe they pay people to come up with this shit pants (the gradient stripe is cool) and socks If the hat was just the fish and no area code it would be a really solid set So the only rear view of the jerseys appears to be from a retail website The font for the numbers on that pic doesn’t match the ones in the photoshoot but it somehow feels like less than the sum of its parts… Even worse considering they had one of the few decent CC sets before with the Cuban deco red and light blue features This looks like a total shit sandwich compared I would want my money back if I attended a game and they wore this… Stick with the retro Miami Cuban style jerseys please oh how I wish they would’ve gone with “314” instead of “The Lou.” but I like that there are a few ideas in here that could be interesting in the future The horizontal pinstripes are a potentially interesting design element (not sure I love that they fade out instead of going all the way around and appear to be at different distances apart And its interesting to use multicolored pinstripes on a colored background (like the Charlotte Hornets original designs which are now widely considered fun and interesting) probably because of the colors and the background when its on the brim of the cap and because it doesn’t occupy a ton of space on the pants stripe I don’t love the font with this aesthetic but I like harkening back to the older Marlins word mark potentially in the future I haven’t really liked the Marlins colors since they left the Teal/Silver/Black era but pink and teal work a little better for me than the neon blue and red they have right now (they at least feel more “Miami”) So some ideas here for better uniform development in the future I thought their prior CC was their best look overall (used the blue and red colors the best at least) But I am still surprised that I don’t hate it I do think they have gone way too crazy with black in their color scheme and whenever I see their identity–I don’t think of Miami nightlife Why do we never see them use their zip code Why did area codes become a point of “pride” but not zip codes I don’t think zip codes are as well known either I couldn’t tell you a zip code that is universally (or at least nationally) known I am aware that Miami is 305 – I have heard Dwyane Wade referred to as “Mr I could also tell you the most popular area codes for the biggest cities in the country but other than NYC I’m pretty lost when it comes to zip codes Area codes coved a much larger area and more people so in a city with more than one post office So there isn’t going to be any fan association with the zip code of a stadium unless they live in the same neighborhood The Phillies play in what was traditionally 215 Plus the fan base includes New Jersey (609 The hat was one area code away from making this a 10/10 uniform If they had just put that sleeve logo on the cap it would be about perfect (or at least as perfect as you’re going to get by not just using the 1993 set) I feel like the Marlins should just “own” this color scheme at this point The Heat have done the Miami Vice colors and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dolphins do that exact thing again for their “Rivalries/City Connect” uniforms The current Marlin uniforms are dark and blah Why not take these colors and combine it with a modern take on their original teal set They’ve gone from Illegible to barely legible Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly I went to the West Village to meet a West Village Girl When I arrived at the whitewashed wine bar she chose just two blocks from the brownstone stoop Carrie Bradshaw made famous Miranda McKeon was journaling in her notebook and sipping a cup of green tea and a black sweatshirt that read SELF-EMPLOYED because she is a full-time influencer — or “creator,” as it is more polite to say in this part of town rosy-cheeked 23-year-old from New Jersey has over a million followers across TikTok and Instagram most often about her charmed life in the West Village: sweating it out at Pilates drinking espresso martinis with her girlfriends Over a photo of herself walking down the street Wear cowboy boots year round if you love them!!! McKeon knew she wanted to rent in the West Village long before she moved to New York In college at the University of Southern California she started hearing from high-school friends that it was the place to live — a cobblestoned paradise where a young woman like herself could live an entire life within a block McKeon started obsessively combing StreetEasy for the perfect postgrad apartment and watched Sex and the City for the first time (She identifies as a Carrie with some of Miranda’s “girlboss energy”; she majored in entrepreneurship.) Now eight months in she likes that the neighborhood reminds her of being back on campus insofar as she is constantly running into people she knows they are girls she follows or who follow her “I feel like a freshman in New York,” she said to be a remarkably well-adjusted and unjaded New Yorker she likes going out for what she calls a “three-drinker” (a nice dinner with her girlfriends with a self-imposed three-cocktail minimum) She knows the names of the important restaurants (the Corner Store “I went out to dinner with two girls last night both of whom live on my street,” she told me Maybe