A rapidly-intensifying battle over a swanky new high-rise development proposed for a piece of public land on the Greenpoint waterfront could end up being the first test of a new housing appeals board next month, if the developer can't convince the City Council it's offering New Yorkers a good deal.

These men have lived in humble units in this Chinatown SRO for decades. But over the past year, they told me their landlord has been harassing them to move out, while converting one floor of the building into a "hotel." At least one tenant has already been pushed out, and is now living in a shelter.

"Her lawyer is not telling the truth about his participation that evening," a Legal Aid Society attorney told @nickpinto.bsky.social. "She was handcuffed behind her back throughout the birth. The handcuffs did not come off before the baby was born."

You may have read about the woman who gave birth in a Brooklyn courtroom Friday night while waiting to be arraigned. I spoke to an attorney who saw the whole thing, and says it was much worse than has previously been reported, a scene of "complete violence." hellgatenyc.com/birth-in-bro...

We embedded the audio evidence from Tuesday’s hearing so you can hear this guy musing on voice memos about how to engineer the recusal of multiple judges. hellgatenyc.com/sam-sprei-ar...

In honor of the release of Courts of Contempt, Hell Gate's new investigation into the city's judicial system, we're letting readers put us on trial! Until Sunday, we’re offering a discount on subscriptions, and throwing in a free copy of our new zine: hellgatenyc.com/all-rise-for...

To mark the release of Courts of Contempt, our massive new project on the city's judicial system (& how judges really become judges in NYC), we're letting readers put us on trial! Sign up by Sunday for the discount, and to support our independent & dogged coverage of NYC’s power brokers

Last night, @nickpinto.bsky.social went to a "real estate expo" hosted by an UES synagogue that encouraged attendees to buy land in illegally annexed parts of the West Bank. The NYPD barricaded the event to protesters, some of whom they pepper sprayed, and locals were blocked from getting home.

For the past year, we’ve been haunting courtrooms, chasing transcripts & hanging around political clubhouses to investigate the machinations of NY’s broken judicial system. How do judges become judges in NYC? And how is it harming regular New Yorkers? Read all about it at our beautiful new website!

For three decades, the City has ignored Brooklyn residents' pleas to "fix Broadway," the 4-mile stretch of busted road running from Williamsburg to East New York. Now, with the Mamdani administration embracing pothole politics, local elected officials are asking anew. hellgatenyc.com/brooklyn-bro...

On Wednesday, elected officials rallied on Brooklyn's Broadway to demand the City finally restructure the busted corridor. "With an administration that is embracing pothole politics and just did a pothole blitz, we wanna see a blitz on Broadway," said Councilmember Sandy Nurse.

We obtained audio of the courtroom “spat” between State Senator Luis Sepúlveda—who is also chair of the powerful Senate Judicial Committee—and a housing court judge. Experts say it was embarrassing, and shouldn’t have happened:

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 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 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...

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-...

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-...

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: 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.

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-...

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

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-...

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...

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...

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...

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-...

🔥🖤🔥

"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...

Spent 9 hours in a marathon bankruptcy court hearing yesterday to cover the fate of 5,200 NYC homes up for sale to Israeli businessman Zohar Levy. He couldn't make it in person to discuss the $451M deal: He's on vacay in Austria. Today, despite the City's opposition, a judge approved the sale.

Weeks after we first wrote about PureGym's controversial tube-assisted egress system, the FDNY has inspected 7 of the gym locations and issued dozens of violations, some of them related to having to scan your phone to exit the building.

Those new PureGym pods & doors that force you to scan your phone to enter and EXIT the gym? The FDNY is onto them, and has already issued more than 2 dozen violations at seven gyms, since PureGym installed the pods in December. hellgatenyc.com/fdny-violati...

This morning, a judge denied the Mamdani Administration's request to delay the Pinnacle auction, as a strange connection between Pinnacle's CEO and the auction's only bidder was revealed. The right-wing backlash to Cea Weaver this week? It's all related. hellgatenyc.com/whats-behind...

Eric Adams is no longer the mayor of New York City. But like the action-movie hero who blows up the headquarters as he walks away without turning around, Adams spent his final days in office doing his very best to fuck over his successor, Zohran Mamdani.

What happened on day one? A lot! And Hell Gate was there for it all. hellgatenyc.com/mayor-mamdan...

The state, represented by the office of Attorney General Letitia James, plans to ask judges to dismiss up to 500 prison sexual assault cases filed against it under the Adult Survivors Act, Hell Gate and New York Focus have learned.

Hell Gate podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

Thanks to an 11th-hour appointment by Mayor Eric Adams, the new head of the agency tasked with investigating police misconduct against civilians is a guy who says civilians should be threatened with perjury to discourage them from complaining about police misconduct. hellgatenyc.com/pat-smith-ch...

This week, the City quietly dropped a new report indicating, once again, that the Raise the Age Law is not creating a "consequence-free" youth crime wave, as NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has previously said.

🔥🖤🔥

A ceiling collapse in a Crown Heights apartment over Thanksgiving weekend is the latest sign of neglect inside buildings owned by billionaire Joel Wiener’s Pinnacle Group. Now, tenants are intensifying their calls to halt the current bankruptcy auction of 93 rent-stabilized Pinnacle buildings.

New York City, which currently has no full-scale casinos, is one step away from building three multibillion-dollar gambling complexes within 10 miles of each other.

Nothing can possibly do justice to the incredible body language on display here—Mamdani's rigid spine, his hands clasped tightly to prevent them from punching a hole in the Oval Office window and jumping out of it, Trump repeatedly touching Mamdani's arm, smiling at him like the son he's never had.

Two of these NYPD cops told me they hate their jobs because of the forced overtime and endless calls to deal with homelessness and mental health issues. They hoped Mamdani could help fix that.