Watch Live: New Year’s Eve in Times Square

Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One!

If you aren’t reveling in Times Square this chilly evening, watch a live broadcast of the celebration here. Anderson Cooper will provide hourly countdowns and musical guests Miley Cyrus, Macklemore, Blondie, Melissa Etheridge and others will be twerking and twirling until the confetti rains down at midnight.

At 11:59 p.m., Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be the first United States Supreme Court judge to press the button that will lower the 12-foot-wide, 11,875-pound geodesic sphere covered in 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles.

Inside the ball, more than 30,000 LEDs will be lit by the New York City power grid with a little help from visitors to Times Square. Over three days, 2,194 riders mounted stationery Citi Bikes connected to 12-volt, deep-cycle batteries, which generated 1,967 watts, or enough energy to keep the LEDs glowing for about three minutes.

If you are planning to enter the fray in Times Square, take note of the entry points and that there will not be access to public restrooms. You can also download the free Times Square Ball app to stay up to the second.

Happy New Year everybody!

Monitoring Elections Could Kill You. Well, Sort Of.

Maybe it’s true, after all. There really was a lot of deadwood at the city’s much-maligned Board of Elections. Or perhaps all that pressure massaging the balky new electronic machines was too much. Or the thousands of openings for $200-a-day election inspectors on Election Days just happen to attract a high number of older retirees.

Whatever the reason, a disproportionately large number of election workers have died in the last two years, at least compared with other municipal employees. (The Board of Elections was the subject of a 70-page report issued on Monday by the city’s Department of Investigation that highlighted deficiencies, including cases of nepotism, and recommended improvements in training and hiring, among other steps.)

In recent weeks, the City Record, the official municipal journal, has added an unusual category - deceased â€" to its daily list of personnel changes, which typically details appointments, resignations and promotions.

Historically, political bosses have been accused of casting phantom ballots by “voting the cemetery.” There are fewer known cases of zombie election inspectors, though.

A board spokeswoman, Valerie Vazquez, insists that all the inspectors listed in the City Record as deceased were, indeed, once alive and that none got paid for poll watching after he or she died.

What happened, she said, was that in 2010, the Internal Revenue Service determined that per diem employees - such as Election Day inspectors â€" could not be considered independent contractors. So more than 60,000 names, or about two years’ worth of inspectors, were fed into the city’s Automated Personnel System computers. When their names were finally matched with their Social Security numbers, it turned out that 843 had died, she said.

“They weren’t on the payroll; they were only paid if they worked on Election Day,” Ms. Vazquez said. “It wasn’t a question of their being deceased and still getting paid.”

A New Year’s Tradition’s Last Ear-Splitting Blast

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Conrad Milster, the chief engineer at Pratt Institute, in an engine room on campus in May.

A longstanding Brooklyn tradition might end tonight with a blast - literally.

Since 1965, Conrad Milster, the chief engineer at Pratt Institute in Fort Greene, has blown in the new year with his private collection of steam whistles. But the loud whistles marking the start of 2014 might be the last to be heard.

Pratt does not sponsor the event; the campus is closed for winter break, and most if not all students have deserted it. Yet as the night wanes each Dec. 31, hundreds of local residents and whistle aficionados have gathered in the institute’s art-filled quad to hear just after midnight the clarion calls of bygone days: a ship entering the harbor or a train leaving the station.

Mr. Milster, 77, attaches a dozen whistles to a pipe outside the school’s power plant. When he pulls a cord, steam pours through a whistle’s opening, creating its own distinctive tone. Stand close enough and you’ll be enveloped in a hot cloud so thick you can’t see a thing. You’ll want to cover your ears, too, as even the smallest whistle can be heard for miles.

Keith Williams for The New York Times The steam whistle from the S.S. Normandie.

Included in Mr. Milster’s collection is his first whistle, a five-tone device he bought from the Lackawanna Railroad after high school.

“When I bought the Lackawanna whistle, I thought, ‘I’d like to hear what it sounds like, so when can I blow it?’” he said. “People are making a lot of noise on New Year’s Eve.”

The Pratt tradition harks back to Mr. Milster’s childhood and to New York history. Growing up in Astoria, he loved hearing the whistling each New Year’s Eve from the waterfront factories, now long gone.

Perhaps his most famous whistle comes from the S.S. Normandie, a record-holding trans-Atlantic ocean liner from the 1930s. Those present for this potential final performance might not get to hear it, though. Mr. Milster has been ill with the flu, and even with the assistance of two other Pratt engineers, he is unsure whether he will be able to raise the 600-pound apparatus onto its three-foot-high mantle.

“As I’ve gotten older,” he said, “the pipes and the whistles have gotten heavier.”

He guaranteed, however, the presence of his homemade calliope, a fixed-volume relic of circuses and carousels. The instrument is similar to a pipe organ but uses steam instead of compressed air. “I did that for 2000,” he said. “I wanted something special, because that was the big one.”

His favorite whistle is from the S.S. Lansdowne, a railroad ferry that served the Detroit River from 1884 to 1956. It’s a sentimental tribute to his late wife. “That’s always the first one we blow on New Year’s Eve,” he said, “because Phyllis grew up on the Great Lakes.”

Now a top-ranked design school, Pratt was founded in 1887 to train engineers. Its power plant includes the two-level Engine Room, one of the last reminders of the school’s original focus. Although officials closed that program in 1993, the chamber’s bottom floor remains a steampunk fantasyland, with a host of dials, clocks and gauges framing three Ames steam engines from 1900 still functional thanks to Mr. Milster’s care.