her only complaint so far is her apartment there have been the occasional cockroaches and — just this morning — a strange brown substance that dripped out of the brick wall onto her roommate’s comforter She’s planning to resign the lease next year anyway slapping the table between us with both hands “There’s a cult mentality” to the neighborhood It’s true that many of the young women passing by the bar looked like her clones They move through the neighborhood in packs and hair slicked back into a tight ponytail McKeon cheekily pointed out through the window “I feel like everyone else here in some way,” McKeon told me transformed into a fabulous theme park for young women of some privilege to live out their Sex and the City fantasies They all seem to keep impressive workout routines (“Hot this and hot that,” McKeon said) and juggle busy heterosexual dating schedules (The boys they consort with tend to be of the fratty variety.) They work in finance tech — often with active social-media accounts on the side They have seemingly endless disposable income their lives seem fairly apolitical; as one 27-year-old lawyer on a walk with her best friend succinctly put their collective interests to me one day in April drinks with your girlfriends — that type of energy.” (They may be more political than they appear: “You can have a Cartier Love bracelet and still care about immigrant rights,” said one person who lives in the neighborhood.) This isn’t the first time a generation of socially ambitious young women has descended on the West Village and as one fashion executive explained to me with just a hint of an eye roll “made the neighborhood their whole personality,” fundamentally changing it along the way If Sex and the City washed out the last of the neighborhood’s bohemians two decades ago and turned the West Village into a celebrity playground where real adults with real incomes live the pandemic turned it into something else entirely: a bustling sorority house Let’s go out and have fun and be ourselves Play hard,” said a new arrival from Texas with blonde highlights while polishing off a bottle of rosé with her girlfriends one afternoon “Basic isn’t a bad thing,” a crew of Cosmo drinkers at Anton’s “There’s a reason everyone wants to be like that.” (There’s a sense lately that the entire city or at least much of downtown Manhattan and the trendier parts of Brooklyn “They’re everywhere,” almost everyone I talked to for this story told me.) A so-called real New Yorker might survey a neighborhood overtaken by this homogenized mass and scoff at what was once a haven for artists and gays admiringly described to me by multiple people as like Charleston But to the actual people living in those places who broadcast their lives like reality television to their millions of followers They seem to be enjoying their city more than the rest of us do “Finding a new restaurant to have an Aperol spritz and hang out That’s a new level of enlightenment,” said Kit Keenan an influencer and former Bachelor contestant who helped put this new version of the neighborhood on the map Are the West Village Girls doing something right then a 27-year-old former Refinery29 producer moved to the neighborhood from the Lower East Side styling herself on TikTok as a Samantha Jones type and giving her hundreds of thousands of followers — whom she called her “gorgeous (She popularized the Gen-Z catchphrase “Do it for the plot.”) The neighborhood some of its residents presumably having fled for the Hamptons or Connecticut (save for the diehards holed up in rent-stabilized apartments) Kerrigan rebranded the West Village as a haven for single women dubbing the West Side Highway “Club West Side Highway” and using the newly opened restaurant American Bar as a sort of local country club the restaurant put her name on the menu; you could order the chopped salad “SFK style,” meaning with a negroni a group of girls had taken over an entire section all of them wearing black fascinators as if attending a funeral The hostess explained that it was a young woman named Mallory’s “RIP to my 20s” birthday dinner Kerrigan wasn’t the only up-and-coming influencer posting furiously through the pandemic and giving the neighborhood a younger but the background was the same: the West Village made legible for women fresh out of a Big Ten school She posed with a Blank Street matcha on a stoop; in front of the pastry case at Bar Pisellino; with her iPhone outside the wine bar St Everything in both Keenan’s and Kerrigan’s accounts was calibrated to be just the right level of accessible yet enviable: fast fashion and white sneakers all set against a picture-perfect backdrop of New York City recognizable from everyone’s favorite middlebrow television shows Among its other most attractive attributes: The Friends apartment is there which Taylor Swift featured on Lover in 2019 The young women who follow Kerrigan and Keenan — fellow New Yorkers and transplants alike — soon flooded the neighborhood So many that it became a memeable stereotype: “the West Village Girl.” In a post last September a TikToker named Kayla Trivieri summed up the type under the caption “POV: you’re on a date with a girl from the west village.” The monologue went like this: “So what are you into?” “Pilates and my dachshund …” “What kind of music do you