Hell Gate

Every year, Hell Gate updates our readers on how our efforts to bring worker-owned local news to New York City is going. This year’s news is very good: Our independent newsroom is continuing to grow, thanks to our supporters who fund it. Read the full report at the link in our bio, and please, subscribe today during our BIGGEST SALE EVER!

Lawyers representing the City of New York told a judge yesterday that NYPD Commissioner's decision not to discipline the cop who killed Allan Feliz in 2019 cannot be reviewed in court. Link in bio.

The broken process to beocming a judge in New York City has proven stubbornly resistant to even modest reform. Short of a convention-floor rebellion or a massive, coordinated organizing effort to elect truly independent judicial delegates or district leaders, the status quo remains. So how does an aspiring judge gain a foothold under this status quo? And, once on the bench, what might they owe the bosses for their support? The latest entry from our COURTS OF CONTEMPT investigation. Dig in!

Photographer Destiny Mata is a "Teja Yorker"—she was born in Texas, but grew up on Manhattan's Avenue D in the Lillian Wald houses. She remembers going to her first punk show in middle school at Tompkins Square Park, where she saw a crust punk band called Choking Victim. "That opened my eyes to issues in society—in between sets, the bands would talk about whatever political things were happening in our neighborhood," Mata told Hell Gate. "They'd have these little interludes that really impacted me at a young age, and taught me about being in community, and people power." While she was at the show, she took photos with a disposable camera. Mata had a grandfather who was a wedding photographer, and an aunt who was a fashion photographer. But it wasn't until a college course at LaGuardia Community College that Mata says she "started to flip the camera on myself and my life, my friends and family." The combination of those impulses—to photograph her community and the concerts she was going to—led her to begin documenting punks of color. "I didn't feel super welcome," at most punk shows back then, "because I was one of few Black or brown people in the crowd," Mata said. "There were like, two of us." Now, she says, the floors at punk shows are full of photographers. "Which is amazing, because it shows that the scene has grown," Mata said. "But I'm just in the shadows now." This month Mata released the second edition of "The Way We Were," her book of photographs documenting New York's Black and brown punks, an update of a collection that first came out in 2021. The mosh pit pictures are full of euphoria and flailing limbs, and interspersed with stately portraits of New York's pierced, hair gelled, and militant punks of color. Read all of Mata's recommendations at the link in our bio!

In late April, when the Durst Organization sold the building that houses the legendary Times Square bar Jimmy's Corner, the bar's owner Adam Glenn, son of the eponymous Jimmy, thought that the sale might lead to a fresh start with their new landlord, allow the saloon to remain where it has been since 1971. Back in December, Glenn sued the Durst Organization for discrimination and fraud, claiming the developers tricked his aging, ailing father into agreeing to predatory terms in a series of lease modifications prior to his father's death in 2020. (The entire situation was complicated by the fact that Jimmy, by multiple accounts, was at one time extremely close with the Durst family.) While the Durst Organization had been trying since 2023 to evict the bar, perhaps these new owners could be persuaded to preserve it. "I was hopeful we could sit down and have a conversation," Glenn said of his new landlords, Ben-Josef Holdings Group. Unfortunately for those who love Jimmy's Corner, that does not appear to be the case. Read our full report thru the link in the bio.

Hell Gate was in the courtroom yesterday as former Supreme Court Justice Edward Harold King and alleged fraudster Yechiel "Sam" Sprei were arraigned on federal wire fraud charges. Link in bio.

