Yesterday, I said there was no public school Thursday and Friday in part because of Eid Al-Adha. Turns out the DOE (and I) got the date of this major Muslim holiday wrong — it begins after sundown Thursday night and goes into Friday. “Well, they’re not the Department of Eid,” quipped a co-worker I mercifully shall not name. —Emily Gould
EARLY AND OFTEN
Ranking Mayoral Candidates on Real Estate Alone
I’m a single-issue voter, and my issue is: How broke/relatable is the candidate?
From a $2,000-a-month rent-stabilized apartment in Queens to a soulless $5,485 Fidi rental, the real-estate situation of a mayoral candidate can tell you a lot about them, or at least that’s what I’m planning to rank candidates based on. I asked Matthew Sedacca, who thoroughly investigated every candidate’s housing and holdings for Curbed, to help me put together my ranked-choice ballot based on what kind of apartment each candidate has and how much they pay in rent. Take it away, Matt:
➽ 1. Zellnor Myrie ($1,300 a month for his childhood home, a rent-stabilized two-bed in PLG, where he lives with his mom — at least when he's not crashing with his wife at her rental. Bless his heart.).
➽ 2. Jessica Ramos ($2,480 a month for a rent-stabilized 2.5-bed in Jackson Heights, which has had some recent flooding damage. Honestly, probably the most relatable to us all).
➽ 3. Zohran Mamdani ($2,000 a month in 2018 for a rent-stabilized one-bed in Astoria, but he has generational wealth coming down the pike from Columbia prof dad [Editor’s note: Columbia professors are not rich lol I wish] and his [Editor’s note: indie] film director mom and apparently owns four acres of land in Jinja, Uganda, worth at between $150,000 to $250,000. So... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
➽ 4. Michael Blake (paid $440,000 in 2021 for a three-bed, two-bath Melrose condo in the Bronx; probably not the brokest, but this gives me hope that, maybe one day, I could at least own).
➽ 5. Brad Lander (paid $655,000 in 2002 for a whole-ass brownstone in Park Slope, which has comps worth $2.7M in the neighborhood today, but he at least seems down for the cause of tenants and affordability, so still rank him).
Other renters who aren't Andrew Cuomo whom you could swap for Michael Blake and Brad on technicalities of “actual brokeness”:
➽ Curtis Sliwa (Republican, so technically can't rank in a primary, but pays just $3,675 a month for an UWS one-bed, where he is fostering five cats with his wife).
➽ Scott Stringer ($5,450 a month lease for a soulless two-bed in Fidi, starting in 2017. The vibe is this man and his wife have either zero taste or somehow were desperate and settled for this?).
DUMB QUESTIONS WEDNESDAY
Imagine Caring About Basketball Like It’s The Tonys
I asked my extremely knowledgeable co-workers here in the New York Magazine office about the Knicks’ coach getting fired, what to know about the Diddy trial if you’ve been studiously ignoring it so far, and what to give your dad for Father’s Day.
Grub Street Senior Writer Chris Crowley on Knicks Coach Tom “Thibs” Thibodeau’s Firing, and Why It Matters, Actually, So Much
Chris, I mainly follow sports based on what the guys who hang out by the deli across the street are yelling about (you'd be surprised at how extensive my knowledge is based on this, but their voices really carry). But anyway, I am given to understand that the Knicks just fired their coach, even though he got them almost but not quite all the way to [winning something important], and generally is liked by players or at least the players whose names people know. Was this firing a good thing or a bad one? Does it augur larger changes for our beloved Knicks, a sports team I am clearly very familiar with?
Knicks fans are dramatic (haters might say “entitled”), but it’s hard (or at least complicated) to justify firing the coach of a team that just overperformed. No one thought the team was going to be in the Eastern Conference Finals, and now everyone is upset that the team isn’t in the Finals. I mean, me too. I’m a Tom “Thibs” Thibodeau fan. You can’t argue against what he’s done here.
The reaction, I feel, has been pretty polarized? You have people like my dad, who started spouting off about how much he hates the move. My guy Emre, who writes about basketball for this Turkish outlet, was in my DMs blasting it: Thibs turned the Knicks back into a free-agency destination, delivered as much as he could given the rosters the past five years, and elevated players like Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson to new levels. That’s Emre speaking, not me, but you can’t deny that the Knicks were better under Thibs than anyone expected. At the same time, Thibs’s flaws have always been the same: He overplays his starters, which causes fatigue and increases chance of injury (Derrick Rose); doesn’t utilize his bench enough; doesn’t spend enough time on offense. Maybe this is as far as he could take the team. But is it a good thing or a bad thing? It depends on who they hire. There aren’t a lot of coaches out there who are better than Thibs, and can they handle the withering New York spotlight? The answer depends on whether the team has the right guy, a better coach, in the pilot seat next year. As I told my dad, I would give at least one of my pinkies for Dan Hurley to leave my beloved UConn Huskies. But my dad says please don’t do that.