like?” “Sabrina Carpenter and Morgan Wallen once in a while.” When I asked Trivieri about the send-up recently the native Canadian told me she became familiar with the type before she even moved to the States “She was the cultural Zeitgeist on TikTok,” Trivieri said I felt like people in Toronto were even dressing like that in head-to-toe Pilates gear.” (The influencer Tinx sells a $75 crewneck that reads RICH MOM WEST VILLAGE.) To put New York youth culture into high-school terms Kerrigan said the West Village Girls are “the Plastics years after she started posting from the neighborhood she often has to wait on line to get coffee at her favorite shop “I’m thinking about how that’s kind of my fault,” she added But it’s a beautiful sharing of information are a good place to meet friends.) Kerrigan said the West Village is now filled with “young powerhouse women with vision boards,” ambitious zoomers who idolize Alex Cooper and Carrie Bradshaw in equal measure The appeal is “the main-character energy you get when you’re in the West Village,” which feels when the luxury industry was thriving and Sex and the City was in its first run the West Village was an if-you-know-you-know kind of place for the fashion set — publicists and stylists who had just arrived from the provinces and were similarly hoping to have a good time kind of like a college town,” said Bonnie Morrison a former publicist and magazine editor (living in the West Village was a positive attribute in her first interview at Condé Nast) Within convenient walking distance was the Meatpacking District “It was all about coming home at five in the morning coming home in Manolos on the cobblestoned streets,” said the British socialite Lucy Sykes “There was blood everywhere” — there were still slaughterhouses in Meatpacking “You really did not know what could happen The DJ changes the music and then all of a sudden ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ is playing because Axl Rose just walked in,” said Morrison you could hit the all-night diner Florent with the off-duty drag queens “I’d come home and somebody would be passed out in my bed with Sky Ferreira,” said Savannah Engel a fashion publicist who moved to the neighborhood in 2009 “I’d wake up on a Tuesday and there’d be ten people passed out in my apartment We’d all be in black” because that’s what they were required to wear to work “It was fabulous.” Her rent cost around $900 a month called the Greenwich Avenue Equinox the Chic-quinox: “Everybody was there at six in the morning so they could be skinny in their sample sizes for Patrick McMullan,” the party photographer and so did the Sex and the City–loving tourists Bleecker Street had transformed into a proper shopping destination and Brunello Cucinelli opened stores — BLEECKER’S BECKONING the New York Post squawked — and Maison Margiela and Juicy Couture soon followed It became a high-end outdoor mall for window-shopping if not actual shopping “The colorful bohemia has crossed the tracks,” read a 2007 New York Times report “leaving a respectable neighborhood of high rents The children replaced the gays — the men have left for Chelsea gobbling up the newly sanitized neighborhood’s real estate Rupert Murdoch bought his 25-foot-wide townhouse for $25 million in 2015; the next year Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick purchased two adjacent townhouses for $34.5 million Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn became a “celebrity playground” of “idling SUVs,” as one person put it The Post termed a corner of the neighborhood near West 11th Street “the real Billionaires’ Row,” citing Mets owner Steve Cohen and former Facebook president Sean Parker as residents But the retail scene couldn’t handle the rising rents most of the storefronts on Bleecker Street were vacant “The landlords started jacking up the prices,” said Rowley The pandemic offered an opportunity for a cultural reset which helps online-only brands find and operate their first brick-and-mortar began scooping up tranches of empty addresses on Bleecker The company currently leases 11 stores in a four-block stretch It then staffs and operates the spaces for its brands “Any time we go into launching a cluster of stores we think about whether or not it’s an area we can grow,” said Amish Tolia “Energy begets energy.” (The company now operates more than 100 stores total mostly in trendy but touristy shopping areas like Abbot Kinney in Los Angeles and Armitage in Chicago.) Leap had evidence that its bet on the neighborhood would pay off: Several of its brands were already shipping often to apartments in the neighborhood It was a strategy Brookfield Properties had already been pursuing pre-pandemic (It sold them last year for $20.25 million.) “We merchandised to support the market,” said a Brookfield representative “I don’t think it’s accidental that our businesses were very female oriented We took advantage of noticing who was patronizing this community.” As for the apartments the businesses were shipping to the average one-bedroom in the neighborhood is now $5,995 a month A dingy one-bedroom can easily go for $7,500 (expensive but doable on a finance salary or with help from parents) Most of the young women who approach Compass agent Heather Domi opt to live nearby instead she said: “If the girls aren’t