Good afternoon! He’s gone after congestion pricing; he’s gone after offshore wind farms; now, President Trump is tightening the noose on the Hudson River rail tunnels, a $16 billion infrastructure project overseen by the Gateway Development Commission that aims to build a pair of new tunnels under the river and repair the existing ones, some of which are 115 years old.
Construction of the tunnels relies on $6.8 billion in funding from the federal government that was approved by Congress under the Biden administration. In October, President Trump announced he would freeze those funds, setting off a mad scramble for cash that reached an inflection point yesterday when transit officials announced they no longer have enough money to continue work.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who lobbied for the project’s funding for years before managing to secure the largest ever federal grant for a mass transit project, called Trump’s decision “petty revenge politics,” in an address on the Senate floor. “And who gets hurt? It’s going to screw over hundreds of thousands of New York and New Jersey commuters.”
Turning off the lights on the project won’t be simple, officials warn. It will likely take a year to backfill the two massive holes that have been dug on either side of the Hudson and return everything to its original state, while costing up to $20 million a month for labor, security and maintenance. Thousands of jobs will be lost as well as the $2 billion dollars already sunk into the project.
There may be one way to win back the funds. According to insider sources, President Trump told Schumer this would all be over if he agreed to rename Penn Station after Trump, which Schumer has so far refused to do.
If this standoff continues, New York will soon feature the two most expensive potholes of all time.
Kathryn Garcia was sworn in as the new executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on Thursday. Her first task: dealing with illegal taxis preying on passengers at JFK Airport.
Downtown Brooklyn gets a new grocery supermarket on Feb. 13 with the ribbon-cutting of Fresh Grocer at 523 Fulton St.
The city Department of Health announced on Wednesday that it plans to join the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, in response to the U.S. withdrawl from the WHO.
NYC logged more than 144,000 lab-confirmed flu cases so far this respiratory virus season, with more than 1,400 reported in the week ending Jan. 31. The city also reported four pediatric flu deaths.
An 81-year-old man was found deceased following a Thursday afternoon fire at an apartment building on 47th Street in Borough Park.
An 11-year-old girl was killed yesteday just after 3 p.m. when a school bus struck her in a hit-and-run at 23rd Avenue and Bath Avenue in Bath Beach.
A record-setting $25,000 per month rental apartment was leased in Gowanus.
Our World In Photos
Photo: Alessandra Tarantino/AP
ITALY — Like a poster for a sci-fi movie … Individual Neutral Athlete Daria Olesik starts for a women's Luge training session at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026.
For more pictures like this, see Our World in Photos.
Bess Wohl: Tony nominee, ‘Liberation’ playwright and Brooklynite
Bess Wohl, writer of the new Broadway play "Liberation" and lifelong Brooklyn resident. Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Bess Wohl grew up in Cobble Hill and now lives in Brooklyn Heights. “Liberation,” Wohl’s acclaimed Broadway play, is set in Ohio, but Wohl drew from her childhood in Brooklyn, especially her time accompanying her mother, Lisa Cronin Wohl, to her work at the feminist Ms. magazine office.
“Liberation” is a memory play about the legacy of second-wave feminism, directed by Whitney White. It closed its Broadway run this past Sunday, Feb. 1, after a three-week extension and overwhelming praise from critics.
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Cartoon Sketchbook
By Peter Kuper
For the Road
Make some plans: Looking for Valentine’s Day activities and events around the borough? Check out our latest edition of Bklyn Live, which includes multiple lists of events and happenings around the borough.
Happy Birthday to Archbishop Emeritus of New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan!
On This Day in 1927, the Eagle reported: “A radical change in the organization of the National Professional Football League got under way when 19 club owners met yesterday at the Hotel Astor.”
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