Pratt officials, who are discontinuing the whistle-blowing practice over safety and insurance concerns, said Mr. Milster will have the option to blow them one last time, in 2015. As of now, though, he seems content for this to be the end.

“I do love doing this â€" it’s always been fun,” he said. “But I’ve done it so many years that the keen edge is sort of gone.”

The Real Man Behind the Fancy Frames

Dear Diary,

During a recent trip to the city, I stopped by a stylish eyewear store in SoHo to buy sunglasses. I left with a pair of black wire frames.

“Just the frames?” the clerk said before running my credit card.

I lied: “I’ll order the prescription lenses later.”

I didn’t need lenses. My eyes were close to 20/20. I only wanted the glasses.

To my surprise, the neighborhood’s elegance and youth had aroused my vanity. A sudden need to fit in overtook me, a desire to appear cooler, artier and more culturally influential than I am. I wanted the world to see how I felt: bookish, cerebral, literary, well read. Instead, I walked around that day viewing Manhattan through clear plastic lenses and feeling ridiculous.

I’m a bald 38-year-old who works retail and hasn’t had health insurance since 2006. Reading numerous books and magazines made me bookish. Writing made me literary. Wearing cosmetic frames made me a fraud. Even if a few subway commuters shot me interested glances as if falling for my hoax, I knew the truth.

The day before my flight home, I returned the frames. It was one of the more tawdry things I’ve done, but it was liberating. Exercise, regular haircuts, tailored clothes, a healthy diet â€" looking good matters. But if I couldn’t take myself seriously, my appearance seemed pointless.

My artifice wasn’t New York’s fault, it was my own. But the city helped me see the value of authenticity more clearly than any prescription glasses could.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: What We’ll Miss About Bloomberg

Damon Winter/The New York Times The mayor on Monday at his last bill signing ceremony.

Good morning on this nippy Tuesday. It’s not only the last day of the year, but also the end of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure.

Mr. Bloomberg will walk out of City Hall for the final time as mayor at 4:45 p.m., surrounded by his staff.

As a political reporter for The Times, I’ve covered Mr. Bloomberg’s policies and politics for the last five years.

I have also delved into his golf game, his wealth and his dining habits. (Ours, suffice it to say, is a love-hate relationship.)

What will we miss about Mr. Bloomberg? Here’s my list:

- His promiscuous approach to political party affiliation.

- Well-intentioned but mangled Spanish (and the ingenious Miguel Bloombito Twitter account it spawned)

- Utter indifference to polls: who else would champion a mosque at Ground Zero?

- The superfluous and ungrammatical “s” that he tacks on to a dozen different words. (“Elsewheres,” “anyways.”)

- His big “idears.”

- The mysterious mayoral weekend whereabouts.

- The impossibly preppy wardrobe. (Those salmon sweaters!)

- His relentlessly tin ear. (“Wouldn’t it be great if we could get all the Russian billionaires to move here?” Etc.)

- The C.E.O. swagger.

- The money. Because the new mayor, for all his charms, doesn’t have all that much.

What will you miss about Mr. Bloomberg? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, using #nytoday.

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

WEATHER

Clouds and a snowflake or two, with a high of 34.

Chilly as the year fades: around 27 at midnight.

Similar weather on New Year’s Day.

And brace yourself for a “significant amount of snow” on Thursday.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Beware of street closings around Times Square starting at about 3 p.m.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today, but suspended tomorrow.

DE BLASIO WATCH

From Kate Taylor of the City Hall bureau of The Times:

- At 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Bill de Blasio will become New York’s 109th mayor.

- But first, he may have more appointments to make. He is holding a news conference today at 1 p.m.

- Mr. de Blasio will be sworn in by Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman just after midnight in an “intimate ceremony” at his home in Park Slope. Translation: No press or public allowed.

- But the proceedings will be live-streamed on nyc.gov and photos will be posted to the Mayor’s Office Flickr page.

- The official inauguration is at noon on Wednesday at City Hall.

- Mr. de Blasio will be sworn in by former President Bill Clinton. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose 2000 Senate campaign Mr. de Blasio managed, will also attend.

- The 1,000 free tickets for the public were quickly snatched up, but some are being sold on Craigslist.

- The ceremony will be live-streamed on nyc.gov, and shown on most local TV stations.

NEW YEAR’S EVE

The Ball Drop

- At 6 p.m. tonight, the Times Square ball, a geodesic sphere 12 feet across, will be raised up a 77-foot flagpole at Broadway and 43rd Street.

- Below the ball, Miley Cyrus, Macklemore, Blondie and many others will perform.

- At 11:59, Justice Sonia Sotomayor will push a button and the ball will make its 60-second descent.

- If you want to attend, get to Times Square before the streets close in the afternoon. Or file in at these access points.

- You can also watch a live webcast or download a free app.

- You may not drink alcohol, which might help with the public bathrooms problem â€" there are none.

Elsewhere

- A four-mile midnight run in Central Park, with a fireworks display for a starter’s pistol. [Free to watch, $65 to run]

- More fireworks, in Prospect Park near Grand Army Plaza. Party starts at 11 p.m. Also, a 5-K run in the park begins at 11:15 p.m. [Free to watch, $40 to run]

- The Concert for Peace at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. 7 p.m. [Limited free tickets, otherwise $30]

- The blowing of the steam whistles at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. IT IS LOUD. 11:59 p.m.