living in the West Village they’re consuming the West Village.” (Still data shows that more 25-to-34-year-olds moved to the West Village between 2019 and 2023 than any other age group.) Now the area has been remade in their image Every other storefront seems to be a coffee shop Everything that isn’t a bar is called one: There’s BeamBar (for teeth whitening) a “charm bar” (for build-your-own bracelets) which hawks monogrammed makeup bags; a TikTok-friendly candy shop; and the ultragirlie ultrasuccessful clothing brand LoveShackFancy selling a Bella Hadid–collaboration two-piece Magnolia Bakery’s signature banana pudding briefly came matcha-flavored The storefronts are filled with fake pink flowers Signs placed on the sidewalks outside seem made to beckon the girlies inside Outside Joe & the Juice: THIS WEEK BEEN SO ROUGH MY COFFEE NEEDS COFFEE “We’re trying to figure out how to manage the amount of traffic we’re getting in stores “The racks will be empty because everyone’s trying almost everything on in the dressing rooms It looks like a Black Friday thing.” In April I visited a new “jewelry bar” on Bleecker called Ana Luisa Jewelry an influencer brand that specializes in affordable rings and earrings It opened in the corner store that used to be Marc by Marc Jacobs and Sarah Jessica Parker’s shoe store before the brand shut down last year Ana Luisa won the location in an aggressive bidding war and sold $1,000 worth of inventory in the first 30 minutes They come here and then to Magnolia Bakery,” he said this is the neighborhood that’s rebounded the fastest.” This month another jewelry store will open 230 feet away The original West Village Girls — those who have remained in the neighborhood and didn’t jet off to Greenwich or to a classic six uptown — aren’t entirely pleased with their new neighbors a former Calvin Klein executive who bought a loft in the neighborhood in 1997 but this is the pinnacle of what happened to this fucking neighborhood,” she said when we sat down at Bar Pisellino was packed with young women ordering spritzes and pastries It’s so unpleasant.” Not to mention it’s impossible to get a table at I Sodi or Via Carota these days two once-neighborly Italian restaurants that were tumbled through the TikTok recommendation machine and came out nearly unrecognizable with lines of day-trippers waiting down the block at all hours of the day “I used to go to I Sodi when they had an answering machine The last time she tried to have dinner with a friend Another common complaint is the neighborhood’s current pedestrian experience Vernon occasionally passes Carrie’s stoop to give the influencers a talking-to: “I say to them That’s actually trespassing.’ ” Earlier this year the resident was granted permission to install a gate to deter them from making what has become a sort of pilgrimage (TikTok is filled with recommendations for other neighborhood backdrops to take photos in front of if you get shooed away from this one.) A curly-haired 20-something sat down across the bar from us and ordered a bowl of olives and a negroni well-dressed woman having a snack on her own.” Another chief complaint among the originals is that these new West Village Girls don’t seem to be having enough fun (or it wasn’t about getting the right workout look,” said Rachelle Hruska MacPherson “It wasn’t so health conscious,” said Rowley noting that her morning walks on the West Side Highway weren’t always as crowded as the New York City Marathon People didn’t walk around in their leggings and sneakers.” The old bars and restaurants are also adjusting to the new whims and tastes “I have regulars who come in all the time and say ‘What happened?’ It’s just an army of Levi’s and white tank tops,” a bartender at Bayard’s a newly popping but long-standing Irish pub on Hudson Street she showed me a box of lost phones and another box of abandoned clothes which she lugs to Housing Works once a month.) In the fall of 2023 the restaurant and bar Cowgirl decided to convert one of its margarita machines into one for frozen espresso martinis I don’t know where they’re getting their money from We never had demand like this.” The Spaniard a cocktail bar by day and a shockingly rowdy hookup spot by night had to hire an entire security team after what one manager described as a “mass exodus” of the older (Its top-three sellers now are spicy margaritas which are pre-batched into kegs.) At L’Artusi told me he’s selling less expensive wine post-pandemic the crowd was kind of that classic West Village type Masters of the Universe with good jobs and no kids,” he said “A $150 bottle of wine doesn’t compare to a vodka-soda.” As a waitress at La Bonbonniere an old-school diner that has been around since the 1930s Now it’s young people with the social media no one would go on the record getting too snarky about any of this; it all makes for good business And some former West Village Girls admitted eventually that in their descendants they could see their younger selves “I think they’re probably doing what I did when I was 20 This is where they want to go around and get drinks and run into people and look cool,” said Hruska MacPherson We were also discovering ourselves.” Annelise Peterson echoed this thought: “We were discovering ourselves I stayed down there until my ex-husband told me it was time