New York Today: The Ex-Mayors

Top: Associated Press, Underwood & Underwood.nBottom: The New York Times, Barton Silverman/The New York Times What they did later: Mayors Dinkins, Mitchel, Lindsay and Hylan, clockwise from upper left.

What do New York City mayors do after leaving office?

Among the billionaire-befitting ventures awaiting Michael R. Bloomberg, whose terms expires at year’s end, is a job running the Serpentine Gallery in London.

David N. Dinkins is plugging his new memoir (he reads at Hunter College on Monday).

Others go on to stranger second acts.

Mayor John F. Hylan (1918-25) was appointed to Children’s Court by his successor, so that “the children now can be tried by their peer.”

John Purroy Mitchel (1914-17) fell out of a plane and died during a training exercise.

John V. Lindsay (1966-73) played a senator in an Otto Preminger movie and wrote a would-be political thriller.

The New York Times called it “as dead-serious as a $100-a-plate dinner of gray meat and frozen candidates’ smiles.”

And William Frederick Havemeyer could not get away from City Hall.

After he was pushed out in 1846, he won again in 1848.

Then, after two decades running a bank and leading abolition efforts, he returned to office in 1872.

There, he died.

Here’s what else you need to know for Thursday.

WEATHER

They pulled this one out of a hat: Sprinkles, then patchy fog, then cloudy, gradually becoming mostly sunny with a high of 72, but with a chance of showers again by nightfall.

Tomorrow’s forecast is much less confusing: sun.

COMMUTE

Subways: Fine so far. Click for latest status.

Rails: All O.K. Click for L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: No major delays. Click for traffic map or radio report on the 1s.

Alternate-side parking is suspended for Id al-Adha, but back in effect tomorrow.

COMING UP TODAY

- Campaigning: Joseph J. Lhota visits a Jewish community center and a yeshiva in the Rockaways and attends the Empire State Pride Agenda dinner.

- Bill de Blasio speaks at a rally to “end health care inequality.”

- Get your fiscal act together with a day of financial-planning workshops at the public library branch at Madison Avenue and 34th Street. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. [Free]

- Stephen Colbert gives the keynote speech at the Al Smith dinner, a Catholic charity fund-raiser that often doubles as a political campaign stop.

- The political cartoonist R.O. Blechman talks with Victor Navasky at the School of Visual Arts on East 23rd Street. 7 p.m. [Free]

- Grownups only: cocktails and conversation with Daniel Bergner, author of “What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire” at Babeland in Brooklyn. 7 p.m. [Free]

- A night of poetry readings and ukulele music at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. 7 p.m. [$5]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- Newark’s mayor, Cory A. Booker, was elected to the United States Senate. [New York Times]

- Drink deep: the eternally-under-construction Water Tunnel No. 3 now serves all of Manhattan. [New York Times]

- The man who raped a 74-year-old bird-watcher in Central Park was sentenced to 30 years. [New York Times]

- Gridlock Sam exposes a clever parking scam involving a fire hydrant and an orange barrel. [Downtown Express]

- The latest Banksy street-artwork is an imperious-looking fiberglass Ronald McDonald in the South Bronx. It comes with a live shoeshine boy. [Village Voice]

- There have been lots of bald eagle sightings on Staten Island lately. [Staten Island Advance]

- An online sonic museum, “The Roaring ‘Twenties,” lets you hear what New York City sounded like back in the day. [via Gizmodo]

AND FINALLY…

Speaking of sonic archives:

Twenty-five years ago this week, one of the city’s iconic alternative rock bands, Sonic Youth, released “Daydream Nation.”

Recorded in Soho, it is regarded as the group’s best release and one of the most important indie rock albums ever.

“It is rock-and-roll at its best: raw, metallically beautiful and funny, and at times completely dumb,” Peter Watrous wrote in his review in The New York Times.

Sonic Youth soon signed to a major label, signaling its transition from underground act to leading figures in ’90s alternative rock.

Ben French and Sandra E. Garcia contributed reporting.

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