Monday, September 7, 2026 · No. 28
Good morning, Yorkville, and happy Labor Day. The news kept holiday hours this weekend, so today's paper is a lean one — but the week ahead is anything but quiet: the first school bell of the year rings Thursday morning, a city audit from last December has pointed things to say about the buses that will carry kids there, and a frozen-yogurt cult with a habit of drawing very long lines is headed our way. Also inside: what today's holiday pauses, and the day the river off Yorkville staged what was then the largest planned explosion the world had seen.
The Lead
The school year starts Thursday — enjoy three more slow mornings
The first day of the 2026–27 school year for New York City public schools is Thursday, September 10, per the DOE calendar as reported by Chalkbeat — a later-than-usual start, with Labor Day falling on September 7, the latest date it can fall. Fox 5 and PIX11 both note the year runs through late June 2027. For Yorkville households that means the summer-schedule era ends this week: three more unhurried mornings, then the school run returns.
via Chalkbeat New York
Schools & Kids
Before the buses roll: what the city's own audit says about school-bus delays
A New York City Comptroller audit released in December 2025 found the DOE's contracted school-bus operation marked by delays, missed routes and weak oversight of its vendors, per the Comptroller's report and BK Reader's coverage. Separately, parents told Fox 5 that the bus-tracking app families are told to rely on is often unreliable. If your child rides a yellow bus Thursday, consider this your nudge to build in slack — and to note the route number and bus company if things go sideways.
via NYC Comptroller
Openings & Closings
MYKA, the Greek fro-yo with the famous lines, is coming to the UES
MYKA, the Madrid-founded Greek frozen-yogurt chain whose West Village and Rockefeller Center shops are known for very long lines, is planning an Upper East Side outpost, per Upper East Site; Patch also reports the expansion. Neither outlet has an address or an opening date yet, so where exactly the line will form remains to be seen — we'll report the corner when it's public.
via Upper East Site
This Week
Holiday housekeeping: no alternate-side or trash pickup today
It's Labor Day, so alternate-side parking is suspended today, per DOT's 2026 parking calendar, and DSNY's holiday schedule pauses trash, recycling and compost collection, resuming on the next scheduled collection day. Alternate-side rules return tomorrow.
via NYC DSNY / DOT
Yorkville, Remembered
Yorkville blew up the East River's worst reef
The stretch of East River off Yorkville was long the site of Hell Gate, a narrow tidal strait so choked with rocks and converging currents that it caused numerous shipwrecks and impeded shipping for generations. On October 10, 1885, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detonated Flood Rock - one of Hell Gate's worst hazards - after nearly a decade spent mining tunnels beneath it and packing them with hundreds of thousands of pounds of explosives. It was, at the time, the largest planned explosion the world had ever seen, watched by tens of thousands of spectators along the shore.
source: Wikipedia
One more thing: today is the unofficial last day of summer, and Yorkville should spend it accordingly — a slow walk on the esplanade, a long sit in Carl Schurz, an ice cream eaten with no particular place to be. The season of lines, bells and buses starts bright and early Thursday. You have until then.