Scenes from the sold-out Hell Gate Judicial Convention held at Littlefield last week—a night of inspired debate, politicking, and light graft to celebrate the release of Courts of Contempt, our investigation into the machinations of New York's broken judicial system. For the past year, Hell Gate and Type Investigations have been working the phones, haunting courtrooms, hanging out in strange outer borough political clubhouses, and filing endless requests for transcripts to produce the long-awaited follow-up to our award-winning collaboration, The Eric Adams Table of Success. Each ticket came with one free copy of our extremely limited-edition Courts of Contempt zine! Yes, Hell Gate is in print! Want a chance to attend sold-out events like these? Become a subscriber today! Link in bio. Shot and Edited by @scottheins

"VENUS VICTORIA" is impossible to miss. The statue's splayed limbs, canary yellow heels, and brazen, peachy nakedness drew the eyes of several admirers—and a few skeptics—on Thursday morning outside the New Museum, where she will hold court for the next two years. The sculpture, by British sculptor Sarah Lucas, is the first to grace the new plaza in front of the recently renovated New Museum building, which reopened in March to mixed reviews (though per our own Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, its new exhibit, at least, is awesome). Lucas's latest work depicts a shiny, bulbous, faceless female figure, her chest hanging low and her legs kicked up, reclining suggestively on a concrete washing machine. She's supposed to look like a balloon animal, maybe, or she's a callback to Lucas's previous work, wherein the artist crafted similar slouchy, suggestive, feminine figures using stuffed pairs of pantyhose. Before the New Museum even opened its doors Thursday, "VENUS VICTORIA" had already starred in several iPhone photos, been the subject of mumbled conversations, and the object of plenty of furtive glances. "I feel bad for my first thought, which was, 'Wow, they'll just put any shit up,'" Raoul, a Brooklyn resident who happened upon "VENUS VICTORIA" on his morning cigarette break, said with a laugh. But upon reflection, he continued, the spectacle grew on him. "I would say it represents chaos—a woman in chaos," he said. Lydia Panas, a photographer and painter, said she traveled to the New Museum with the express purpose of paying "VENUS VICTORIA" a visit. "I love it! It's educational, it makes people think, it makes people talk about art, it might be a little uncomfortable—not to me, but to some," she said, adding, "I wish this"—meaning large-scale public art— "would happen more often."

For this week's $20 Dinner, @scoboco urges you to run, not walk, to @golden_taquitos1.nyc for the best torta you will eat all year. Scott calls it "a glorious beast stuffed with tortilla chips, salty queso fresco, loads of avocado, peppy red (or green) sauce, and sour cream for some tang. And the bread is lovely, a soft roll that somehow holds up nicely under the onslaught. I upgraded mine with some terrific funky chorizo and I suggest you do the same. But either way, this is truly a sandwich for the ages." Full story at the link in our bio!

The story we've been working on for months, linking alleged multimillion-dollar scammers, state judges, and a Brooklyn Democratic Party power broker is breaking containment. Today federal agents arrested a local businessman and a recently resigned state judge. Link in bio!

All rise…for the Hell Gate Trial Subscription sale! Pay just $4.99 for your first four months of a Supporter-level monthly subscription, and then just $9.99 per month after that. Plus, we'll send you a limited-edition zine version of the Courts of Contempt—totally free. Act now! Act fast! Act expediently! Link to sale in bio!

There's not a ton for adults to do at the Intrepid Museum, the military museum housed on the U.S.S. Intrepid, the aircraft carrier permanently docked off Manhattan's West Side. You can only get so much mileage out of promenading on the carrier's deck, milling around the "space shuttle pavilion," or smiling politely for one of the museum's many mandatory photo ops, which are required, theme-park style, to enter certain spaces. (The aircraft elevator demonstration, which happens every two hours, is a particular low point.) But the museum was the perfect setting for a conversation the corrosive impact of the U.S. military on American masculinity (even in New York City) with Jasper Craven, author of "God Forgives, Brothers Don't." "What's sort of surprising to me is that the military continues to be blindly, broadly declared as a remedial force for dysfunctional men, but often, what it does is just churn out dysfunctional, fucked-up men," Craven said, as we half-looked at the various planes parked on the Intrepid's deck. An older man in glasses with close-cropped hair overheard him, and turned around to give us an extremely dirty look. "Military museums are basically just here to serve as recruitment tools," Craven added. Read the full rundown through the link in the bio.