- On New Year’s Day, the annual poetry marathon at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village features more than 140 poets. 2 p.m. [Some $20 tickets available at the door]

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

IN THE NEWS

- Nearly a quarter million New Yorkers have signed up for the state health insurance exchange. [New York Times]

- Investigators posing as dead voters were allowed to cast ballots on Election Day. [New York Post]

- Mr. de Blasio vowed to move quickly to outlaw horse carriages, saying, “They are not humane, they are not appropriate for the year 2014. It’s over.” [Daily News]

- Plans by Mr. de Blasio and his schools chancellor to de-emphasize standardized testing may be harder to pull off. [New York Times]

- Assemblyman Micah Kellner of the Upper East Side was stripped of leadership positions for sexually harassing staff members. He can’t have interns anymore, either. [New York Times]

- The city sued FedEx, saying it illegally delivered more than 50,000 cartons of untaxed cigarettes to residents even though it had agreed to stop doing so in 2006. [Reuters]

- Mayor Bloomberg’s official portrait was unveiled at City Hall. [New York Times]

Andy Newman, Annie Correal and Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Portrait of a Mayor

Damon Winter/The New York Times One of These Mayors Will Never Leave Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg hung his official mayoral portrait, painted by the artist Jon R. Friedman, in City Hall on Monday.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made one more permanent alteration to City Hall on Monday: hanging his official mayoral portrait.

The painting, by the artist Jon R. Friedman, features Mr. Bloomberg standing in front of the bullpen, his beloved open-format office on the second floor of City Hall. Similar to a Wall Street trading floor, the bullpen is a format he imported from Bloomberg L.P., his company.

Elements of Mr. Bloomberg’s life dot the background of the painting. His daughters, Emma and Georgina, can be seen in a photo on his desk in the bullpen, just to the left of Bloomberg’s left hand.

His tie is purple â€" the color of his political affiliation â€" Independent and bipartisan, the color in the middle.

There are Bloomberg computer terminals all over the room.

At the back of the room is a giant TV with a 311 system update on screen â€" of calls made so far that day (121).

New York Today: Murder Hits Record Low

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

William J. Bratton begins his second stint as police commissioner with the city considerably safer than it was even a year ago.

New York is set to finish 2013 with a 20 percent drop in murders. Most other crimes are falling, too.

There were 332 murders through Dec. 29. In 2012, there were 419.

The number has fallen below the threshold of one per day for the first time since reliable recordkeeping began in 1963.

The city’s murder rate was 75 percent higher back then.

The drop in New York appears to be part of a broader trend in the nation’s biggest cities. Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia all had big declines in murder.

In New York, rapes and robberies (both down 5 percent so far) and burglaries (down 10 percent) are falling, too.

But serious assaults and non-violent thefts have ticked up, by 3 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

The rise in thefts, a pattern that goes back several years, is attributed largely to stolen smartphones and other personal electronics.

The overall drop in crime comes as stop-and-frisk encounters are down 60 percent through September of this year.

This could bolster the plans of Mr. Bratton and his boss, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, to rein in stop-and-frisk further.

Proponents of the stop-and-frisk policy point out, though, that the number of guns seized during stop-and-frisk encounters has fallen, too. Overall gun seizures are down 11 percent this year.

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

WEATHER

A winter sun fails to warm. Temperatures fall through the day as a cold front moves in like an unwanted holiday guest and stays all week.

By lunchtime it will be about 36 degrees. Tonight, down to 20.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today and tomorrow but not Wednesday.

DE BLASIO WATCH

From Javier C. Hernández of The Times:

- At last, white smoke: Mr. de Blasio picks Carmen Fariña, a former city education official, as his schools chancellor. He announces the appointment at his children’s old middle school in Park Slope at 11:30 a.m.

- Zachary W. Carter, who prosecuted the police officers in the Abner Louima case, will be the city’s chief lawyer.

- In an interview in Teen Vogue, Mr. de Blasio’s 19-year-old daughter, Chiara, says she likes heavy metal music and doesn’t use social media much.

- Governor Cuomo is trying to block Melissa Mark-Viverito, Mr. de Blasio’s favored candidate, from becoming City Council speaker. [New York Post]

- Bill Clinton will swear Mr. de Blasio in as mayor on Wednesday.

COMING UP TODAY

- Farewell, trusty pen: Mayor Bloomberg signs his last bills, 22 in all. They include one restricting foam containers and e-cigarettes and another requiring the mayor to submit an annual poverty report.

- Time for your Christmas tree to decorate the curb: municipal tree collection begins.

- If you want to see a national lighthouse museum on Staten Island, better donate today: it’s the deadline for organizers to raise $350,000.

- Videology, a video store in Williamsburg, screens the year’s best DVDs all day, starting at noon. [Free]

- A historic tour of Central Park shows how it was designed and built. Noon outside the park’s Dairy Gift Shop. [$15]

- Crank up the wood chipper and watch “Fargo” at Huckleberry Bar in Williamsburg. 9 p.m [Free]

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

IN THE NEWS

- Mayor Bloomberg shelled out $650 million during his tenure, including $263 million to civic, health and cultural groups in the city. [New York Times]

- A choosy mugger in Central Park handed back his victim’s three-year-old flip phone. [New York Post]

- Jets beat Dolphins, 20-7, so Rex Ryan gets to keep his job. Giants beat Redskins, 20-6. Rangers beat Lightning, 4-3. Islanders beat Wild, 5-4.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Contemplating Life in the Bathtub

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

I’m in the bathtub again. I’m not in the bathtub that often, but, when I am, it becomes an event.

I take more time preparing for the bath than I do submerged in water, for goodness sake. I usually bring a beer I won’t drink, a book I won’t read and a phone I won’t touch. All my plans go out the window as I catch myself millions of miles away in outer space with a beard made of suds.