to move to the Upper East Side What the West Village will be in 20 years might be something very different It’s easy to get reflective after a few brunchtime cocktails “Was I one of these little fuckers?” Savannah Engel wondered aloud to me one Sunday after Bloody Marys at Cafe Cluny and as the neighborhood is most days of the week but especially on Saturdays and Sundays and especially when good weather calls for day-drinking the scaries away If I hadn’t spent so much time there recently I might have been shocked to pass three stoops in a row all occupied by young women staging photo shoots I met a collection of thin blonde women in pink They told me they work in finance and marketing and had just moved to the neighborhood after graduating from Washington and Lee University “The girls that we knew from college who moved to New York before us told us to go to the West Village and we just kind of trusted them,” said one They do what we do; we live parallel lives they told me they can’t quite imagine staying in New York forever “I don’t think I’ll raise kids here or anything like that,” said the pink puffer a group of two dozen women in matching leggings came jogging by chitter-chattering over their huffing and puffing At the front of the pack was Miranda McKeon “How did people find this?” she yelled to the ladies behind her “Miranda’s a beep-bop girl too,” a brunette who works in marketing and just moved here from Georgetown told me we like to beep-bop around.” I asked the group What are young people in New York looking for it’s clear these young women have found something that eludes most of us “I’ve been really trying to do more in-person things,” said McKeon It’s nice seeing real people.” Upon our arrival several older millennials who appeared to be co-working at the shop grimaced alternately catching up over white-wine spritzers and taking brief breaks to absent-mindedly look at their phones clock in to her Hinge account (no new messages) then throw a few heart reacts into yet another group chat she told me she settled here two years ago after a breakup; it’s a good place to be single By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York Your request has been blocked by our security system due to potential security concerns Please contact us for assistance A vote Saturday to formally organize Starbase as a city was approved by a lopsided margin among the small group of voters who live there — mostly Musk’s employees at SpaceX. With all the votes in, the tally was 212 in favor to 6 against, according to results published online by the Cameron County Elections Department. Musk celebrated in a post on his social platform X, saying it is “now a real city!” Starbase is the facility and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program that is under contract with the Department of Defense and NASA, and which aspires to send astronauts back to the moon and someday to Mars. Musk first floated the idea of Starbase in 2021, and approval of the new city has been all but certain. Of the 283 eligible voters in the area, most are believed to be Starbase workers. The election victory was personal for Musk. The billionaire’s popularity has diminished since he became the chain-saw-wielding public face of President Trump’s federal agency cuts, and profits at his Tesla car company have plummeted. SpaceX has generally drawn widespread support from local officials for its jobs and investment in the area. But the creation of an official company town also has elicited criticism amid concern that it will expand Musk’s personal control over the area, with potential authority to close a popular beach and state park for launches. Companion efforts to the city vote include bills in the state Legislature to shift that authority from the county to the new town’s mayor and city council. All these measures come as SpaceX, formerly based in Hawthorne, Calif., is asking federal authorities for permission to increase the number of south Texas launches fivefold to 25 a year. The city-to-be at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border is only about 1.5 square miles, crisscrossed by a few roads and dappled with Airstream trailers and modest midcentury homes. SpaceX officials have said little about why they want a company town and did not respond to emailed requests for comment. “We need the ability to grow Starbase as a community,” Starbase General Manager Kathryn Lueders wrote to local officials in 2024 with the request to get the city issue on the ballot. The letter said the company already manages roads and utilities, as well as “the provisions of schooling and medical care” for those living on the property. SpaceX officials have told lawmakers that granting the city authority to close the beach would streamline launch operations. SpaceX rocket launches and engine tests, and even just moving certain equipment around the launch base, require the closure of a local highway and access to Boca Chica State Park and Boca Chica Beach. Critics say beach closure authority should stay with the county government, which represents a broader population that uses the beach and park. Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. has said the county has worked well with SpaceX and there is no need for change. Another proposed bill would make it a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail, if someone doesn’t comply with an order to evacuate the beach. The South Texas Environmental Justice Network, which has organized protests against the city vote and the beach access issue, held another demonstration Saturday that attracted dozens of people. Josette Hinojosa, whose young daughter was building a sandcastle nearby, said she was taking part to try to ensure continued access to a beach that her family has enjoyed for generations. With SpaceX, Hinojosa said, “some days it’s closed, and some days you get turned away.” Protest organizer Christopher Basaldú, a member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, said his ancestors have long been in the area, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s not just important,” he said, “it’s sacred.” Gonzalez and Vertuno write for the Associated Press and reported from McAllen and Austin, Texas, respectively. Politics World & Nation California Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map A stone fence was constructed in apparent accordance with the city of Killeen’s new regulations at the Preserve at Thousand Oaks at 4244 Stagecoach Road A stone wall that was built at the new Preserve at Thousand Oaks subdivision appears to be complying with new city regulations which require precast concrete on arterial roads for subdivisions The new regulations were approved in November 2024 by the Killeen City Council after months of delays Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content there are no recent results for popular commented articles Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks.We recommend switching to one of the following browsers: Account processing issue - the email address may already exist Sign up to receive a daily list of Obituary notifications Signup today for the Harker Heights Herald Would you like to receive sports news from all the schools 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City Council President Kenyatta Johnson (Second District) was joined by Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson and other City officials outside the Engine 40/Ladder 04/Medic 19 fire station in Southwest Philadelphia to announce the new City Council Smoke Alarm Installation Program starting on April 28 in President Johnson’s Second District members of the Philadelphia Fire Department’s (PFD) Fire Prevention Division will go to City Council Districts on specific days by the end of May installing life-saving smoke alarms in homes and distribute safety literature to citizens All 10 Council Districts will receive smoke alarms the PFD has a backlog of requests via the City’s 311 system for smoke alarm installations citywide and the goal of the City Council Smoke Alarm Installation Program is to significantly reduce that number by the end of May “Thank you to the Philadelphia Fire Department leadership for partnering with the Council President’s Office and all Councilmembers for this new initiative,” Johnson said “The new program is a result of a recent discussion I had with Fire Commissioner Jeffery Thompson to find a way to have an immediate impact to reduce possible injury and death citywide as a result of fires and a smoke alarm can take valuable seconds off that life-saving time but it’s worth repeating: fire is everyone’s fight That means we need all hands-on deck to spread the word and do our part to keep family and neighbors safe from the danger of fire I’m proud the PFD is working with City Council for these targeted smoke alarm installations in each Council District,” says Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson “This is just another way we’re working around the clock to protect the City 24x7x365.”  The City Council Smoke Alarm Installation Program will be targeting the following City Council Districts on the following days:  April 28: Second District (Council President Johnson)  May 1: Fourth District (Councilmember (Curtis Jones Jr.)   May 2: First District (Councilmember Mark Squilla) This day is also the national American Red Cross “Sound the Alarm” day May 8: Third District (Councilmember Jamie Gauthier) May 9: Fifth District (Councilmember Jeffery Young May 12: Sixth District (Councilmember Mike Driscoll) May 15: Seventh District (Councilmember Quetcy Lozada) May 16: Eighth District (Councilwoman Cindy Bass)  May 19: Ninth District (Councilmember Anthony Phillips)  May 20: Tenth District (Councilmember Brian O’Neill)   The PFD’s Fire Prevention Division installs smoke alarms on a regular basis at locations throughout the city and will continue to do so while targeting specific areas in all 10 Council Districts as part of the City Council Smoke Alarm Installation Program lithium-ion battery smoke alarms that are proven to last longer and be more effective without homeowners needing to worry about changing the batteries Fire spreads fast—working smoke alarms give you early warning so you can get outside quickly According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) properly installed smoke play a vital role in reducing fire deaths and injuries When working smoke alarms are present in your home the risk of dying in a home fire is cut by 60 percent Roughly three out of five fire deaths nationwide happen in homes with either no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms