is New York City dead?

https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-de-blasio-sick-coronavirus-test-no-covid19
for fuck's sake man, just get tested! you see more people than anyone!

it doesn't make sense. it takes 5 seconds.

what's up with the fireworks

there are Theories, and i wouldn't even be surprised if they were correct

i am accustomed to my neighbors shooting off fireworks at unforeseen times but rarely for a straight week

and their fireworks usually make a few cool sounds. most of these are just really obnoxious boomings

my response to it (as with most things) is to crank the a/c

what are the Theories??

cops

Gentrification

people had more time to cultivate their fireworks during quarantine and they’re sprouting early

lol

https://www.firehouse.com/stations/video/21142776/video-fdny-firefighters-ignite-illegal-fireworks-at-station

A group of FDNY firefighters are accused of setting off illegal fireworks at a Brooklyn fire station.

The pyrotechnic display was caught on video by a Crown Heights resident who was passing by Ladder 123 at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, the New York Post reports.The video shows firefighters at the station lighting a firework display that sparked.

“I thought it was young kids lighting it. And there are. But then I see the firefighters doing it—they should know better,” the 33-year-old resident told the Post.

Have also seen somewhere that the type of fireworks being used cost about $250 per pop, so it doesn't seem likely that neighborhood teens have that kind of cash flow? Not knocking alternative explanations, but given the defund/abolish pressure and movement right know I would not put ANYTHING beyond the NYPD.

Some of the detonations I’ve heard in my neighborhood have surpassed anything I’ve learned to expect from m-80s, cherry bombs etc. deep, horizon filling booms

Ugh

Yeah I've seen that talked about, that the noises are more like munitions and not like "oooh, fireworks!" and it's setting the affected areas up as war zones.

it has been fairly nonstop. finding boxes of spent fireworks on corners and on overpasses. I think it's mostly just kids tbh? There's a world of pent up energy and attitude that's gotta go somewhere. Though yes, i wouldn't put anything past nypd.

It's very weird. I read this piece, which seemed to suggest that one theory was that it was white gentrifiers complaining more about something that happens every year

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/flatbush-brooklyn-fireworks-nypd-police-blm

Other people see it the other way around:

White people in Washington Heights: "It's like this every year."

Black/Brown people in Washington Heights: "It has never been like this EVER before. This is some NEXT-LEVEL, scheduled, coordinated shit!"

— Son of Baldwin (Robert Jones, Jr.) (@SonofBaldwin) June 20, 2020

It literally sounded like a truckload of fireworks had gone off at once at one point in my street last night (I'm at the Crown Heights side of Prospect Lefferts Gardens. It doesn't bother me that much personally but it's just so weird, the number of them, like yeah, it must cost a fortune.

british kids set off fireworks for a good two weeks before guy fawkes day - so why not two weeks before july 4?

well, this would be the first time i've ever experienced it

i don't really buy that it's the cops but who knows

In a facebook group I'm in people have been reporting them everywhere from wealthy westchester county ny suburbs to charlottesville va, so I don't think it's some kind of terror campaign against black and brown communities, but who the fuck knows. One theory is just that people are bored and cooped up and there are already usually amateur fireworks this time of year, so there's just a lot more. Firework stores have reported upticks in sales.

I certainly wouldn't rule out a more nefarious explanation, but social media has a tendency to need to give everything a nefarious explanation

there was one crazy night about a week ago I heard outside the hospital, but I don't know the norms for El Barrio

We’ve been hearing fireworks for about a couple weeks here in northwest DC. Big shows the night of juneteenth. I assume it’s neighborhood folks having fun with their stockpiles leading up to July 4, which isn’t uncommon.

Tracer, having lived in inner London through many a Guy Fawkes season, this is of a different order of intensity.

I am hearing the munitions dump explosion ones here in LA too for the first time fwiw

https://gothamist.com/news/everything-you-need-know-about-phase-2-reopening-nyc

*Boom* *pop*

what on earth

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbJHpw9XgAEilV4?format=jpg&name=small

fuck that sideways

Are they going to raise the price of a slice of pizza to $9 too?

Just imagine how many cops they can pay overtime to for standing at the turnstiles to enforce the new fare.

it's a nonstarter of an idea insofar as it would shut down every restaurant in the city.

Just got offered my first fireworks in the street. Passed up the opportunity to ask him if he was being supplied by the Feds.

you just became a real new yorker

wtf is with these people and blowing shit up

https://www.vulture.com/2020/06/macys-fireworks-2020-nyc.html

As New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio puts together an entire task force to crack down on the illegal fireworks bored kids have been setting off across the city, he’s also green-lighting a week of Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks shows across each of the five boroughs starting June 29. “In reimagining this year’s show, the idea of bringing elements to many parts of our hometown resonated with our team and partners in the City of New York,” Susan Tercero, executive producer of Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks show, said in a statement to ABC 7. The fireworks will be set off at a “high elevation, unannounced” to prevent people from gathering to watch them. There will be five minutes of explosions, with no warning, each night leading up to July 4’s televised grand finale, which will feature the “best of” the previous five nights.

Wait, that's satire, right?

"unannounced"

no, they're serious! Vulture's added their own layer of snark but it's factually accurate.
Video here:
https://abc7ny.com/society/macys-fireworks-in-nyc-will-be-a-series-of-smaller-displays/6261681/

it is dumb as fuck!

It really is, incredible that would be their response. I did hear of some Chicago suburbs that are talking about spreading out and doing smaller displays to reduce congregating to watch but, afaik, those are all scheduled and announced.

the pure tone deafness of siccing the cops on kids in the streets but okaying a major corporation to do THE SAME SHIT

https://patch.com/new-york/bed-stuy/fireworks-complaints-not-job-cops-brooklyn-pols-say

too easy to imagine the police in that article telling people to call a community group for support having a shit-eating grin on his face, as he says it

i mean

The explosions heard in the Bronx are just PD controlled detonation of confescated fireworks at Rodmans Neck pic.twitter.com/PwK9pAxGV0

— NYCFireWire (@NYCFireWire) June 22, 2020

NYPD conducted a controlled detonation on Rodman Neck to eliminate confiscated fireworks. That caused brush fire to breake out and had to extinguished by FDNY and Nassau County marine units from the water.
Video by Daniel Valls (FNTV) d✧✧✧@scootercas✧✧✧.c✧✧ to license pic.twitter.com/O2re1s90yK

— @SCOOTERCASTER (FNTV) (@ScooterCasterNY) June 22, 2020

gothamist with the A+ URL
https://gothamist.com/news/between-illegal-fireworks-displays-every-borough-will-get-five-blissful-minutes-legal-fireworks-macys-fourth-july-celebration

pack it up

Times Square’s glitzy, four-story McDonald’s is permanently shutting down https://t.co/YxrB5KRgrv pic.twitter.com/q6XEuGKO5w

— Eater NY (@EaterNY) June 24, 2020

it was, for a time, one of the few reliable bathrooms in times square. RIP

I was about to say bring back the Howard Johnson’s but that place was an overpriced deadzone. I remember being hungover one time with little cash and thinking I could hit the Hojo for some cheap breakfast. Fucking hell.

xp lol yes it was