I like opening the window and hearing the sounds of Chinatown downstairs. What a racket. Everybody’s selling something or too busy honking their cars into a wreck to even consider selling something. But there I am, grinning like a dope in my bathtub.

I always watch movies where people are in their tubs with half their bodies submerged. I think it’s a way to show off their anxiety. I don’t know; I make do with my sudsy beard and untouched book. Oh, porcelain chamber, you know me too well. I’m comforted and dismayed all at once as you wash off the grime of the day from my skin.

I’m happy for cleanliness, though remorseful of the memories lost. What if I wanted that old book smell on my hands from that place uptown? I try sticking my head under water, I really do, but my ears get all foggy and I forget where I am. Oh yeah, three floors above Grand Street where people like me have been feeling contemplative for, what, hundreds of years? Maybe there wasn’t much to think about back then. Maybe there was.

This is Mr. Glass, submerged in the bathtub, a bag of tea in boiling water. Drink up my anxiety; I’m only steeping.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

Monk Parrots Find Freedom

Johann Schumacher

Staring at a parrot flying through the biting cold of Queens, it is easy to imagine its escape from the warmth of someone’s home, and just as easy to picture its brief future. But looks can be deceiving.

The monk or Quaker parrot (Myiopsitta monachus) has made a home in New York City for four or five decades now. Tropical green, with blue wing tips, monk parrots measure about 12 inches from beak to tail. They are natives of central and southern Argentina, where steamy summers are common and snowy winters have prepared them well for life in the five boroughs.

In New York City, the monk parrot has generated volumes of urban mythology. It is one of many animals reputed to have colonized the Northeast through broken shipping crates and other misadventures at Kennedy Airport, but its current presence in Belgium, Britain, Israel, Spain, Chicago, Cincinnati, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and of course New York City implies a less romantic explanation. Monk parrots were popular pets in the 1970s, easily trained and cooperative. So a global pandemic of smashed shipping crates is less likely than occasional releases â€" intentional and not. Though there may have been occasional shipping mishaps, pet owners are probably at least as responsible for this parrot’s spread.

Interestingly, monks are by no means the first colorful parrot to have graced North America’s skies. A New Yorker in the early 19th century would not have had to travel far to see Carolina parakeets (Conuropsis carolinensis), the only truly native parrot in North America. Now largely forgotten, these beautiful yellow-headed, red-cheeked birds were once regularly sighted throughout southern New York State.

The bird’s interest in our crops, and the millinery trade’s interest in its feathers, conspired against it. By the late 1800s the Carolina parakeet was rare, and like its better known contemporary, the passenger pigeon, it was extinct by the early years of the 20th century. All that remains of the bird today are one of John James Audubon’s most haunting engravings and some study skins.

Monk parrots have steadily extended their range into a Northeast devoid of the Carolina parakeet. They are the only parrots known to construct twig nests, and aside from the unmistakable sounds of parrot screeching, these sometimes huge structures are often the best indicator of the birds’ presence in a community.

They can be seen all across the city: In the Bronx they can be observed in Pelham Bay; in Manhattan, on the Upper West Side and occasionally in Central Park. They can also be found in eastern Queens in Howard Beach, throughout Staten Island, and most points in between.

One of the most compelling places to observe these birds is in Brooklyn. They can be seen on telephone poles in Gravesend, Marine Park and Midwood, often dangerously incorporating transformer boxes as nests’ central heating units. Greenwood Cemetery hosts one of the largest colonies in the city. The interwoven mass of twigs and birds turns the cemetery’s gothic main gate into a living sculpture. At 25th Street and Fifth Avenue, it houses dozens of parrots in all seasons.

A Fellow Lover of Smoked-Fish Ends

Dear Diary:

I was crouched in Fairway, squinting at smoked salmon ends, when I sensed someone behind me. I assumed another shopper was waiting to get through the smoked fish, dry salami, won-ton wrapper area, but when I stood and gestured for the white-haired man to pass, he said, “I’m waiting to do just what you’re doing.”

I’ve never met someone else who scrutinizes the bits of nova and gravlax that remain, sold in plastic containers, after the gorgeous pink slices are sheared off.

“What do you look for?” I asked, staring. (I scan for some ineffable quality of juiciness; properly chosen, it’s better than the full-price stuff, but today’s selection was only so-so.)

“I’m not sure,” he said, thoughtfully. The lines on his face suggested he had looked at lox for decades. “That one looks good to me â€" juicy.”

“To me, too.” We smiled.

“Have it,” I said, handing it to him.

“Many supermarkets sell these -” he began.

“ - but it’s best here,” we said, almost simultaneously.

As I shopped, I thought of questions I didn’t ask this stranger who also inspects the appetizing section: Did he enjoy it when bits of sable or sturgeon appeared? Did he agree that it was worse when the pieces were chopped small? Did he eat it straight from the container?

He reappeared, behind me, at checkout. He said, “Not such a good selection today.” I agreed, and looked, with curiosity, at what else he was buying. But the remainder of his cart was unfamiliar.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

On Christmas Eve

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International New York Times.

Don't have an account yet?
Create an account »

Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?
Learn more »

On Christmas Eve

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International New York Times.

Don't have an account yet?
Create an account »

Subscribed through iTunes and need an NYTimes.com account?
Learn more »

New York Today: The (Sorry) Year in Sports

Gus Ruelas/Associated Press Where did that blasted puck get to? Oh!

Updated 6:32 a.m.