and the risk of dying in a home fire is cut in half in homes with working smoke alarms request them directly via Philly 311 by calling 311 and the PFD will come install them in your home for free The Philly 311 contact center answers calls from 8 a.m Citizens can also call the office of any of the 17 Council members to request a smoke alarm and that request will be given to Philly 311 for processing Citizens should have one alarm on each floor of your home a person must live in Philadelphia in a one- or two-family home that is occupied by the owner If the person lives in an apartment building the landlord must provide smoke alarms on every level of the home If a landlord has not provided smoke alarms The PDF estimates that it might take up to 60 days from the time of a person’s request to Philly 311 until the actual installation of the smoke alarm in their home Rachel Kazmierski was elected mayor by her fellow City Council members at the April 16 business meeting after a tie vote on two previous nominations She replaces former mayor Marc Manelis who resigned March 25 after a successful recall petition against him who won a seat on the council in the November 2024 election said she decided to run for the council because “I saw there was a need for a voice to represent the community.” Several former City Council members were recalled after voting in 2023 for the King City Transportation System Plan that includes extending Fischer Road into Kingston Terrace despite strong community-wide opposition Kazmierski said she does not support the plan “as it was done,” and added “We need to re-look at the Transportation System Plan have discussions with the community and collaboratively work with the people most affected by it The decision can be made more conscientiously because those most affected by the decision should be part of the decision and should be able to comment Both sides of the city need to be involved in this decision.” who is a high school math teacher and has been department chair for the past six years said she believes the role of the City Council is to represent the community Right out of the gate after becoming mayor had been inexplicably moved to the end of the April 16 agenda along with dividing the comments between “King City residents” and “Public Guests.” “The first thing I would like to do as mayor is move open forum up ahead of the items we are going to be voting on,” Kazmierski said at the meeting Councilor Jessica Braverman made a motion to move up open forum on the agenda and Councilor John Hartman seconded the motion.  “I support this motion,” Kazmierski said at the meeting “I feel very strongly that our goal and our purpose is to work for the community Before we can deliberate on these items on the agenda it’s very important for me to hear from all of you I believe that’s why you are all here is to tell us how you feel about the items we are going to vote on then we have made decisions without your input which in my opinion is not the correct process so I will support that motion.” The motion was passed unanimously 6-0 “The role of the City Council is to represent the people and how do we do that if we don’t hear from them before the vote People see what I’ve done in the last four months on the council and that I’m here to listen and hear both sides and listen to the community.” Kazmierski said becoming mayor was “nothing I had ever envisioned and it’s like drinking from a firehose of information I’ve been studying proper procedure – there’s been lots of information but it’s exciting to be out of my comfort zone who is a police officer with the King City Police Department have lived in Edgewater almost 10 years and have three young children ages 10 which was seconded by Councilor Vince Arditi; the three of them voted in favor of Braverman Councilor Jan Tysoe and Council President/Mayor pro tem Denny Gelfand voted no which was seconded by Gelfand; the three of them voted yes Braverman then nominated Kazmierski for mayor is very calm in her approach and always comes to meetings prepared,” Braverman said I believe she has the best interests of our city and constituents in mind so I think she would make a wonderful mayor.” which ended the stalemate and was followed by a round of applause from the audience Kazmierski and Gelfand changed seats and nameplates before she said I will do my best to make sure we get this done properly.” Hartman’s late December appointment to the council is being challenged by a writ filed by Sandra Cunningham in Washington County Circuit Court alleging the city Code was not followed in appointing him co-founder and chief executive officer of SpaceX is pictured at the SpaceX Starbase facility in Boca Chica A vote in South Texas by those who live on the base of Elon Musk's SpaceX company has made the workplace Texas’ newest city Starbase is the headquarters and launch site for the SpaceX rocket program, which is under contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) and NASA, working as a top launch site provider for the government. Musk’s company initiated the development of the site in 2014 Read More: How Elon Musk Became a Kingmaker The city is only around one and a half square miles and a total of 218 people took part in the vote 212 voted in favor of Starbase becoming a city The