Day: September 16, 2025

Some higher-energy kids pushed passengers around the street in a do-it-yourself train (boxes mounted on wheels). “All aboard!” They cried.

The post Back to School Party on Montague Street kicks off 2025 school year appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

The MTA set a new post-pandemic subway ridership record with a seven-day high of 26.8 million riders between Monday, Sept. 8 and Sunday, Sept. 14, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The milestone shows New Yorkers are still using the subway system despite reports of high-profile crimes occurring on the rails. 

Hochul, whose office oversees the state-run MTA, said the subways recorded more than four million riders every weekday, making it a first since the COVID-19 pandemic more than five years ago.

Delving into the stats, the agency’s NYC Transit recorded 4.1 million riders on the subway on Monday; 4.44 million on Tuesday; 4.48 million on Wednesday; 4.51 million on Thursday; and 4.2 million riders on Friday.

Subway ridership surge sign of ‘real progress’

“The subway is New York City’s lifeblood, and when ridership is growing, it means even more New Yorkers are going to work, to school, to shop, and to take advantage of everything this city has to offer,” the governor said in a statement. “We’ve made real progress in the subway system delivering more service with increased reliability and by improving safety and reducing crime. This is what New Yorkers expect and deserve: a safe and reliable ride. By continuing to improve what matters to riders, I look forward to even more record weeks to come.”

NYPD data shows subway crime in NYC is decreasing, even as the city was hit hard by a handful of violent, high-profile incidents so far this month. Despite the decrease, there is still an active recidivist population on the rails, with around 63 subway offenders that each have at least 50 transit arrests, according to police sources. 

As of Sept. 10, this group had made 5,229 subway arrests, but only five of these criminals are currently in custody. 

The milestone in subway ridership also follows “strong performance,” MTA officials said, with weekday on-time rates in August hitting 85.2%.

Access-A-Ride paratransit service continues to experience ridership growth, officials said, setting a milestone of the “highest monthly total ridership of all time in August” and a new single-day record on Wednesday, Sept. 10, with 46,875 scheduled trips.

“With a new and improved bus network in Queens and historic subway on-time performance and paratransit ridership in August, it’s no surprise we’re already breaking records in September,” Demetrius Crichlow, president of NYC Transit, said in a statement. “NYC Transit will continue to deliver safe, reliable, and fast service and I look forward to bringing this incredible momentum into the fall.”

MTA officials said more riders are using their phones, debit/credit cards, and OMNY cards to pay for their rides. During the week of Sept. 8, 81% of riders used the contactless system to board the rails.

Eric Pollyea retired after 47 years, including 39 in Brooklyn courts, earning praise from colleagues for his dedication and friendship.

The post After 39 years, senior court reporter Eric Pollyea steps down appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

Gov. Kathy Hochul received her latest COVID-19 vaccine in Hell’s Kitchen on Tuesday while avowing to keep New Yorkers protected from the potentially deadly infection even as the federal government seeks to make the inoculation harder to obtain.

Hochul said on Sept. 16 that she would extend a standing executive order that allows New Yorkers to obtain the latest COVID-19 vaccine regardless of health condition. First issued on Sept. 5, the order is an end-around from new restrictions on the vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, now under the direction of Dr. Terry Kennedy and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., both of whom are vaccine skeptics.

“Dr. Terry Kennedy and the FDA, took away the rights of pharmacists to provide lifesaving vaccinations like COVID shots to anyone under the age of 65, or who didn’t have preexisting conditions,” Hochul said. “So basically saying that if you don’t have a prescription, parents can’t get shots for their children; that adults who want to protect themselves had that right taken away.”

Hochul said that wouldn’t fly in New York state, where “we actually believe in science.”

“We believe in preventative measures like shots, and we will not bow down to what the federal government is trying to impose on us,” the governor added.

During Tuesday’s visit to Echo Pharmacy, Hochul received the COVID-19 shot from pharmacist Danny Chang, who thanked her “for standing with the health care community.”

Hochul’s order ensures that pharmacists can still administer the COVID-19 vaccine and other lifesaving vaccines to anyone under the age of 65, or who lacks preexisting conditions, without requiring a prescription in advance.

Since becoming public in early 2021 after the deadly pandemic of the year prior, the COVID-19 vaccine has been readily available to Americans at both chain and mom-and-pop pharmacies, usually at no cost to insured patients. The vaccine helped reduce the severity of COVID symptoms and enabled the easing of capacity and societal restrictions imposed in 2020 to stop the spread of deadly infection.

Yet vaccine skeptics such as Secretary Kennedy have long questioned the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine and other shots for childhood illnesses such as polio and measles. The skepticism, largely spread through social media misinformation, has often been based on scientifically disproven arguments linking vaccinations to autism or medical problems.

Hochul said she would seek state legislation to make COVID vaccines available statewide without a prescription when the Legislature reconvenes in January, but she promised to renew her executive order until a law reaches her desk.