The city’s Office of Emergency Management is offering resources for victims of Tropical Storm Ida in each of the five boroughs.

“By placing one service center in each borough, New Yorkers can seek aid at any location as well as on nyc.gov/ida and by calling 311,” said an agency spokeswoman via email. “Recovering from an emergency has many layers depending on the event, and can add to the emotional stress of the incident.” Read more

New York City reopened school buildings Monday to all of its public school students for the first time since classes went remote at the outset of the pandemic.

While the landmark day revealed some logistical challenges and frustrations that school administrators will have to address in the coming weeks, many parents expressed a general sense of optimism, and data showed higher attendance than last year’s hybrid opening. Read more

The subway series started with a solemn ceremony at Citi Field Saturday, Sept. 11 honoring the lives lost two decades earlier.

Fans arrived to the ceremony toting 9/11 flags, top right and center right, in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 victims who died in the tragedy. Read more

A retired NYPD couple held a 9/11 vigil in Queens Village at their home on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The remembrance also included an encased glass shard from one of the towers they had kept.

Some of the guests in attendance of Elaine and Winston Bailey’s memorial were Pastor Doris Johnson of Holy Ghost Upper Room in South Jamaica and Bishop Melvin Artis of the Greater Universal Highway Deliverance Church in St. Albans. Read more

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, state Department of Transportation and city Department of Transportation are reminding the public that on Thursday, Sept. 23, the agencies will begin holding 13 public meetings on the state’s proposed congestion pricing program, formally known as Central Business District Tolling.

The agencies are proposing that a toll be set for every vehicle entering Midtown or Downtown Manhattan, a zone that could start as far south as 60th Street, to raise money for the MTA and reduce traffic congestion and pollution in Manhattan. Read more

“This is America where I’m standing right now,” President Biden said in the middle of an East Elmhurst alley Sept. 7. “These are the people, whether it’s in Scranton or Clamont or anywhere around the country, who built this country and it’s about time we step up. They’re always the first ones that are hurt and the last ones that are helped. But that’s not going to happen this time.”

Biden visited the western Queens neighborhood one week after Hurricane Ida swept through the city, flooding streets, damaging homes and taking the lives of at least eight in the borough. Read more

For Sebastian Raspanti, an Astoria native and retired firefighter with FDNY Engine 233 and Ladder 176, the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001 should always be a day to honor those who lost their lives.

“What 9/11 is about was the lives that were lost and the people that were missing,” said Raspanti, a father of three girls. “They don’t have the experience that I have where I get to take care of my kids and have life experience with them ... there are a lot of people who are not here who weren’t able to see their kids go to their first day of school. That is really the impact of what happened.” Read more

Hurricane Ida’s unexpected flash floods that bombarded Queens houses and apartment buildings and killed more than a dozen people have amplified a debate over basement apartment regulation in the city.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, housing advocates and a group of councilmembers pointed to a stalled program aimed at converting basement apartments that are prohibited by New York City zoning and building codes as a potential tool for combating basement apartment fatalities. Read more

A proposal to add parking spaces to a stretch of Woodhaven bordering Forest Park released by Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar (D-Woodhaven) has sparked confusion and protests from a group of ecologically minded residents in her district.

In a press release from two weeks ago, Rajkumar publicized a walk-through with Department of Transportation Commissioner Nicole Garcia, in which she said she was proud to provide plans to convert “vacant park space at the corner of 98th Street and Park Lane South” into parking, among other ideas for increasing the number of spots as locations for diagonal parking next to the Forest Park Co-op and finding other spots along the roadway. Read more

What does the 20th anniversary of 9/11 mean to a rescue worker?

For Archie Koenemund, a former firefighter and Hamilton Beach resident, it’s a reminder for the world that “it’s never gonna go away.” Read more

As a retired architect with some prestigious Manhattan firms, Steve Fisher of Maspeth knows a thing or two about historic buildings, and has worked on several of them.

Fisher watched from his office in Manhattan when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. He would find out later that 19 men assigned to the firehouse on 68th Street in Maspeth were killed. Read more

Hurricane Ida may have been downgraded to a tropical depression when it hit several states with flash flooding in the Northeast on Sept. 1, but it was just as dangerous as when it decimated Louisiana on Aug. 28.

Eight people in Queens have died since the torrential downpour hit New York City with nearly 10 inches of rain and 35 mph of sustained wind on Sept. 1, according to the NYPD and Accuweather, a weather news outlet. Read more

It may have been a regular coffee date with his work friends and a lunchtime meeting that kept Michael Mulvaney directly out of harm’s way during the World Trade Center attacks of 1993 and 2001.

Mulvaney was buying his morning coffee in the World Trade Center concourse on Sept. 11, 2001 when he heard a rumbling that was all too familiar to him. Read more

Days after answering Gov. Hochul’s call to provide federal relief for New York and to support infrastructure initiatives after flash flooding from Tropical Storm Ida poured into the Big Apple’s subway system, President Biden made a visit to East Elmhurst on Sept. 7.

“This goes so far beyond what anybody is willing to speak up to until now,” said Biden. “We just finished surveying the damage here in Queens.” Read more

President Biden declared New York City’s four outer boroughs and Westchester County the site of a major disaster Monday, greenlighting federal aid for people affected by Hurricane Ida’s torrential downpours.

Assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency will include funding for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses and aid from other recovery programs to help fight the effects of the disaster. Read more

Saturday, Sept. 11, marks the haunting 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers attacks. Communities across Queens will honor the thousands who were lost in the tragedy there and elsewhere, from office workers to first responders.

Some events will start in the days before the anniversary, many are planned for the day of and some for the days following. Read more