Why Bay Ridge is the go-to destination for community celebrations & civic engagement
A longtime focal point for civic engagement and community celebrations — reflected in enthusiastic participation in parades, festivals and street fairs — the neighborhood at the southwestern tip of Brooklyn, originally known as Yellow Hook for the yellowish soil along the waterfront, has a long and storied history. Artist Vic Cantone’s satirical illustration from the 1970s welcoming all to “our” Bay Ridge, from Brooklyn Paper.
Happy heat wave in New York City, where the theme of the summer is infectious diseases.
As the heat index climbs into the triple digits, a nice cooling mist might sound like just the ticket. Not so for the residents of the Upper East Side, where the outbreak of Legionnaire’s Disease continues to spread.
As we wrote last week, Legionnaires’ Disease is a potentially fatal respiratory illness caused by Legionella bacteria, which breed in cooling towers and spread through contaminated water vapor. At the time, the latest outbreak had infected 23 people. As of today’s reporting, those numbers have ballooned to 59 infected and 48 hospitalized.
The scare is spreading geographically as well. The Ardsley, a luxury apartment building on the Upper West Side with 201 residential units, discovered Legionella in their hot water system after an independent test. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said the findings are not related to the cluster of infections on the Upper East Side and will not be investigating The Ardsley. There have been no reported cases of Legionnaires’ on the Upper West Side.
But it seems neither end of the body is safe this summer. A brutal form of food poisoning called cyclosporiasis is also on the loose, infecting hundreds of New Yorkers and tens of thousands across the country. In the city, cases are already up three-fold compared to this time last year. Symptoms include explosive diarrhea, nausea and stomach cramps.
“To help prevent cyclosporiasis, we strongly recommend cooking your food whenever possible and washing fresh produce thoroughly under clean, running water,” Chantal Gomez, a spokesperson for the health department, wrote in a statement.
Cyclosporiasis — colloquially known as the “explosive diarrhea” parasite — has become something of a trend on social media, with the phrase spreading across thousands of videos and racking up millions of views. Doctors and influencers warning viewers to wash their hands and produce are quickly becoming a mainstay on Instagram and TikTok feeds across the country.
Whether you’re a bacteria or a parasite, anything with the right star power can go viral these days.
Mayor Mamdani and Parks Commissioner Tricia Shimamura announced New The National Weather Service issued a heat advisory warning from Tuesday into Wednesday for the metro area.
New, more-secure Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program chip-based cards will be issued next year in New York state.
BPL and the Brooklyn Institute For Social Research will host seven free lectures at locations across Brooklyn this summer for the second annual Sips & Scholars series.
The nation’s first moratorium on new hyperscale data centers was established on Tuesday at the restored Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg.
Area residents are protesting a city decision to repurpose a current family shelter on Emmons Avenue into a shelter for 110 single men.
The former Dinosaur Bar-B-Que site in Gowanus sells for $11M.
The Citywide Containerization Program Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which the city Dept. of Sanitation released in early July, is the subject of an online public hearing on July 28.
An artisanal coffee bar in East Williamsburg now offers reservations for coffee omakase and guided tastings.
Police have identified a man struck and killed by a garbage truck last week as Franklin Torres, 54, of Yonkers.
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Our World In Photos
Photo: Trond R. Teigen/NTB Scanpix via AP
OSLO — That’s more than a ‘participation award’ crowd: Fans stand to greet Norway's men's national soccer team at Slottsplassen after returning to Oslo, Norway, from the United States on Monday, July 13, 2026.
For more pictures like this, see Our World in Photos.
Brooklyn’s Democratic Party paradox: Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn made county leadership sexy — now she says reformers want ‘the machine’ they criticized
The Brooklyn Democratic Party Chair, Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, meeting with judicial nominees at last year’s judicial convention.
June’s surge in Democratic Socialists of America victories has created an unusual political paradox in the ongoing battle to take over one of the nation’s most influential Democratic organizations.
While reform-aligned candidates built momentum inside a party they have spent years critiquing, creating a dramatic shift, Borough President and New Kings Democrats Founder Antonio Reynoso did not benefit from the same energy, soundly losing a congressional race to DSA Claire Valdez.
The new landscape still raises the burning question: Will Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn — the first woman, Black woman and Haitian American to lead the party and a reformer herself — want to remain chair?
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The Mini
Cartoon Sketchbook
By Jeff Koterba
For the Road
Happy Birthday “Fleabag” creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge!
On this day in 1930, the Eagle reported, “MONTEVIDEO, URUGUAY (AP) — The United States team defeated its first opponent, Belgium, 3 to 0, yesterday in the world’s open soccer championship. James Brown of New York and William Gonsalves of Fall River, Mass., were the outstanding stars for the Americans. France defeated Mexico, 4 to 1.”
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