Jayleen Torres
The manager of Shanghai Mong, an Asian fusion restaurant located in the heart of Manhattan’s Koreatown, said that their outdoor dining structure is important for business.
The city’s Dining Out NYC program creates new rules restaurants must follow when offering sidewalk or roadway seating, which go into effect Aug. 3. CLARIFY News’ student reporters spoke to restaurant owners and employees near Midtown about their outdoor dining setups.
Since 2014, City Limits has run a paid internship program to train New York City high school students in public service journalism. Read more about our latest CLARIFY News reporters, who are investigating Mayor Eric Adams’ progress on housing and homelessness halfway through his term.
Workers, especially people of color and immigrants, are suffering in increasingly hot weather. But some advocates and lawmakers have solutions.
“People are bringing it up, people are talking about it and thinking about what can be done, but I don’t know that that has translated very well into action yet,” said Victoria Sanders, research analyst at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “We really want to see actions starting to play out.”
Extreme heat from climate change has the potential to exacerbate racial disparities in the five boroughs’ maternal health outcomes. Still, climate change and maternal health often remain two separate policy conversations, both locally and nationally.
The City Limits Accountability Reporting Initiative for Youth (CLARIFY), in partnership with NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), is working with two dozen talented high school and early college students from across the five boroughs.
“Extreme heat is not an isolated issue. It is intertwined with other injustices like urban development and racist infrastructure,” said Rami Dinnawi, a representative from the community human rights organization El Puente de Williamsburg. “We need to support community-led initiatives on mitigating the effect of extreme heat.”
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