Good morning. It is Wednesday. We meet the man who elected Governor Kathy Hochul as the new Lieutenant Governor. We’ll also look at how a federal rule about light bulbs will make New York look a little different.
“Upstate, downstate, it doesn’t matter,” said Representative Antonio Delgado above, who grew up in Schenectady, NY, and now lives in Rhinebeck, NY — places many people in the five boroughs in the state would consider. “We all want the same things: safety, family and opportunity.”
The immediate opportunity for him is a new job, as a lieutenant governor. It means leaving Congress, a prospect that added to the fears of Democrats, who were already concerned about losing control of the House after this fall’s midterm elections. He faced a tough battle for re-election in a district that would likely be more competitive than the one on the Democrat-drafted map struck down by the state’s highest court last week.
My colleagues Luis Ferré-Sadurní and Nicholas Fandos write that Delgado, 45, has shown that he can win elections, raise large sums of money and appeal to a wide range of voters. On Tuesday, a special state commission decided to add his name to the primary as the preferred Democratic candidate in the June caucuses, replacing former Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, who resigned last month after federal prosecutors in Manhattan unlocked bribery charges. .
Hochul chose Benjamin, a former black senator from Harlem, last summer when she ascended to the governor’s office after the resignation of former governor Andrew Cuomo. Born in Buffalo, she had been a lieutenant governor for a little over six and a half years. Like Delgado, she had served in Congress.
Before settling on Delgado, Hochul and her team also considered Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, and Vincent Alvarez, the chairman of the New York City Central Labor Council, as well as other Latino candidates, according to two known people with the process.
Delgado, a former corporate attorney who is black, said Tuesday he said he was well positioned to represent the city along with the rest of the state. And as a future running mate, he offered Hochul significant political attributes, including twice winning one of the country’s most competitive swing districts and fending off Republican opponents who called him a “big city rapper.”
He also proved to be a prolific fundraiser. He has nearly $6 million in his House campaign account, money he can spend on a lieutenant governor’s campaign.
In Congress, Delgado has largely avoided the partisan battles that dominate cable news; he rarely speaks to reporters. In the Lieutenant Governor’s primary, he faces two opponents, both Latina women: Diana Reyna, a former New York City Council member, and Ana María Archila, a progressive activist. His centrist credentials, combined with institutional party support, could allow him to push Reyna out of the moderate job she wanted to occupy.
Weather
Prepare for showers and possible thunderstorms early in the day, with temperatures in the mid-60s. At night there is a chance of showers with temperatures of the mid-50s.
parking on the other side
Suspended today (Eid al-Fitr).
State lawmakers pledge to protect access to abortion
In response to the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion quashing Roe v. Wade, Democratic leaders in Albany said they were working to make New York a safe haven for women seeking reproductive care.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said it was “a shame that the Supreme Court is poised to reverse the rights of women in this country” and that she expected to pass legislation to reaffirm abortion rights for the end of the session.
If the court overturns the 49-year-old decision, New York and other states that strongly support abortion rights could see a flood of people from states that have banned abortion. Manhattan state senator Liz Krueger has introduced a bill to protect New York doctors treating these patients by banning law enforcement officers from investigating out-of-state abortion cases.
Lights always shine brightly in New York, and many of them are old-fashioned incandescent bulbs—the round bulbs with filaments in the center that Thomas Edison would recognize.
Some New Yorkers don’t want to give them up.
“The government is trying to get us to not sell them,” said David Brooks, the owner of Just Bulbs, a store on the east side of Manhattan that — well, you just get out of it. “There’s really no good reason why you wouldn’t want to switch to LED, but a lot of customers are dinosaurs.”
Selling incandescent bulbs, which are less energy efficient than LEDs, is simply “giving them what they ask for,” Brooks said, adding that he had “scoured the corners of the earth to find the old lamps people want.”
His foraging may soon become more difficult. Last week, the Biden administration passed energy efficiency standards that would phase out most incandescent light bulbs — well-known household bulbs at least — next year. There are exceptions for many of the so-called specialty bulbs that Brooks keeps in stock.
LEDs already light up much of New York, just as they light much of the country. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services does not use light bulbs in its 55 city-owned buildings, including City Hall. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is converting fluorescent lamps on platforms into LEDs. It is also preparing the “transition” from light banks for track workers in tunnels to LEDs, a spokesman said.
The incandescent shift has been going on for years — a decade ago, DailyExpertNews said decorators were “picking up incandescent light bulbs like canned goods,” buying large quantities because they weren’t happy with the light from LEDs.
What you need to know about Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin
“They were pretty tough when they first came out,” said Catherine Zuber, the costume designer for productions like “Mrs. Doubtfire” on Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera’s current “Rigoletto.”
Now, she said, “They’re so much better than they were.” She recalled working on the musical “The Bridges of Madison County” in 2014 and struggled to get the wigs to look just right. “You thought you had a nice medium color range,” she recalled, “and it looked much darker on stage.”
Theatrical lighting designer Philip Rosenberg said the challenge was to “create the look of what we are used to”.
“In theaters, how the skin reacts to light is so important,” he said. “LED often presses red in a way that isn’t very flattering to actors. You should keep an eye on your gear and make sure you’ve mixed your colors in such a way that you’re friendly to skin tones. With incandescent bulbs, you would put gels in front of lights to find more flattering tones for a particular actor. Now you mix it on a computer.”
LEDs have also enabled museum curators to take a fresh look at paintings they know well. Amy Nelson, the lighting design manager at the Metropolitan Museum, said she reconsidered the painting “The Gulf Stream” after lighting it for the current show “Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents.”
By lighting it in the past, she would have counted two or three sharks in the water. Seeing it under LEDs made her wonder if there were maybe two or three more.
What we are reading
METROPOLITAN diary
Regular, a play in one short act
Dear Diary:
A convenience store at a gas station, Staten Island. Summer. Present.
TOM, a man in his mid-fifties, approaches the counter, where ATTENDANT, a man about 30 years his junior, stands behind the till, staring at his cell phone. TOM pulls out his wallet.
TOM
Thirty dollars, unleaded.
SERVICE
Normal?
TOM
It says “lead free,” but I guess, yeah…normal.
ATTENDANT stares at TOM, who hands him two twentys. OPERATION closes the sale.
TOM
You know, there used to be plain and lead-free. When you say normal, you mean lead-free. Normally lead-free. Unlike plus or premium. Although it says “lead free” on the pump… Normal, back in the day I think was lead free even though it wasn’t listed.
(Rhythm)
You’re too young to remember that.
TOM walks to the door.
SERVICE
Change.
TOM turns around. OPERATOR hands out a $10 bill. TOM takes it.
TOM
Thank you.
(Light goes out.)
— Tom Diriwachter
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here†
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — JB
PS Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and game match† Here you will find all our puzzles†
Melissa GuerreroJeff Boda and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday..
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