Vulture Senior News Editor Morgan Baila Gets Us Up to Speed on the Diddy Trial
Morgan, I have been avoiding the Diddy-trial coverage, sorry to say, but thank you for your and your reporters' hard work bringing us the scoops every day. Reading about it in granular detail just depresses me so much. It can't be a picnic to edit either. So do me a solid and just tell me, in broad strokes, what I need to know about the trial so far. Does it seem like all these women's horrific stories will ultimately sway the jury?
Okay, so you've been avoiding Diddy coverage — understandable. It's shocking and awful and, at the same time, getting a little repetitive. The consistency being presented in the testimonies so far (the prosecution is still up calling its witnesses; next, defense will call theirs and further build their case for Diddy's innocence) about Diddy's alleged behavior is painting a picture of a man with incredible power and manipulation who allegedly endangered multiple women (often while married to his late wife, Kim Porter) through intimidation, physical and psychological abuse, and blackmail.
Obviously, the most-talked-about aspect of the sex-trafficking and racketeering trial has been the alleged “Freak Offs” — drug-fueled parties where male escorts claim to have been hired to have sex with Diddy's girlfriends, including singer Cassie and the upcoming witness “Jane” — which were often filmed, according to witness testimony. Our court reporter Victoria Bekiempis, who has been there every day, sees Diddy's defense taking shape: There’s a lot of victim-blaming (If you were so scared of him, why didn't you leave?), and a domestic-violence expert who also testified at Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard in 2022 showed up to talk about why survivors stay with their abusers. It's that kind of trial, with some low blows from Diddy's team of high-profile lawyers (which have got to be so fucking expensive). And right as we're reaching the midway point, Harvey Weinstein's sex-crimes retrial in Manhattan is nearing its verdict. The disgraced movie producer became the “poster boy” (his lawyer’s words) for Me Too, and what happens here could be predictive of what happens with Diddy. But right now, the jury has seen the rapper beat Cassie in hotel footage (which he allegedly paid $100,000 to retrieve from a security guard), seen photos of Kid Cudi’s car after a car bombing, and heard one of Cassie’s friends say Diddy kidnapped her. It’s going to take a lot for this to just look like a guy who liked to party.
Time for a dramatic pivot!
The Strategist Writer Dominique Pariso Tells Me What to Buy for My Dad
Father's Day is June 15, a.k.a. the Sunday after next. For Mother’s Day, I got my mom “having one of the kids make her a card,” plus flowers (I used the Bouqs Strat deal, thank you). Easy-peasy, everyone was happy. Father’s Day is always a harder one to nail. My dad, a singer-songwriter who golfs, has enough golf paraphernalia to last a lifetime, and the music equipment he actually wants is outside my budget. He is sentimental, though, and very close to his grandkids. Are there any gifts you'd recommend?
Fellow Strategist writer Liza Corsillo just got a book of photos made at Printique that she was super-impressed with. Fill it up with pics of him with the grandkids. Speaking of which, Liza wrote a whole story about how to make your dad cry this year with a personalized gift. My favorite idea from her roundup is this frame designed for kids’ artwork that can hold up to 100 drawings. Her other tip? "To make it Father’s Day specific, I suggest commissioning a kid portrait of dad or granddad that you can wrap up with the frame."
Speaking of putting your kids to work, if they’re old enough, make them fill out this sweet book to give to Grandpa. Or, conversely, put Grandpa to work with these prompted letters that are basically an invitation to be as sentimental as possible.
Nice! I am definitely getting my dad one of these things (can’t say which to preserve the mystery). I am lol-ing at the idea of getting my husband a Father’s Day gift other than “letting him sleep in while I make the coffee.” But I might get the kids’ artwork frame for myself.
Click Your Way Out
“There are a lot of rich people who want Andrew Cuomo to be our next mayor.”
She’ll always be Hannah Montana to me, and honestly, that’s legacy enough!
“When I had cancer, my best friend stopped speaking to me. I haven’t heard from her since.”
Walton Goggins and Aimee Lou Wood talked to Variety about all those rumors: "I adore, I love this woman madly, and she is so important to me,” he says, getting choked up. Goggins turns to look at Wood. “This is Goldie Hawn. This is Meg Ryan. She can do anything, and she will. You watch what the next 20 years of her experience will be. I’ll be on an island, I think Greece. But she’s special. There is no feud. She is love and I know that I am that to her. We care about each other very deeply."
Lorne Michaels is rumored to have optioned Keith McNally’s memoir.
Goddess bless the kind souls at HBO who sent me The Gilded Age screeners. They are a balm for my aching soul. The Cut’s deputy culture editor Brooke Marine calls And Just Like That … “my Cocomelon,” and The Gilded Age is that, for me.