Greetings on this soon-to-be-bright Friday morning.

New York’s teams and their fans will be glad to crumple up 2013 and throw it away.

Not that 2014 looks much brighter, but the future, at least, is a blank slate.

The past is not. With the help of our colleagues in the Sports department of The Times, here are a few of the year’s more unforgettably forgettable moments:

- Jets: A communication lapse caused the center to hike the ball into the wide receiver’s groin as he ran by. The opposing Ravens recovered it.

- Devils: Back in April, a 10-game losing streak tied a franchise record.

- Knicks: “I don’t want to keep using ‘embarrassment,’ ” Carmelo Anthony said in the wake of a 41-point loss, “but right now, the losing is just becoming unacceptable.” Yet it continues.

- Mets: A 20-inning, six-and-a-half hour loss to one of the few teams in the league worse than them.

- Giants: On the very first play of the year, a running back ran the wrong way and a tackle pushed a defender right into the path of a pass from Eli Manning. The first of many interceptions.

- Yankees: A clergy group held a prayer vigil outside the offices of Major League Baseball to seek divine intervention for A-Rod in his bid to beat a steroid suspension.

- Islanders: How many hockey teams can say they were scored on by a kneeling man?

- Rangers: Having a 19-year-old opponent shoot between his legs for his fourth goal of the game is a real morale-builder.

- Nets: With his team trailing in the final seconds, Coach Jason Kidd purposely spilled a soda on the court to stop the clock. They lost anyway, and he was fined $50,000.

Here’s what else you need to know for Friday and the weekend.

WEATHER

Nice, in a low-key way. Mostly sunny with a high of 40.

Even nicer Saturday, with a high near 50.

Not nice on Sunday â€" rain, possibly quite a bit.

COMMUTE

Subways: O.K. Check latest status.

Rails: Scattered delays on L.I.R.R. Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: No major delays. Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

Weekend Travel Hassles: Check subway disruptions or list of street closings.

DE BLASIO WATCH

- The mayor-elect made 1,000 inauguration tickets available to the general public yesterday.

- They were gone within 90 minutes, but some went to scalpers. One was charging $20. [New York Post]

- Mr. de Blasio has appointed only three of the nearly 50 agency heads he will need, the least of any incoming mayor since John V. Lindsay. [Newsday]

- All the appointees he has named to prominent posts have significant public-sector experience â€" a break from the Bloomberg era. [Capital New York]

- Mr. de Blasio is said to be looking for a replacement for his spokeswoman Lis Smith, who has been romantically linked to Eliot Spitzer. [New York Post]

COMING UP TODAY

- All those boats chugging up the West Side are on their way to the New York Boat Show, which opens next week at the Javits Center.

- High school track-and-field athletes from around the East Coast compete in the Marine Corps Holiday Classic at the armory in Washington Heights. 9 a.m.

- A protest march from 125th Street in Harlem to the South Bronx against the incoming police commissioner, William J. Bratton. 6 p.m. [This one was mistakenly listed yesterday. It really is today.]

- Turn Christmas cards into LED lanterns at a “Remake the Holidays” workshop at the New York Hall of Science in Queens. [$12]

- Make zawadi and otherwise learn about Kwanzaa at the Brooklyn Public Library. 3 p.m. [Free]

- The radio D.J. Imhotep Gary Byrd hosts a Kwanzaa celebration at the Apollo Theater. 7:30 p.m. [$18]

- The acclaimed East Williamsburg restaurant Gwynnett St. reopens, two weeks after its owner’s arrest on charges of receiving chemicals used to make Ecstasy. [New York Times]

IN THE NEWS

- A 2001 interview with then-candidate Bloomberg was unearthed. He called himself “a big believer in term limits.” [New York Times]

- Minimum wage in New York state goes up to $8 an hour at year’s end â€" 75 cents above the old wage, which was the federal minimum. [Associated Press]

- Mr. Spitzer’s family-owned real estate company bought a four-acre development site on the West Side for $88 million. [New York Times]

- You’ll be able to pay the parking meter via smartphone starting in 2015. [Daily News]

- Florida will soon be more populous than New York State. [New York Times]

- Cleaning house: Brooklyn’s incoming district attorney wants his predecessor’s toilet seat replaced. [New York Post]

THE WEEKEND

Saturday

- College football at Yankee Stadium: It’s the New Era Pinstripe Bowl. 12:15 p.m. [$50 and up]

- The Valentinos doo-wop at the Bronx Library Center. 2:30 p.m. [Free]

- Tour the decorated farmhouse at the Queens County Farm Museum. 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. [Free, with mulled cider]

- Last day to see Tosca’s leap at the Met. 12:30 p.m. [$30 and up]

Sunday

- A seal watch is on at Orchard Beach in the Bronx. 2 p.m. [Free]

- Last day to see 48 haunting tintypes of contemporary soldiers and veterans at the Alice Austen House Museum on Staten Island. [$3 suggested donation]

- Last day to hear Satchmo read “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” on a holiday tour of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Queens. [$10]

- “The Wizard of Oz” screens in 3-D at Film Forum. 11 a.m. [$12.50]

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

Joseph Burgess, Michael M. Grynbaum, Andrew Keh, Naila-Jean Meyers, Bill Pennington and Ben Shpigel contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till about noon.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Revisiting a Long-Forgotten Chat With Candidate Bloomberg

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Michael R. Bloomberg, in October 2001,  when he was running for New York City mayor.

Michael R. Bloomberg asked to be interviewed.

