So much fun (and so informative!) thanks, Josh!

haha cute!!

We're So Bat: NYC's Nocturnal Creatures Are Making a Comeback After a deadly fungus decimated the bat population, a passionate community is helping them recover.

hellgatenyc.com/bats-recover...

I recently joined Gotham Bat Conservancy on a bat walk in Prospect Park and learned all about the incredible comeback story of the long-maligned NYC bat. Since 2007, a deadly fungus has wiped out much of our local bat population. But a passionate community of bat lovers is helping them recover 🦇❤️

A Judge's Illicit and Uncashable Check Was Supposed to Make the Case of the Missing $2 Million Go Away. It Didn't. "This information rattles me in my soul."

A perk of owning your workplace as a journalist is that, if you think it's interesting, you can write story after story about an insane legal tangle of alleged scammers, political machers, and conflicted judges, and there's no one to tell you to knock it off.

hellgatenyc.com/missing-2-mi...

A Judge Got Into a 'Spat' With a Powerful State Lawmaker. Three Days Later, He Resigned from the Bench Good government groups say the conflict between the housing court judge and chair of the State Senate Judiciary Committee "raises questions that nobody wants to have raised about the independence of o...

A Manhattan housing court judge dramatically submitted his resignation in court last week, just days after he got into a "spat" with an attorney he ruled against—who happened to be Bronx State Sen. Luis Sepúlveda, the chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

hellgatenyc.com/senator-luis...

Randy Mastro Truly Gutted Compost Collection Plus, more news for your Monday morning.

According to a new report by the City's Independent Budget Office, composting rates spiked in 2025...for the three weeks that the Adams administration actually enforced fines for noncompliance. No more fines = way less composting. Thanks a lot, RANDY.

The “yoink!” really sets this Bryant Park woodcock video apart from the rest, for me hellgatenyc.com/new-yorkers-...

New Yorkers Can't Get Enough of These Woodcocks Throwing Ass "I love him. He's perfect. His body is tea."

It takes true star power to join the exclusive club of celebrity birds in New York City, and we can confirm that the American woodcock who has turned Bryant Park into its migratory dance floor has got that special something.

hellgatenyc.com/new-yorkers-...

Had not but thanks for sharing!

Hell Gate Presents: March Madness of NYC Hot Takes 2026 Sixty-four correct opinions we will stubbornly die for (metaphorically).

I wrote a bunch of these. I won’t say which ones, but I *will* say that if you think one is really good, I wrote it, but if you think one is bad, someone else wrote it, but if it’s so bad that it enrages you and makes veins in your forehead pop out, then I wrote it.

hellgatenyc.com/march-madnes...

New York Focus Is Suing the State Prison Agency Prison officials have refused to release crucial records on how the agency handles allegations of sexual abuse.

NEW: New York Focus is suing the state prison agency.

@hellgatenyc.com reporter @nickpinto.bsky.social interviewed @chrisgelardi.bsky.social, New York Focus’s justice bureau chief, and Hell Gate’s @jessyedwards.bsky.social about the lawsuit, their reporting, and why it matters.

YES Josh! (Or possibly Serena) 😆

Behold NYC's First-Ever Trumpeter Swan A member of the once-near-extinct species has taken up residence in the East River. But why?

There's a new hot bird in town! And it's the first time NYC has ever seen a trumpeter swan, in recorded history (after it came back from the brink of extinction). In the last week, it's been spotted frequently hanging out with one of our mute swans 👀

hellgatenyc.com/behold-nycs-...

Roaches in Baby Bottles, Dead Mice in Sheets, an Eviction Case: Life Raising a Baby in a Pinnacle Apartment The Union of Pinnacle Tenants says it wants the City's help in getting Pinnacle eviction cases thrown out, as the slumlord sells 93 of its buildings in April.

