By Mukesh 
Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’ll look at Airbnb’s latest gambit in its fight to operate in New York City. We’ll also get details on why an emergency alert system for private and independent schools went silent earlier this year.
You can find Airbnbs in Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, but it’s a lot tougher in New York City. The home-sharing conglomerate has largely been shut out after a string of losses in its fight with the union representing hotel workers, which sees Airbnb rentals as a threat to occupancy rates and its members’ jobs.
My colleagues Maya King and Sally Goldenberg write that Airbnb has renewed its campaign to loosen the city’s restrictions on short-term rentals and has sought the support of Black ministers in the hope that they will back Black homeowners who want to offer short-term rentals. I asked Maya to explain what’s at issue.
This sounds like a David-and-Goliath story, with Airbnb as Goliath, trying to open a new front in its fight to operate in New York City by reaching out to Black church leaders.
Airbnb has tried to make inroads with nearly every important stakeholder group in the city. The FIFA World Cup gives them an opening to draw attention to an event that’s going to bring tourists to the city and to an ongoing story that we’ve covered, of longtime middle-class Black New Yorkers who are being priced out of the city and having to leave.
This is one of the stories that is defining Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration and this moment in city politics. It’s also another test of his relationship with Black New Yorkers. And it’s about how much power large corporations have and how much impact they have on regular people.
You called it David vs. Goliath. I think that is an apt comparison.
The City Council bill that Airbnb is backing has only four sponsors and seems unlikely to pass — certainly not in time for the World Cup. What’s Airbnb’s strategy? It looks like they’re going to lose.
When I spoke to the policy chief at Airbnb, he recognized that the timing was not necessarily in their favor. But the World Cup offered an opportunity for them to draw attention to the way a big event with lots of tourists could increase revenue for people other than hotel owners.
That’s been Airbnb’s message for years.
A lot of opponents see a slippery slope here. If you allow a corporation as big and as powerful as Airbnb to get a foothold, it will push beyond short-term relief and raise the possibility of long-term changes in housing policy.
So the fear is about what’s beyond just the World Cup?
And in the minds of Black pastors and community leaders who are on both sides of the issue, it’s a question of what’s going to make homeownership and life more affordable for Black New Yorkers who are struggling right now.
The first way to build wealth in the city is to buy a home. That’s what a lot of Black New Yorkers did. Now, with property taxes possibly going up under Mayor Mamdani and the neighborhoods they live in changing and becoming less affordable, many are leaving. So neighborhoods that were once Black strongholds — Black political strongholds — no longer are.
Is Airbnb getting anywhere? Is Airbnb winning over Black ministers — and, by extension, their parishioners?
A few. I think for those who really believe that extra income could keep Black households afloat, it’s a salient point that Airbnb is making.
The most important thing Airbnb has to contend with is the power of the hotel workers’ union.
What has the hotel workers’ union done to counter the Airbnb lobbying? Is the union’s concern that the World Cup will be a bust?
I don’t think they think it’s going to be a bust, but they believe that politics is on their side. The union has a lot of allies. The mayor, the speaker of the City Council, even the governor — these are all people who have sided with the union.
The union feels it has the resources to stay the course even though it has less money and fewer big lobbyists. It still punches above its weight. It has about 40,000 members, which is relatively small as unions in New York go, but it represents a really important voting group.
What about Mamdani? He tangled with the hotel workers’ union during the campaign, and then he upset some Black homeowners over property taxes.
It’s true that during the primary the hotel union endorsed his main opponent, Andrew Cuomo, and that Airbnb waged a digital campaign against Mamdani and two other candidates.
But I think it’s clear now, especially in the midst of the back-and-forth between the union and Airbnb, that the mayor is clearly on the side of the union. I think that’s in line with his overall approach to real estate interests and the enduring belief among opponents of Airbnb that allowing it to have a foothold in the city would create an opening for more real estate power, which would price out working New Yorkers.
Weather
Today will be mostly cloudy and breezy with temperatures near 71. Showers are likely tonight as temperatures settle near 55.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until Thursday (Solemnity of the Ascension).
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“What I am interested in is, quite literally, grounding you in what might be right below your feet that you might not be aware of.” — The artist Maya Lin, on her latest creation, the stone facade on the western walls of the 60-story JPMorgan Chase skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan.
Starting in 2024, the city’s emergency management agency operated a communications network that alerted private schools to nearby emergencies.
The messages stopped coming early this year. Parents like Sarah Feinberg and officials like Tom Palermo, a facilities director at a different private school from the one Feinberg’s daughter had attended, wondered why.
Last month, they got an answer: The emergency management agency said by email, “We needed to rededicate staff hours to preparing messaging in 14 different languages for a huge number of events,” including the World Cup.
City officials said that it was difficult to put a price tag on the program. But the email said that the notifications for private schools had taken 10 to 15 percent of the staff members’ time on Notify NYC, the citywide system that warns New Yorkers of dangerous conditions like hurricanes.
The alert system for private schools was never widely adopted. But it represented a potential solution to what advocates had regarded as a gap in the city’s emergency communications system. My colleague Matthew Haag writes that the emergency management agency indicated, after inquiries from The New York Times, that it was keeping the door open to resurrecting it.
METROPOLITAN diary
Wrapped up
Dear Diary:
Late one night after I moved to Manhattan from the rural South in 1989, I was riding the No. 6 train home from my job at Mortimer’s when I sat down across from what appeared to be a man completely wrapped in a sheet and lying across several seats.
He was wrapped so tightly that there seemed to be no way he could have done it himself.
I couldn’t discern any movement. Not a breath. Not a sound. Did he need help? Was he dead? Was this performance art? What should I do?
No one else seemed to be paying any attention, but my agitation must have been visible, because finally, an impeccably dressed older woman wearing white gloves and a hat with a lace veil leaned toward me.
“I don’t think he wants to be disturbed,” she said.
— Brian McMaster
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.