That is a sentence very few newspaper types could have written during the dozen years of his mayoralty. When Mayor Bloomberg wants to get a point across to a broad audience, his tendency is to ring up a Barbara Walters or Joe Scarborough.

But this interview request was made 12 and a half years ago. He was Candidate Bloomberg then, trying to make himself known to an electorate only vaguely familiar with him.

He had yet even to win the Republican Party’s mayoral nomination, which seemed a dubious honor anyway. At least that was accepted wisdom among the chattering classes in early summer 2001. Surely, the sages said, any Democrat would beat him in November. Mr. Bloomberg was wasting his money on a quixotic quest. (Mind you, his net worth back then was $4 billion â€" a mere bag of shells, as Ralph Kramden might say, compared with Forbes magazine’s latest estimate of $31 billion.)

Rummaging through old files to clear away the underbrush, I happened upon a long-forgotten partial transcript of the interview that Candidate Bloomberg had sought. We met on July 2, 2001, at his campaign headquarters in Midtown.

Why a partial transcript? Because retyping every one of his words would have led to finger cramps. Just about every question produced not so much a response as a speech. One Bloomberg answer, consisting of many deviations from the initial topic, went on for fully 10 minutes and 55 seconds, not including time out for him to finish a bowl of cornflakes that seemed to pass for his lunch.

What is striking on rereading the transcript is the degree to which the public style of Candidate Bloomberg was almost identical to that of Nearing-the-Exit Mayor Bloomberg. Unlike many politicians, the candidate did not don a mask, only to shed it once he had won (a victory that was in good measure the result of 9/11 and an endorsement from then-Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani that was not the curse it had usually been).

Not that Mr. Bloomberg has never shifted positions that were supposedly immutable. “I’m a big believer in term limits,” he said in the interview. We all know how easily that belief got tossed overboard when the city’s term limits law proved inconvenient for him.

But on most other matters, he was then what he would be.

Even while courting the press in 2001, he could not hide a certain disdain for it. That has not changed. Throughout his mayoralty he has maintained a studied distance. At news conferences, he almost never calls on reporters by name, even those he talks to practically every day. It is “Miss” or “Sir.”

In the interview, he said he was surprised to discover while campaigning that Staten Island had a diverse population. “It has the image of being conservative and white only,” he said. “There’s an enormous Pakistani population, a decent-sized black population, decent-sized Asians.”

Might his misconceptions have been the result of his ignoring that borough all his life? No, it was the newspapers’ fault. “The press doesn’t think of Staten Island as a diverse place,” he said.

Mr. Bloomberg’s faith in himself as a manager was absolute, as it would be later. When I suggested he might find City Hall quite different from the world of business, where he probably was unfamiliar with the word “no,” he bristled.

“The business world isn’t as you described it,” he replied. “It would be wonderful if you said, ‘Jump,’ and everybody went up. That’s not the way the world works.”

“I don’t understand why the fact that I’ve been successful in business would argue that I am less able to do it,” he said of the mayor’s job. “Quite the contrary. The only people that can argue they’ve been there, done that, are Dinkins, Koch and Giuliani, and so far as I know none of them are running. So everybody else has the problem of saying, ‘Well, how do I know I’m going to be able to do it?’”

The important thing is accountability, Mr. Bloomberg continued, foreshadowing his eventual control of public schools by singling out the education bureaucracy as one that should answer directly to the mayor. “I think that the things that I’ve done are directly applicable,” he said. “I’ve led. I’ve listened. I’ve managed. I’ve been accountable.”

Then, as now, he had an unapologetic Popeye way about him: I yam what I yam.

Take his visit to a Harlem church the day before. “They said, ‘Bloomberg just stood there, and Mark Green was chanting and clapping and waving,’” he said of press accounts. “That’s who I am. I don’t normally go. They ask, ‘Why were you there?’ Because I was invited.”

He contrasted himself with Al Gore, defeated for the presidency months earlier amid (still lingering) controversy over the election results. “You know, Al Gore didn’t get elected because nobody knew who Al Gore was by the end,” he said. “He wasn’t himself.”

“If the public wants me,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “I will work 24 hours a day, and I think I’ll be the best mayor this city has ever had. And if they don’t want me, the first day will be very tough, but nobody’s ever going to know it. I will smile and shake hands and say thank you to everybody that supported me.

“And I will do two things: No. 1, be very careful not to criticize or make the next mayor’s job more difficult. And then I’ve got to find something else in public service to do.”

One-Stop One-Man Charity

Dear Diary:

During the holiday season, my mind always goes back to when I commuted into Manhattan from New Jersey. At that time of year, as I reached Seventh Avenue after climbing the long flight of stairs or the escalator at Pennsylvania Station, members of the Salvation Army were always there to greet me, ringing their bells and urging me and hundreds of others to “give to the needy.”

One particular year, an enterprising, bedraggled, bearded and very scruffy older man stood silently off to the side, cup in hand.

His sign said it all: “Cut out the middle man.”

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: Political Lowlights

Clockwise from top left: Eliot Spitzer, Vito Lopez, Christine Quinn, Anthony Weiner, Pedro Espada, and Shirley Huntley.

Good morning on this bitingly cold Thursday.

Let’s see what political presents Santa left under the tree.

This has been quite a year for New York politics, if not for politicians:

- Carlos Danger: Anthony D. Weiner’s second round of online adventures cost him a chance at mayoral redemption.

- Vito Lopez: The assemblyman resigned in response to sexual harassment allegations. He then failed in a run for City Council.

- Charles J. Hynes: Brooklyn’s longtime prosecutor was brought down by, among other things, accusations of wrongdoing in his office.

