The time for comfort sweaters is over: Mayor Bloomberg will give his latest update on recovery efforts from Hurricane Sandy starting around 1:30 p.m. this afternoon. As anyone who has been keeping up with these press conferences might have noticed, Bloomberg doesn't tend to start on time, so be patient. Hopefully we'll get some more details about which subway lines will be running again tomorrow.
Update 2:12 p.m.: So yes, Mayor Bloomberg is taking his sweet time starting this press conference. The room is starting to fill up, so we're cautiously optimistic it will happen in the next year. In the meantime, the mayor has been scooped in at least one area: "Appears to be true: Knicks-Nets game will be cancelled. Mayor Bloomberg about to announce it," tweeted NY Times' Rick Sandomir.
Update 2:15 p.m.: The Post has a scoop about another thing Bloomberg will be announcing, and this one is pretty big: "Mayor Bloomberg will announce later today that passenger cars will be temporarily barred from entering Manhattan, as New York struggles to recover from Hurricane Sandy, City Hall sources told The Post."
Update 2:24 p.m.: The Mayor's Office responded to reports of a passenger car ban, tweeting: "Passenger cars will not be banned from Manhattan. Stay tuned for a briefing from the Mayor soon." If only we could believe them about the "soon" part...
Update 3 p.m.: Mayor Bloomberg's press conference finally got underway after a delay of nearly an hour and a half. The Post's big scoop turned out to be a mangled version of reality: "I'm ordering that the four East River bridges be restricted to vehicles with three or more people for Thursday and Friday, 6 a.m. to midnight," Bloomberg said. "I urge everyone to not take their cars into Manhattan if possible—if you have any other option for getting to work, please use it."
The four East River bridges are the 59th Street/Queensboro/Ed Koch Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg Bride and Brooklyn Bridge. Bloomberg noted that Governor Cuomo also made similar "HOV restrictions on the Triborough and Henry Hudson bridges and Lincoln Tunnel."
As for the consequences of not complying with the over, Bloomberg promised you'd feel the honking wrath of your fellow commuter: "We're just not gonna let you in. We'll stop you. you're going to be stuck there...everybody's going to be driving by and honking you." As for the idea of picking up random strangers for carpools, Bloomberg called it the "ultimate in symbiotic relationships." We're really looking forward to hitching a ride in Bloomberg's limo this week!
Other important announcements: public schools will remain closed for the rest of the week, but teachers and administrators are expected to come in on Friday. Parks remain closed as well, but he's hopeful they'll be open this weekend: "Saturday and Sunday will be a good time to take kids to the park." The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade has been postponed until sometime next week, yet to be determined.
The Knicks/Nets season opener at Barclays Center that was scheduled for Thursday has also been cancelled, as was expected—Bloomberg did make sure to note that the NBA cancelled it on his recommendation, though. The Nets will have their home opener on Saturday, against the Toronto Raptors. There was no mention of the Knicks' home opener Friday against the Miami Heat.
Around 643K New Yorkers are still without power, includine 230K in Manhattan alone—Con Ed has brought in approximately 1400 contractors to help work round the clock to get the power back up. Bloomberg is cautiously hopeful power will be mostly restored by Monday: "Do you believe in crossing your fingers," he asked. "I'm very optimstic that virtually all power wil be back [by Monday]."
As for Marty Markowitz's request for more National Guard to come to Brooklyn, Bloomberg said, "The NYPD are the only people we need on the street with guns." He added that the NYPD had 80 light towers up last night in areas with power outages and the goal is to have 100 more for tonight.