Pinnacle moved to evict this couple the same week their baby was born. They’d been withholding rent for 2 months, after fighting for repairs for over a year. After the mom came home from a C-section, she stood on a nail, found a dead mouse in clean sheets, and roaches crawling in the baby bottles

Can I Borrow Your Sled? I wanted to go sledding for the first time, but I don't have a sled. Would the kids of New York City help me live my dream?

After the snowstorm, Hell Gate reporter @jessyedwards.bsky.social wanted to go sledding for the very first time, but she didn't own a sled. Would the kids of New York City help her to live her dream?

3 hours left! That's 180 minutes! Until your chance to get a Hell Gate Believer subscription for 25% off—or to upgrade your Friend or Supporter subscription—and be among the first to get a "Welcome to Fear City" T-shirt is OVER! Act now! hellgatenyc.com/hell-gate-t-...

Can I Borrow Your Sled? I wanted to go sledding for the first time, but I don't have a sled. Would the kids of New York City help me live my dream?

This is an extremely charming account of someone who did not grow up sledding taking the opportunity of today's blizzard to go sledding with kids in New York City.

Tomorrow I am gonna lend @jessyedwards.bsky.social my copy of Ethan Frome.

hellgatenyc.com/can-i-borrow...

Can I Borrow Your Sled? I wanted to go sledding for the first time, but I don't have a sled. Would the kids of New York City help me live my dream?

Hell Gate reporter @jessyedwards.bsky.social wanted to go sledding today for the very first time, but she doesn't own a sled. Would the kids of New York City help her to live her dream?

Fantastic reporting from @chrisgelardi.bsky.social who easily found a former New York prison chef accused of sexual assault, after the state insisted in legal filings that he did not exist.

Our own @jessyedwards.bsky.social on why you should smash that subscribe button: hellgatenyc.com/membership/

Are you hungering for some very funny, extremely insightful-yet-somehow-also-mischevious food journalism? Well then the folks at the brand new Gourmet Magazine have you covered.

We caught up with them about their launch month.

hellgatenyc.com/the-new-gour...

It Is So Cold Outside and NYC Needs Some Cash Podcast Episode · The Hell Gate Podcast · 01/30/2026 · 36m

NEW EPISODE OF THE HELL GATE PODCAST

While the ice floes keep drifting down the Hudson, nurses are still picketing outside hospitals, Luigi Mangione is still in jail, and Jessy’s heat isn’t really working.

Keep warm with us!!!!!!!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

🫶

PureGym member Jon Gingerich is filing an ADA complaint after he says a gym staffer told him last week that his membership could be canceled if he didn’t monitor for ‘tailgaters’ when he enters the gym through the accessibility door:

hellgatenyc.com/puregym-tail...

Preschooler and three other students detained by ICE, school district leader says The detentions of Columbia Heights students come after weeks of heightened concern and enforcement presence near and on Twin Cities school property.

Lots of heartbreaking, enraging, cortisol-dump-inducing images coming out of Minneapolis, but I'm stuck on this one, of a five-year-old in his preschool backpack just before being bundled into an ICE van and disappeared from his mother and brother and community.
www.startribune.com/preschooler-...

Paragraph from a NYTimes story: "Over the last two months, the New York Fire Department has found violations at seven PureGym locations, as reported in the New York City news site Hell Gate. PureGym, the department said, “failed to maintain means of egress free from obstructions or impediments,” as well as committed lesser transgressions like not installing proper exit signage or fixing a burned-out exit light."

🔥🖤🔥

Snowficionados, Rejoice: This Weekend Might Be Special The probability of at least six inches of snow—and potentially much more—is climbing.

"This one does feel like it has the potential to be a pretty decent-sized storm. Especially since it's spanning potentially two to three days, and over the course of the weekend."

Subscribe to @hellgatenyc.com , support worker-owned local journalism, and get your timely and hard-hitting deep-dive investigation into the mayor's interest in bidets nearly a week before New York Times readers hear a word about it!

hellgatenyc.com/bidest-socia...

Haha! Was the dream set in Vienna??