Issue No. 18: Holiday travel hell 🚍 + The mayor's looming legal hell 🦃

So you ignored our advice to Never Leave New York and are traveling for the holidays. That's a mistake, but we're nothing if not committed to our readers and are therefore here to help. Or more specifically, Conal Darcy is here to help this week with a stunningly in-depth guide to navigating some of the city's major holiday travel hubs and not just surviving, but thriving. It's got insider tips on everything from free bathrooms and secret seating areas in Moynihan Train Hall to line-skipping tips and finding the only good part of Hudson Yards: a park named for an eco-feminist icon. You may not be able to avoid the crowds altogether, but you can at minimum bask in the knowledge that you're not gonna get stuck buying a flavorless $30 desperation sandwich at Hudson News anytime soon.

Sponsored: Many holiday wreaths you see come from Canada. Why not get one where all the parts of your wreath were grown and assembled locally? Queens Perennial is the CSA of the Luna Family Farm in New Jersey, and both the farm and the CSA are all immigrant BIPOC owned and operated. Show your support for farmers and organizers of color locally by pre-ordering your wreath today! 

So, about all the mayor's recent (alleged!) crimes

You've no doubt heard rumblings these last few weeks about what sure does seem like a burgeoning criminal investigation into our self-styled crime-busting mayor! First, he had to abruptly scrap a trip to D.C. to deal with a raid on his top fundraiser's house. Then he had multiple devices seized by the FBI!! To help you understand it all, Dave breaks down exactly what is happening and what you should know about it, including what it would take to remove the mayor from office and whether a special election to replace him would be less pleasurable than cracking your skull with a hammer to let the humours out.

✈ Planes, trains and (please, no) automobiles

Last week we asked for your best tips for navigating overcrowded exit points like Penn Station and Grand Central for holiday travel, and you didn't disappoint. Some wrote in with tried and true classics ("Travel off-peak. T-day is always a Thursday, and everyone always packs the stations and airports on Wednesday.") along with some airport-specific luggage wisdom ("People think it's a travel hack to not check a bag at the airport, but I say gate-checking in particular results in way less hassle, actually.").

We also got one especially juicy inside baseball option for Moynihan train hall: "I hate giving this tip up, but with the addition of Moynihan Train Hall, you can still pull off the 'skip the line' move on Amtrak that you used to be able to do in Penn Station: go to the LIRR concourse one level below Moynihan, which has access to all tracks except 1-4, and check the screens for the Amtrak departure tracks. Since you can’t sit in Moynihan anyway, why not stand underground and skip the line for boarding?"

And one timely, on-point suggestion for any of our city's major hubs: "Shut them down for collective action!"

Crimes and misdemeanors

• Walking tours of Hart Island will open to the public for the first time next month.
• A whole bunch of ultra-luxury (think $50 million and up) apartments are sitting empty because — surprise — there aren't that many people who want to buy 'em.
• Another shocker? Citi Bike service has gotten worse since Lyft's 2018 takeover, especially in lower-income parts of the city.
• New data confirms that two years in, the neighborhoods surrounding the city's new overdose prevention centers have seen no meaningful increase in crime.
• A rare W for our city's over-burdened kids: Regents exams may soon become optional.
• The feverish "Fentanyl trash can" panic among Brooklyn parents seems to have subsided for now.
• George Santos you will always be famous.

Virginia K. Smith wrote this week's newsletter.