This NYC photographer knows you're tired of the influencers

Plus: minimum wage boost for delivery workers [View this email in a browser.]( Gothamist relies on your support to make local news available to all. Not yet a member? [Consider donating and join today.]( [Street-style photographer Watching New York knows you're tired of all the influencers]( [first image]( [Today's newsletter is curated by James Ramsay]( Weather: ⛅ Partly sunny, highs in the lower 50s. It's Friday in New York City, where photographer Johnny Cirillo, a.k.a. @WatchingNewYork on Instagram, is roaming the streets, waiting to snap a picture of you in your incredible outfit. [Here's a sample of the looks he's been spotting](. And here's what else is happening: - A New Jersey federal judge said Wednesday that he plans to [rule on the fate of the MTA’s congestion pricing program]( by early June — just before the agency seeks to begin tolling drivers who go south of 60th Street in Manhattan. - New York State's health department has [rejected the plan to close]( Lower Manhattan's Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital — for now. - The city's Department of Investigation has hired accounting firm KPMG to audit Mayor Eric Adams' billions of dollars in spending on the migrant crisis, [searching for potential fraud, waste or abuse](. - Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told a crowd at a GOP fundraiser in Manhattan yesterday that he'll [keep sending buses of migrants to New York City]( "until we get a new president this next November who will secure the border for the United States of America." - Funding is set to expire for the city's 60 school psychologists and nearly a quarter of the roughly 2,000 social workers embedded in public schools. The City Council is [urging the mayor to save those jobs](. - Gov. Kathy Hochul has [asked the MTA to reverse course]( on a plan to charge New York Road Runners $750,000 for shutting down the Verrazzano Bridge during the New York City Marathon. - The head of New York City’s buildings department wants to [grant inspectors the power to make arrests and even carry guns]( following complaints from agency staffers who say they’ve been attacked on the job, according to an email obtained by Gothamist. - The six people incarcerated at New York's Woodbourne Correctional Facility who sued for the right to watch the eclipse on Monday won a settlement and [will get to watch from a prison yard]( — but this doesn't apply to any other inmates who want to see it. - In other eclipse news, the Yankees are pushing back their scheduled game against the Marlins on Monday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. so [the celestial event won't interfere with play](. - Washington Heights parents are [protesting the parks department's plan to install an artificial turf field]( at Bennett Park out of concerns that their children will ingest "forever chemicals." - Among the offerings at this week's New York International Antiquarian Book Fair: Letters and prison artwork created by Jack "Murph the Surf" Murphy, the infamous Florida man who [robbed the Star of India sapphire from the American Museum of Natural History's jewel hall]( back in 1964. - [Levi's stock jumped 20%]( after Beyoncé released her song "Levii's Jeans" featuring Post Malone. - Teens are [trading stocks](. - The MTA, which now has [no definite date for phasing out MetroCards]( is [releasing a limited edition]( "Law & Order: SVU" MetroCard. - Over in England, male bitterns — a rare and secretive type of heron — [are "booming."]( (They make an extremely loud booming sound to attract mates.) - "[It Happened To Me: I Thought I Bought People Treats But They Were Dog Treats]( - Happy 60th birthday to Wawa, which is [giving out free coffee]( on April 16 to celebrate. National Poetry Month Spotlight Tibbetts Brook It was a summer before the storms, before the silent, sulky wars. You had a second job that summer, a weekend job at a hamburger stand. We took the train from 125th and then a bus and walked, walked toward you; my mother’s hand my hand enlaced. I’d never seen such an enormous field such a grand place as Tibbetts Brook Park in the very green land of Westchester. I remember you handsome and smiling. The sun was shining mightily; and you were wearing a white Nedick’s hat and a chef’s long apron white bright white. I remember my mother looking happy, stepping so proud as we walked quickly toward you. You must have been a king, I thought, before the storms, to be creating then dispensing hamburgers for all on this enormous green. I remember your hand reaching out, behind the stand, to hand us each a hamburger for free. You must have must have been a king -- An afternoon with all its happiness, its sizzle, spread before me like a feast. I can hear it, smell it, taste it yet. You in your apron white bright white, before the wars, at Tibbets Brook -- I hold this (greenly) as an amulet. - Helen Bournas Ney, Manhattan For National Poetry Month, we're collecting your poems on the theme of "local": the nearby places you find important, and what’s making news there. [Submit your poem here]( for a chance to have it featured in Early Addition or on WNYC. More from Gothamist [second image]( [From off-books cleaner to legal aide: NY migrants are getting work permits more quickly]( Immigration advocates say the speedier approval of work permits means more recent arrivals are becoming legally and stably employed sooner — and filling demand in communities where workers are needed. [NYPD routinely ignores parking permit abuse, NYC watchdog finds]( Police are failing to enforce city workers' violations of the system that gives them thousands of free parking permits each year, with city servants allowed to park illegally across the five boroughs without facing consequences, according to the city's Department of Investigation. [We Rely On Your Support]( [NYC correction officers union claims federal takeover at Rikers will lead to 'chaos']( The Correction Officers' Benevolent Association is opposing efforts by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams and public defenders from the nonprofit Legal Aid Society to have a judge appoint an official, known as a federal receiver, to take control of the city’s jail system. [An NYC neuroscientist on how to deal with 'the menopause brain']( Menopause is “one of the most under-researched, undertreated and underdiagnosed fields of medicine, especially as far as the impact on the brain is concerned,” said Dr. Lisa Mosconi, an associate professor of neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medicine. “For a very long time, the vast majority of research was done on men. Men don't go through menopause.” [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( [New York Public Radio] [WNYC]( | [WQXR]( | [NJPR]( | [GOTHAMIST]( [WNYC STUDIOS]( | [THE GREENE SPACE]( Copyright © New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. 160 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013 [TERMS OF USE]( You can update your [PREFERENCES]( or [UNSUBSCRIBE]( from this list.