Good morning. It's Wednesday, and it's Valentine's Day. We'll look at a workplace that is expecting a busier-than-usual day today. We'll also check two kinds of statistics that were measured yesterday.
Michael McSweeney said today would be busier than usual in his workplace — "for a Wednesday." His workplace is the Manhattan Marriage Bureau, where couples bring bouquets, hope and a marriage license — and where he said Fridays are always the busiest day of the week. What about Valentine's Day? "Bigger than the average Wednesday," said McSweeney, who is the City Clerk and also holds the title Clerk of the City Council. All the time slots for today have been booked, which means that 125 ceremonies, at $25 each, will be conducted in Manhattan. "If everybody shows up," he added. There will be more weddings in the marriage bureaus in the other boroughs. But the Manhattan one, at 141 Worth Street, is where couples go when they say they are going to City Hall to get married. (City Hall itself is a third of a mile away.) "Nothing stops l'amour, which I believe is a movie line," McSweeney said. "I use that line all the time. I forget which movie." L'amour may or may not have slowed during the pandemic, though the marriage process did. The city issued 70,244 marriage licenses last year, up from 36,142 in 2020, when, like many stores and other public places, the Marriage Bureau was ordered closed in March. For the next 15 months, the bureau issued marriage licenses online. It also worked out a system for online weddings until Gov. Andrew Cuomo lifted an executive order that had permitted them. The Marriage Bureau still requires couples to make appointments for their ceremonies. Doing so "limits the big rushes that we used to have when everybody would come or there would be a last-minute surge at the end of the day," McSweeney said. The bureau moved in 15 years ago after a $12.3 million renovation (the equivalent of about $16.52 million now). The desire for newer, nicer quarters to replace its rather rundown home in the Municipal Building was sparked by competitiveness: Las Vegas had become too popular among "I doers." Weddings in New York had fallen off. So the city arranged to move the Manhattan Marriage Bureau to a former motor vehicle office in what is known as the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, a fortress from the 1930s. The city also enlisted the designer who had done Madonna's home in Los Angeles and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's townhouse on the Upper East Side. The renovation brought back couples looking to legalize their love. In 2018, the city announced it would repurpose the building as one of the borough-based jails intended to replace the troubled Rikers Island complex, but that plan was eventually abandoned.
McSweeney said he had no plans to stay late at the office tonight. "I'm usually the last person to leave," he said, "but I don't expect that we'll have to work overtime." How will he spend Valentine's Day? With his wife, whom he married 16 years ago, not at the Marriage Bureau but in a church. "I think we're going to have a nice, quiet dinner at home," he said. Democrats flip Santos's seatTom Suozzi, a Democrat and a former three-term congressman, won the closely watched special House election for the seat that had been held by George Santos until the House expelled him in December. Suozzi's victory offers his party a potential path in November as it contests suburban swing districts like the one he will represent, which includes parts of Queens and Nassau County, on Long Island. He defeated Mazi Pilip, a first-time candidate who ran as a Republican even though she is a registered Democrat.
"It's time to move beyond the petty partisan bickering and the finger-pointing," Suozzi told a crowd that cheered his victory. "It's time to talk about how to solve the problems," he added, mentioning immigration, one of the issues that had defined the race. "It's time to find common ground." Suozzi's victory will have immediate consequences in the House, where Republicans will outnumber Democrats, 219 to 213, once he is sworn in. That will mean that Speaker Mike Johnson cannot afford to lose more than two votes on any bill, a tight margin that could crimp Republicans' election-year legislative agenda. WEATHER Expect temperatures in the mid-30s on a sunny, breezy day. The wind will ease slightly tonight, but slushy spots could freeze over as temperatures drop into the mid-20s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING Suspended today (Ash Wednesday).
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METROPOLITAN DIARY Naked city
Dear Diary: It was the early 1990s, and I was a young law firm associate living in a Manhattan apartment building. One night, after getting home from work around midnight, I decided to take my trash to the compactor room down the hall. As I pushed the door to the room open, I heard a woman scream. I jumped back and asked whether she was OK. "Yes," she said, "but I'm naked." "Why are you naked?" I asked. "I didn't think anyone would be out in the hall at this time," she replied. "Can you step back and then close your eyes so I can run back to my apartment?" "Sure," I said. I stepped back and closed my eyes. I heard a door open. "I'm in," she said. Garbage gone, integrity preserved. — Hymie Kindler Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Francis Mateo, Susan C. Beachy, Patrick McGeehan, Andy Newman and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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Wednesday, February 14, 2024
N.Y. Today: A big day for City Hall weddings
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