Senior Reporter @TheCityNY. Co-author of "Rikers: An Oral History" Denver native.
Brooklyn, NY
Joined July 2011
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Super excited to announce the preorder sale page for "Rikers: An Oral History." @graham_rayman and I have spent the past two plus years interviewing everyone from COs to commissioners to mental health clinicians. They've shared some harrowing stories.
penguinrandomhouse.com/books…
reuvenblau.bsky.social retweeted
“The Schneps Union accused bosses of retaliating against a staffer who had been prominent in efforts to organize New York’s biggest chain of local newspapers” thecityreporter.nyc/2026/11/…
Breaking: A 36-year-old Rikers detainee was found dead in his bed Tuesday morning. He's the eighth person to die in NYC jail custody so far this year.
thecityreporter.nyc/2026/11/…
reuvenblau.bsky.social retweeted
.@AdrienneEAdams is the lieutenant governor-elect and the first former city council speaker to be elected to anything after, breaking the curse
I was going for “serious investigative journalist.” Apparently, I gave off more “kidnapped local news reporter” vibes. Still working on the video thing 🥴 Meanwhile, 68 @NYCParks bathrooms remain closed. Some for decades. instagram.com/reel/DfKUoFvJm…
During the peak of the pandemic, I reported that in the German city of Bremen, the government gave incentives of 50 to 100 euros a month to restaurants and other businesses that opened their bathrooms to the public.
thecityreporter.nyc/2020/08/…
As a lawmaker, @MarkLevineNYC held a hearing on the city’s broken park bathrooms but didn’t want to discuss the prefab potty he funded. That one was supposed to be faster and cheaper. But 4 years later, the price has spiked to $3.5M w/no contractor. thecityreporter.nyc/2026/03/…
Years ago @MarkLevineNYC held hearings on NYC's toilet apocalypse: Insane costs, long timelines, few toilets
Then @hknightsf made national news on SF's "Million Dollar Toilet" scandal
Now NYC's toilets are hitting $7M. How do we fix subway procurement if we can't do toilets?
I FOILed for the number of closed public bathrooms in city parks. The data showed some have been shuttered so long the city couldn’t remember when they were last open. The total? 68. Some have no plans for repairs. The average cost? $5 to $7 million.
thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/…
National reporters: Broncos lose.
@BrandonPerna : Broncos win.
Final: Broncos 17, Seahawks 14.
Never doubt the local guy. 🐴
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New: A Manhattan Criminal Court judge held up his own handgun in court, secretly swapped it for a stapler in a bag, then questioned a testifying cop about the “gun.” The state judicial conduct commission says Jeffrey Gershuny should be censured.
documentcloud.org/documents/…
Police reform? In 2019, Sal Albanese a former City Council member serving on the Charter Revision Commission, twice voted against a proposal to make it possible for a civilian oversight board to fire lying cops. And the PBA collected $376,597 for a PAC for his last campaign.
political reality that some won’t like! Crowd control at demonstrations will still have to be policed by @NYPDnews if not by SRG another group. @tiffany_caban said it best in the @nytimes police “reform” is difficult to achieve because there’s no public support for it. Citizens want police presence in their neighborhood.
Things that can be achieved are: appointing a new Commissioner at right time (I was against Tisch being appointed by Adams on the grounds she’s not qualified for the job).
Having mental health professionals respond to people in mental health crises with officers as backup in case it turns violent (of course the nuts & bolts of finding, training & compensating people who can do this work is difficult)
Let’s stop recruiting candidates & pushing them through the academy who are not qualified to police a complex City like NY just bc u need bodies.
It’s also true that there are a tiny % of people who unwisely want the police to disappear & will never be satisfied with any reform. Nothing u can do about that.
reuvenblau.bsky.social retweeted
Rozario’s mother addressed the mayor directly: “You came to my home and said you would be a different kind of mayor. We feel betrayed by you. Jessica Tisch ... let Alongi retire without a trial. It seems like you are just letting this happen.” thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/…
"A cop facing misconduct charges in the 2024 death of a Queens teenager experiencing a mental health crisis will dodge a disciplinary trial because the NYPD failed to notify the police oversight panel he had put in his papers to retire." — @Gregbsmithnyc
thecityreporter.nyc/2026/10/…
How’s reforming Rikers Island going? “The Department has remained mired in dysfunction such that the constitutional violations that underpin the (case) persist, and in some cases, may have worsened,” a new report by the federal monitor says.
tillidgroup.com/wp-content/u…
New: A city detainee suffering from clear signs of medical distress waited for roughly 3 ½ hours in a Rikers Island clinic holding pen without being seen because jail officers didn’t tell medical staff he was experiencing a medical emergency, BOC reports.
documentcloud.org/documents/…
One of the few success stories. Brian Kendall’s sister reached out to me after I first wrote about his case pending before the Brooklyn Conviction Review Unit for three years. At first, I couldn’t get much information about what had happened. Hype video:
youtube.com/watch?v=wiFAv9L5…