newly-crowned city is located in Boca Chica, Texas, near Brownsville, on the southern tip of the Gulf Coast of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. Its population currently stands at a little over 500 people—largely SpaceX employees and their family members—according to Bloomberg “Becoming a city will help us continue building the best community possible for the men and women building the future of humanity's place in space,” read a post on the “StarbaseTX” social media account, which was created on Musk's X platform, soon after the vote took place. TIME may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website Offers may be subject to change without notice The New York SunJoin TodaySign InPolitics‘Starbase,’ Musk’s Vision To Create a New City in Texas Takes FlightThe community would surround the future headquarters of Space X at the southern tip of Texas Elon Musk’s plan for a new city along the Gulf Coast of Texas is poised to become reality this weekend which would be a planned community surrounding the future headquarters of Space X at the southern tip of Texas is nearly a done deal with a vote taking place Saturday Musk has been pushing for the 1.5 square mile area near Boco Chico Beach to become Starbase for nearly four years and builders to move to this area of the Rio Grande Valley as he makes plans to transfer Space X’s main offices from California With nearly 200 of the 283 eligible voters already casting early ballots and broad support from residents in the region With 247 resident lots already in place, only 10 are owned by people who are not employees of Space X, according to records in Cameron County A majority of those residents have been registered voters since 2021 “I think more people will want to live here because why wouldn’t you want to live next to the most amazing thing that’s happening on Earth?” one of the few non-SpaceX employees who owns a home near the Space X facility and runs a launch-viewing business, Anthony Gomez, said to CNN is a small residential neighborhood next to Space X’s recently built one-million-square-foot factory with an array of tiny homes Infrastructure for Starbase is already under way including the construction of a privately funded K-12 school called “Ad Astra,” Latin for “to the stars.” “The question always comes back to: Are you using public power to benefit a private interest?” Jared Hockema city manager of nearby Port Isabel and chairman of the Democratic Party in Cameron County There’s a lot of good people working there But are they respecting the public interest in everything they do?” Both Starbase and Space X sit right next to Boca Chica Beach — a public state park popular with anglers and sun worshippers Some have expressed concerns that Space X would take over the land Residents in nearby Brownsville and the rest of Cameron County also have long voiced concern about Space X’s impact on the local environment, with a consortium of local groups alleging in 2023 that the company polluted nearby waterways, according to the Texas Tribune “They’re claiming they’re bringing economic incentives, but the rent is going up, the roads are crumbling,” a community organizer from the Rio Grande Valley, Bekah Hinojosa, said to Politico magazine All this seems to benefit is fancy restaurants with Space X clientele.” Locals have also complained about the sound from intense explosions during rocket launches, as well as earthquake-esque rumblings that cracked the foundations of homes and even blew doors off the hinges With Saturday’s vote for incorporation expected to pass overwhelmingly the three candidates who are running unopposed to govern Starbase will automatically assume office and go full steam ahead with further development of the town All three candidates, for the position of mayor and two for city commissioner, are Space X employees, according to a report from The Texas Tribune Musk has planned in the Lone Star State.  and Starlink sit on a compound called Hyperloop Plaza a hill country town about 40 minutes from Austin The compound will also house the headquarters for his social media platform X with plans already under way to develop a residential community on the compound a reference to the Boring Company’s mascot the site already has modular homes sitting on the land behind the company’s facility.  the plan has since been scaled down in favor of two other development projects in the area which will contain 21 two- and three-bedroom houses and another development codenamed “Project Amazing.” The planned development of 110 homes down the road from Hyperloop Plaza could offer a lease-to-buy option for prospective homeowners.  Musk has also gained approval from Bastrop County to operate an “Ad-Astra” school there as well The development of the compound has already fueled a rush of new residents to Bastrop the sleepy little burb’s population has grown by nearly 20 percent with a consistent growth rate of 5 percent each year It is estimated that the town’s population will increase another 42 percent over the next five years Locals there also have mixed feelings about the pace of growth Mr. Chiaramonte was an investigative reporter and producer at Fox News, a correspondent for the New York Post, and a news editor for the Messenger. 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