Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll find out what happened when a Brooklyn artist decorated a $1 bill and sent it to Mayor Zohran Mamdani. We’ll also get details on the sentencing of a founder of the infamous Sinaloa drug cartel.
Steve Pikelny, an artist who lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, sent Mayor Zohran Mamdani a $1 bill. “A good luck dollar,” Pikelny said, “sort of like what they have taped above the counter in a bodega.”
It was no ordinary-looking dollar. Pikelny, who uses money as the canvas for some of his artworks, had put a Mamdani-style beard on powdery-haired George Washington. He also wrote “Good luck Mayor Mamdani” in capital letters and, using a computer-controlled drawing machine, inked a roundish design that looks vaguely like a spider web.
The mayor’s office sent the decorated dollar back.
It told Pikelny that the city’s conflicts of interest law “does not permit him to accept this gift.” The three-sentence letter to Pikelny thanked him for his generosity — and his “understanding.”
He said that the idea that City Hall would not take it was “sort of refreshing after someone like Adams,” a reference to Mamdani’s predecessor, Eric Adams, who was indicted on federal corruption charges that were later dropped at the behest of the Trump administration.
Pikelny’s assessment of Mamdani? “He’s doing good so far,” Pikelny said, adding that Mamdani had not been his first choice in the Democratic primary last year but that he had voted for him in November. “I don’t have any complaints,” he said. “He’s doing all the boring municipal government stuff, which, honestly, I think is the most important job of the mayor.”
What he wanted
Pikely wanted something for his dollar: a little time with the mayor.
“The original game plan was, I send Mamdani the dollar, he’d love it, he’d tape it above his desk just like at a bodega, then he’d want to get lunch with me and then I’d sell him about my ideas about land-value taxation in New York.”
This led to an economics tutorial from Pikelny, who said he had been an economics major at Bard College, Class of 2011, and had worked as financial analyst and as a software engineer before turning to art. A land-value tax is a tax on the unimproved value of a property, so the owner of a vacant parcel would pay the same as the owner of a same-sized parcel with a supertall.
With a land-value tax, he said, “you’re creating incentives to build more housing, whereas when you have a property tax, if you build a bigger building with more units, your tax bill increases.”
A gift card to a doughnut store
A spokeswoman for the mayor said that returning money was the standard practice in the Mayor’s Office of Correspondence. That unit has received cash five times in Mamdani’s seven months in office, she said, along with five checks and a gift card (to a doughnut store). One sender mentioned a donation, but the spokeswoman said no money or check had been included.
The letter that the mayor’s office sent Pikelny directed him to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board’s website. Carolyn Miller, the executive director of the board, said that the conflict of interest law prohibited “a public servant from accepting compensation for performing their official duties” from any source except the city — and that accepting a $1 bill that said “Good luck Mayor Mamdani” did not pass muster.
“Under the circumstances as described,” she told me by email, “the money is being given to the mayor for being mayor.”
Writing and drawing on currency the way Pikelny did does not appear to be illegal under federal law, as long as the legal status of the bill was not affected. Adding two zeros after the 1 on a $1 bill would probably not be legal, even if the numerals were obviously drawn playfully and the artist did not try to pass off the result as a $100 bill.
Pikelny said that money is not his only medium. He is one of four artists commissioned for an on-site and online exhibition that will run through Saturday at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, and on its website, and said his part of the show did not involve marking up any $1 bills. Nor did he receive cash from the museum for his work.
“They sent a wire to my bank,” he said.
Weather
Today will be mostly cloudy with a high near 81; showers and thunderstorms are expected. Rain will continue into the night as temperatures drop near 73. A flood watch is in effect.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Thursday (Tisha B’Av).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It was like watching a tsunami approach from the ocean.” — Esmerelda Simmons, a Brooklyn lawyer who worried that her work to empower Black and Latino voters was being erased when candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America won in the Democratic primary last month.
The latest New York news
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Attack at a federal building: An Army veteran started a fire and set off explosives and waved an air rifle at passers-by outside a government building in Lower Manhattan that houses the New York office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the authorities said. Officials said the assailant had targeted immigration officials.
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Child magician then, elected official now: Assemblyman Micah Lasher, who is poised to succeed Representative Jerrold Nadler in Manhattan, was a prodigy who performed magic tricks on national television.
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A salsa club and $1 coffees: The Sol Goldman Y.M.-Y.W.H.A., known as the 14th Street Y in the East Village, has worked to become a social gathering place since the coronavirus pandemic.
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Her biggest expense is her paid-off home: Beth Evans, a professor and librarian at Brooklyn College, makes about $130,000 a year and is set to retire in two years. Her biggest expense is $166,000 in renovations to her home — so far.
Founder of Sinaloa Cartel is sentenced to life in prison
Ismael Zambada García deployed an army of hit men and took advantage of political corruption to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States from Mexico. He lived quietly until his arrest two years ago, unlike Joaquin Guzmán Loera, the fellow Sinaloa cartel leader who was known as El Chapo and who grabbed headlines with celebrity interviews and prison escapes.
Now Zambada García, who is 76 and was known as El Mayo, is going to prison for the rest of his life “for all the evil things he’s done,” Judge Brian Cogan said on Monday.
Zambada García knew when he pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges last year that under mandatory federal sentencing rules, the day would come when he would hear words like those. Before the judge said them, Zambada García read from a prepared statement in Spanish, expressing remorse and offering advice: “To the next generation, I say: ‘Choose a different path.’”
METROPOLITAN diary
Hardcore fan
Dear Diary:
It wasn’t until I lived in the city that I realized how dedicated New Yorkers are to their teams.
When I moved here, I lived in a fourth-floor apartment. I arranged the living room so that my television was positioned on the side wall so that you could look directly into the room and see it while my couch remained hidden.
On the fourth floor, you’re not completely removed from what’s happening outside. You hear the rattle of a fire truck’s suspension as it plows through a pothole. You hear the one defiant wheel rattling on someone’s hand truck or laundry cart.
I also remember once hearing someone yell, “You know what you did. You better not come back over here,” with expletives added in the usual places.
It wasn’t evident to me just how clearly someone could see my TV until one night I had the Yankees game on. I’m a Cubs fan, but I love baseball above all and can watch pretty much any team any night.
It was a close game, but I did what I sometimes do: record the rest to watch in the morning while getting ready for work.
I had just picked up the remote to peruse what else was on when I heard a man’s voice from outside.
“There’s no way,” he said, interjecting the same expletive, then adding: “Turn it back to the game please.”
I didn’t even go to the window to see who had barked this command. I simply complied. Whatever was going on in that man’s life, watching Yankees games from a TV four floors up was his only peaceful moment of the day.
Also, I’m pretty sure he was the guy I heard yell, “You know what you did.” The last thing I want is that guy coming for me.
— Roy Wood Jr.
Mr. Wood is a comedian, actor and writer. He is the host of CNN’s “Have I Got News for You.”
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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The post He Sent $1 to Mamdani. City Hall Sent It Back. appeared first on New York Times.