- Eliot Spitzer: The former governor made an unexpected comeback, which was followed by an unexpected defeat.

- Pedro Espada: The former state lawmaker was denied a few days of freedom before prison. The judge declared, “I can’t trust him.”

- John L. Sampson: The former leader of the State Senate Democrats asked a friend in the prosecutor’s office for the names of cooperating witnesses against him so he could arrange to “take them out.”

- Shirley Huntley: The state senator claimed she had a broken ankle to convince colleagues to come to her house so she could tape them in a corruption probe.

- Malcolm A. Smith: The state senator was charged with trying to bribe his way onto the ballot for mayor.

- John C. Liu: The comptroller was besmirched while running for mayor when two former associates were convicted of illegally funneling money into his campaign.

- Christine C. Quinn: No major ethical lapses here. But Ms. Quinn, the Council Speaker, suffered a humiliating defeat in the mayoral race despite starting as the heavy favorite. Her candidacy touched off a fierce backlash, including the Anyone But Quinn ads.

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

WEATHER

Unusually normal: cloudy with a high of 39.

Clearing tonight with a low of 29.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect.

DE BLASIO WATCH

From David W. Chen of The Times:

- The mayor-elect and his family are on a Christmas mini-vacation, staying with relatives in Connecticut.

- Maybe the trip will help him make some long-awaited decisions, such as who will be his schools chancellor. After all, it was during a drive to Connecticut over Thanksgiving that his family decided to live in Gracie Mansion.

- Among the mixed reviews for the de Blasios’ decision to release a Christmas-Eve video about their daughter’s substance abuse: “one last campaign ad,” writes Mike Lupica of The Daily News.

- Mr. de Blasio’s pick for child-welfare commissioner was running the state’s children’s-services system in 2009 when juvenile inmates were allowed to have female guests and things got out of hand. [New York Post]

COMING UP TODAY

- A protest march against the incoming new police commissioner, William J. Bratton, starts in front of the state office building on 125th Street in Harlem and goes to the South Bronx. 6 p.m.

- A Kwanzaa celebration at the African Burial Ground near City Hall. 11 a.m. [Free]

- “A Christmas Story,” the musical, opens at Madison Square Garden. 2 p.m. [Tickets start at $53.80]

- But don’t shoot your eye out. You can also go to a free screening of the movie, in Crown Heights. 7 p.m.

- The Museum of the City of New York kicks off a week of year-end festivities, starting with a day of hot chocolate and collage-making for kids. 11 a.m. [$10, free for kids]

- The “Salute to Wildlife Ice Carving Week” begins at the Bronx Zoo, featuring professional ice carvers. [$23.95, less online]

- Last day to watch Oscar-nominated documentaries at Film Society at Lincoln Center; tonight, Alex Gibney’s “The Armstrong Lie,” and more. [$13 per film]

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

IN THE NEWS

- Mayor Bloomberg has been calling the family of every police officer, firefighter or other city worker who died in the line of duty during his tenure. [New York Times]

-The city has nearly doubled the number of police dogs in recent years even as it cuts the ranks of human officers. [Daily News]

- The Strand bookstore said this holiday shopping season was its biggest ever. [Daily News]

- The secret life of the man said to be behind $80 million worth of fine-art forgeries. [New York Times]

- Another Christmas-Eve announcement: Eliot Spitzer and Silda Wall Spitzer are getting divorced, in the wake of reports that Mr. Spitzer is romantically involved with a spokeswoman for Mr. de Blasio. [New York Times]

- Scoreboard: Thunder rout Carmelo-less Knicks, 123-94. Bulls gore Nets, 95-78.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

An Armenian Christmas Surprise

Dear Diary,

Last week I was at J.F.K., shivering my way into a taxi, en route to Park Slope. Relieved to be heading home, I decided not to plug in my headphones and talk to Carl, the driver, instead.

I gave him my address. We talked about the weather. He asked where I was from. Somehow we got around to my parents living in Los Angeles.

Carl: “No kidding. I used to live out there. There’s a big Armenian population over in Glendale.”
Me: “Wait, you’re Armenian? I’m Armenian. Well, 25 percent. My mom’s last name is Tutelian.” (Armenian names typically end in “ian.”)
Carl: “My man!” He thrust his hand in my direction for a shake. “Bakalian, that’s my name.”

The conversation immediately steered toward all things Armenian, especially food. I mentioned that I loved lahmajun, a thin-crusted “Armenian pizza” with minced lamb and spices. Carl moaned, “Ahhhh, lahmaJUN! When was the last time you had some good lahmajun?”

“Not for a long while,” I said.

“Well you’re not going find it in Brooklyn,” Carl declared. “Massis in Sunnyside is it. I can bring you some.”

Me: “Seriously?”
Carl: “Yeah, seriously!”

Fast forward five days. My phone rings.

“Come down and meet me on the corner,” said the voice. “I’m in a hurry.”

I sprinted down and rushed over to Carl’s car. The trunk is open. He pulled out two dozen lahmajun and handed them to me.

“This is my Armenian Christmas gift to you,” he said. “I gotta run.”

I could barely utter “thank you” before he got in his car and drove away. Merry Christmas, Carl.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

Remembering a Voice for the Region

Richard Drew/Associated Press Stan Brooks, shown here in 2005, was a senior correspondent at all-news radio station, 1010 WINS, and was a dean among radio reporters in New York City.

One day during Edward I. Koch’s third term, when allegations of corruption were swirling around mayoral allies like Donald R. Manes, the Queens borough president, the radio reporter Stan Brooks stopped Mr. Koch at City Hall. Mr. Brooks, as always, had his microphone in his hand and his tape recorder running.

