Tech:NYC Digest: June 23

Tech:NYC Digest: June 23

June 23, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Thursday, June 23, 2022 

In today’s digest, SCOTUS throws out New York gun restrictions, how the MTA plans to increase station accessibility, and why mixing where you work and live could be the RTO solution NYC needs.  

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By the numbers:  

  • New positive cases statewide: 6,277 

    • New positive cases, NYC: 3,469

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 4.1 percent (-0.3 percent)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress:

    • New Yorkers with at least one dose: 90.9 percent

    • New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 77.6 percent

In today’s latest: 

  • The US Supreme Court struck down a New York law that requires people show “proper cause” to carry a concealed weapon in public, voting 6-3 that it violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution. (Washington Post)

    • Both Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul, along with several other local officials, responded by pledging to limit its impact in New York. (Axios) Gov. Hochul said she plans to call a special session of the state legislature to consider new laws in response to the ruling.

    • The NYC Council is also exploring a law that would declare any area with more than 10,000 people per square mile — so, essentially all of NYC — a “sensitive location” in which gun-free zones could be enforced. (THE CITY)

  • Nearly one in five American adults who reported having COVID-19 in the past are still having symptoms of long COVID, according to survey data collected in the first two weeks of June. (Reuters)

  • Mayor Eric Adams has not enforced the city’s coronavirus vaccine mandate for employees at private businesses, and his office confirmed it has no plans to begin inspecting businesses or fining those not in compliance. (Newsday)

  • The MTA will add elevators and ramps to 95 percent of the subway’s stations to make them fully accessible by 2055, up from the 27 percent of stations that currently have them. (New York Times)

In other reading:

  • The Supreme Court Just Made the NYPD’s Jobs Harder (The Atlantic)

  • Yes, you should still test for COVID before going to a gathering (Vox)

  • The Rise of the 0.5 Selfie (New York Times)

NYC is making noticeable strides toward its economic recovery, and if you’re Mayor Eric Adams, RTO is a key solution to jumpstarting it even further.

  • But most tech companies are now approaching at least six months of experience with their hybrid workplace models — and learning it may not be the perfect compromise they think it is. 

If relying on employees to opt into office time isn’t working, shifting strategy to mix where they live and work just might, writes THE CITY.

  • While only a fraction of midtown Manhattan is occupied on any given weekday, Brooklyn is experiencing something of a boomlet. The borough lost slightly fewer jobs than the city as a whole during the pandemic and recovered them at a faster pace, as well.

  • Randy Peers, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said, “If you were an office worker who worked in Manhattan but lived in Brooklyn, working from home benefited our commercial communities as those workers shopped in the neighborhoods.”

That idea — how to channel post-pandemic office use to the benefit of business districts, and vice versa — is one being taken up by a new panel co-convened by Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul. The group will present recommendations by October.

  • Co-chaired by former Sidewalk Labs CEO Daniel Doctoroff, Tech:NYC founder Julie Samuels, BlocPower CEO Donnel Baird, Union Square Ventures Fred Wilson, and other tech leaders have been tapped to weigh in.

We’ve heard from several executives in our network, and many of them have emphasized that much of what shapes their RTO policies is what happens outside the office.

  • A poll conducted last month found that 94 percent of NYC employees don’t think enough is being done to address homelessness, gun violence, sanitation, and other “quality of life” issues that make commuting to an office even less appealing.

Our takeaway: Getting workers back to the office — and excited to do so — will require city leaders to restore a sense of safety and vibrancy. That’s no small task, and the most successful ideas will surface when companies join them in making that a priority, too.

In other reading:

  • Hybrid Work Meetings Are Hell. Tech Is Trying to Fix Them. (Wall Street Journal)

  • How to live with title inflation (Axios)

  • Forget the remote vs in-office debate, we need a personalized approach (The Next Web)

  • Keyway, a New York-based commercial real estate technology platform, raised $25 million in Series A funding. Camber Creek led the round and was joined by Canvas Ventures, Crosscut, Montage Ventures, Thomvest, and Parker89. (Commercial Observer)

  • June 29: In-person: AMA with Primetime Partners co-founder and chairperson Alan Patricof, with Betaworks CEO John Borthwick. Hosted by Beatworks Studios. Register here.

  • July 19: In-person: Bloomberg Crypto Summit, with FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Uniswap Labs COO Mary-Catherine Lader, Grayscale chief legal officer Craig Salm, and others. Hosted by Bloomberg. Register here.

  • July 20: In-person: The City’s Path to Becoming the World’s Crypto Capital, with New York State Dept. of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris, eToro US CEO Lule Demmissie, Genesis CEO Michael Moro, and others. Hosted by City & State. Register here.

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