Why must the public pay for her wedding?
Southwick, Mass.: Friday night, July 3, Midtown Manhattan was effectively shut down so Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce could get married at Madison Square Garden. Black SUVs jammed the streets around 31st St. for hours, barricades went up and regular New Yorkers trying to get home from work or catch a train got funneled around a private party for roughly 1,000 A-listers
I get it — it’s a big story, a “wedding of the year.” But somewhere in the coverage of custom Dior gowns and Stevie Nicks sound checks, nobody’s asking the obvious question: Who signed off on tying up a city block of Midtown on a Friday night for a private celebrity event, and did anyone consult the people who actually live and work there? This is exactly why ordinary people are fed up. The rich get the VIP suite, the fast pass to skip the theme park line, the shut-down city block — they get to inconvenience everyone else as a matter of course. A $26 million charity donation is generous, but it doesn’t buy back the hours residents lost stuck behind barricades. If they wanted a private, secure wedding, they own estates plenty big enough to host one without closing down part of Manhattan.
Nobody begrudges Swift and Kelce their big day, but affluence shouldn’t buy the right to commandeer public streets while ordinary residents eat the inconvenience
Unwatchable
Flushing: I just wanted to voice my displeasure regarding the broadcast by NBC of the NYC fireworks. Instead of being treated to a view of them, we were subjected to a garbage show concert and way too many commercials. Thanks for destroying a beautiful thing. If I wanted to watch that garbage, I would’ve tuned in. Instead, I headed to another channel and watched the fireworks in Williamsburg, Va
Jeffrey Stiefel
Party pooper
Brooklyn: Hey Mayor Mamdani, cut us a break for one day without injecting your negative slant on a beautiful celebration. No one asked you
Joe Many
Run cooler
Staten Island: To the Republicans slamming Mamdani for asking New York to turn down air conditioners to 78 degrees, allow me to share the following: Set your thermostat to 78 when you’re home. Typical ACs can only cool about 20 degrees below the outside temperature. Setting it to 78 when it’s 100 outside keeps your home comfortable while preventing your unit from running constantly and freezing up from too much stress on the condenser, which releases the heat absorbed from your home outside. By cooling the high-pressure refrigerant gas, it converts it back into a liquid so it can recirculate indoors to continue the cooling cycle. The compressor acts as the heart of your system, pressurizing the refrigerant gas and circulating it throughout the system by squeezing the refrigerant into a smaller space. There’s just so much compression and pressure that can take place before your unit fails.
Myra B. Goodman
Bury it
Greenburgh, N.Y.: During the recent heat wave, more than 93,000 customers of Con Edison lost power. The company worked hard to restore service. A few years ago, Con Ed did a test in my town, placing wires underground on a street in Hartsdale. I believe that Con Ed should expand the program and annually place more wires underground in its service territory. Underground lines are not exposed to high winds, falling trees or flying debris — the leading causes of outages. Ice accumulation can also snap overhead wires and poles. Cars crashing into utility poles are also a common cause of outages. If Con Ed would include this initiative in its capital budget annually, over time there would be fewer outages.
Paul Feiner
Rain or shine
Bronx: I’d like to give a shout-out to all workers who work outside and in trains. These men and women work in all types of weather. We all appreciate what you do for the city. Thank you. God bless you all
Susana Burgos
Card-carrying citizenship
Mahopac, N.Y.: Marco Rubio’s parents were in the U.S. legally as green card holders when he was born. However, I can’t discover if ending birthright citizenship as President Trump wants would preclude children of green card holders from being granted citizenship at birth
Jim Holdridge
Automatic Americans?
Estero, Fla.: I’d hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would have grandfathered all citizens today, no matter how they got here, because it’s impossible to cancel all who acquired citizenship in the myriad ways of the past. However, help me with the following: A woman crosses the border illegally, her water breaks and she gives birth. An illegal woman lives here for some time and gives birth. A student on an education visa gives birth. A tourist comes here to see the country and gives birth. A person comes here for the sole purpose of giving birth here and returns home. If you think that all those babies are citizens by birth, you are condoning the end of America. Keep in mind that the parents can’t be deported because they have an American citizen child.
John Piccolo
Bunk bias
Scarsdale, N.Y.: Voicer Joseph N. Manago writes about Pope Leo XIV and Trump as if they’re not both Christians who believe in Jesus Christ, himself a Jew. This pope is a pacifist, unlike Pope Saint John Paul II, who believed in just wars. Pope Francis was also a pacifist. So what? If you want to see genuine anti-Catholic bias, look no further than Christopher Wray’s FBI under the previous administration
Peter McCarthy
Fraudulent fraud claims
Brooklyn: If Trump learned one thing from his instigating the most violent insurrection against the U.S. government, it’s that he got away with it. He’s again trotting out the big lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and the Democrats are going to steal the 2026 November midterms through fraudulent voting and mail-in ballots. Never mind that he votes by mail! Mail-in ballots began during the Civil War, when Union soldiers were allowed to vote this way, helping President Abraham Lincoln win a second term. Studies by the Brookings Institute and others claim the likelihood of fraud by voter mail is four out of 10 million votes cast! Yet, Trump wants to federalize voting, which is constitutionally delegated to the states. Why is this man so adamant about making it harder for Americans to vote? Does it have something to do with his failed policies, corruption and dismal approval poll numbers.
Irwin Cantos
Step aside
Brooklyn: What’s the deal with these TV news meteorologists who actually stand in front and block the green screen with their creation for us to view? Yes, I’m talking to Raphael Miranda, Violeta Yas and a small few who follow this practice. We know your job status and position. We don’t need you blocking the seven-day forecast with your bodies like some soldier sacrificing themself by taking a bullet for us. Stand to the side and grow up, people. You want this kind of attention, quit and go to Hollywood!
Steve Craig
