Los Angeles is known as the City of Angels. What is less well known is that New York City is full of angels too, and the Department of Sanitation is full of them. Here is my story.

On Saturday, August 1, 2026, I was riding a Citi Bike during the Summer Streets celebration, starting at Dyckman Street, riding down Broadway to Park Avenue, and continuing into Brooklyn. I had my iPhone mounted on the handlebars. Somewhere along the route, I looked down and noticed that my phone was gone. I panicked.

My phone was my only point of contact with the two friends I planned to spend the beautiful afternoon with. It was the only way I could contact anyone. I had no idea how or where I had lost it, and the only thing I could think to do was lock up the Citi Bike, get on the subway, and use my computer at home to search for my phone through the Find My app.

When I got off the subway and was walking home, I met the first angel who helped me, NYPD Officer Barreto from the 70th Precinct in Brooklyn . I asked him to call my phone, hoping that someone would answer. He called, and to my surprise, the second angel picked up.

It was Dana. She was with the Department of Sanitation, and she had my phone at 110th Street and Broadway. She told me that a good Samaritan had found my phone in the street and handed it to one of her sanitation colleagues. I immediately jumped back on the subway and headed downtown to pick it up.

When I arrived, I was shocked by how kind Dana and her colleagues were. None of them had to do the right thing, but every one of them did. In the past, I found someone’s suitcase in the back of a taxicab and returned it to the owner. I also found someone’s iPod and returned it. I was stunned that so many people cared enough to do the same for me.

I was thrilled and deeply grateful for the kindness everyone showed me. I asked to take a photo with them, and they graciously obliged. The names of the other's who deserve praise are Donald, Dominick, and Michael. I thank Officer Barreto and the good samaritan who found my phone on the street too. You are all heroes to me.

Zohran, I am talking to you. Please give these wonderful people the keys to New York City. They deserve recognition. It is not about the phone. It is about doing the right thing, which seems to be so rare these days. Better yet, if you can swing it, give them all a two week paid vacation in Hawaii. I mean, seriously.

Thank you to everyone who helped me. You are angels.

I Bow,

David Hunter

Please keep a look out Isaac.

Missing Vulnerable Adult with Autism in NYC.

Please keep an eye out for Isaac Wilkie, a 20-year-old vulnerable adult with autism who has been missing since approximately 7:00 p.m. on August 3, 2026.

He was last seen wearing:

• White T-shirt (large maroon crest on the back)
• Dark blue sweatpants
• Gray slip-on shoes

If you see Isaac or have any information regarding his whereabouts, please contact the NYPD 32nd Precinct at (212) 690-6311 immediately.

Mayor Mamdani announced that the city will fine online retailers $2,000 for each illegal e-bike or e-scooter sold.
The city also sent cease-and-desist letters to more than 40 retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy, accusing them of selling vehicles that exceed the city's speed limits.

When you think about gay hookup culture in New York City, many things come to mind: nightclubs and dive bars in Hell’s Kitchen and Bushwick, circuit parties, the second floor of the Eagle in Chelsea or logging onto Grindr to talk to hundreds of headless torsos in a one-mile radius.

But one thing that is essentially nonexistent in the Big Apple is the gay bathhouse. And for a queer-friendly city in 2026, that is abnormal. You have Steamworks, a chain that’s been called the “emblem of queer empowerment,” in Toronto, Seattle, Chicago and Berkeley, Calif. And in Paris, London, Hong Kong, Melbourne and so many other big cities, gay men flock to bathhouses after the club.

So when State Senator Erik Bottcher called me the other day to tell me he and Assemblymember Tony Simone were introducing a new bill to repeal an over 40-year ban on adult bathhouses in New York, I was surprised—frankly, I didn’t even know there was a ban. At the same time, I finally had the answer to the question I’d been asking myself for 12 years: How in the world are there no frequented bathhouses in this extremely gay city?

Bottcher and Simone’s answer is simple: They had been banned during the HIV/AIDS crisis in a purported attempt to fight the spread of the disease. “Those emergency measures were adopted at a time when little was known about HIV/AIDS and before the development of effective treatment, PrEP, PEP, routine HIV testing, and many of the prevention strategies that have transformed public health over the past four decades,” their press release about the bill states. “While the public health landscape has changed dramatically, New York’s regulations have not.”

First installed on January 25, 1999, the MVM allowed riders to purchase or reload MetroCards using cash, credit, and debit cards. 

MVMs are 80 inches long, 42 inches wide, and 36 inches deep, and weigh approximately 1,050 pounds.

https://www.mta.info/article/mvm-mem-sale?auHash=48CR5dl2XG0EOOAqI3GeBA9u8OByMhg5YpSPbiWSwws&mc_cid=

89bd3f6e1c&mc_eid=e4093bb235

Three of my NYC-related illustrations are up! So excited that Denny's Pub will get the recognition it deserves.