“Stan said, ‘Can I ask a few questions?’” recalled George Arzt, a press secretary to Mr. Koch. “He quickly added, ‘Mr. Mayor, I understand you would rather be someplace else right now.’ Koch smiled, nodded in agreement and said, ‘You bet.’ But Stan got his interview.”

“Every mayor from Lindsay to Bloomberg loved the guy, not because he didn’t ask tough questions â€" he did â€"but because of his empathy,” Mr. Arzt said on Tuesday. Sure enough, Mr. Arzt said, after the pleasant opening, Mr. Brooks asked a series of serious questions, including how Mr. Koch felt about having a friend like Mr. Manes implicated in a widening saga of crookedness.

“Betrayed,” Mr. Koch told Mr. Brooks, according to Mr. Arzt.

Mr. Brooks, who died of lung cancer on Monday at age 86, was polite to the people he covered and collegial to colleagues and competitors alike. He did not mind filling in a new reporter from another station or a newspaper who arrived just before a news conference began.

He was heard on 1010 WINS from the days of open-reel tape to the days of digital recording, from 1962 until a month ago. “Before ‘You Give Us 22 Minutes, We’ll Give You The World’ became a household slogan, Stan was doing a two-minute newscast at the top of the hour,” Ben Mevorach, the station’s director of news and programming, wrote on its website.

WINS, 1010 on the AM dial, was then a Top 40 powerhouse with personalities like Murray Kaufman, known as Murray the K. But two years later, when he was told to prepare for a round-the-clock news operation, Mr. Brooks’s reaction was: “All news? What’s that?”

What it was was a format that made him a mainstay in New York news. Larry Seary, a former director of field operations for WNBC-TV who is president of the New York Press Club, remembered listening to WINS, and to Mr. Brooks, during the blackout of 1965.

“It was the only station I could hear on my little battery-operated transistor radio,” Mr. Seary said. “This was just a few years after the Cuban missile crisis. When you’re a kid and you’ve lived through that, you think something far worse could be happening, far more ominous. You didn’t know if the blackout was just in New York or the world. It was reassuring to listen to Stan and know that this is going to end, and it’s not as bad as I thought it was.”

The years went by, and Mr. Brooks stayed on the job long after other reporters his age had retired. But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Monday that after Mr. Brooks had a heart operation several years ago, he had his press secretary dial Mr. Brooks’s cellphone. They expected to reach Mr. Brooks’s wife or one of his sons at the hospital, but the voice that answered was the voice they knew: “Hello, Stan Brooks, 1010 WINS.”

Mr. Brooks did not always cover news. Station officials were concerned that Mr. Brooks might not recognize stars like Reggie Jackson or Thurman Munson when they sent him to Yankee Stadium for the World Series in the late 1970s. They assigned Scott Herman, a desk assistant at the station who was a baseball fan, to go with him.

“He covered everything, and obviously, he’d cover the World Series,” said Mr. Herman, now the executive vice president of operations for CBS Radio, which owns WINS. “Walking the field with Stan, going through the clubhouse with Stan, that was my first experience, and then he introduced me to somebody as his colleague. I was this 20-year-old kid who’d been in the business for less than six months, and he was introducing me as his colleague.”

Fifteen years later, Mr. Herman became general manager of WINS and thus Mr. Brooks’s boss. He gave Mr. Brooks a new title, senior correspondent, and tried to give him a raise.

“He said to me, ‘I don’t want to make to make more than anybody else,’” Mr. Herman recalled. “I said, ‘You’re not like anybody else, you have the history.’ He said, ‘I don’t want it.’ I said, ‘I’m going to put it in your paycheck.’ He said, ‘I’m not going to cash the check.’ That was Stan. As special as everyone thought he was, he didn’t want to be treated special.”

Mr. Herman said that he later told that story to Mr. Brooks’s wife, Lynn, who died earlier in the year. “His wife said, ‘Don’t ever talk to Stan about money. You call me. I have no problem with paying Stan more money,’” Mr. Herman said.

Arctic Blast in Manhattan

Dear Diary:

The wind skims the metallic Hudson.
Riverine, it crests the West Side.
Ashore it rushes through concrete channels,
Freezing breath into angel hair.
Morning sunlight becomes shredded tinsel.
It hangs in the bone-chill air.

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.

New York Today: White Christmases Past

Barton Silverman/The New York Times The magic of a New York City Christmas, 1966.

Good morning on this chilly Tuesday, Christmas Eve.

If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, dream on.

Or you could just take a trip in our magical snow globe and visit the New York City of white Christmases past.

Depending on how you define it, there have been roughly half a dozen since 1883.

- 1902, 6.5 inches on Christmas Day: “There was a soft silence of the snow over everything, broken only by the church chimes, the tinkle of the sleigh bells, and the laughter and the shouting of the people in the streets,” The Times reported. “Among the merriest of those who went to the Park were the youngsters with their sleds. The snow plows were in use, and the drivers permitted the boys and their sisters to get ‘on behind.’”

- 1904, three inches: “The surface and some of the elevated car lines had troubles enough to vex any but a holiday crowd, but the Christmas passengers, many of whom carried gifts, were full of the spirit of the season, and the exasperation of blocks and delays was laughed away.”

- 1966, seven inches over 24 hours: “Attendance at eggnog parties and turkey dinners faltered. With the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn closed from 5 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and other highways slippery and hazardous, many hostesses began receiving phone cancellations just as the last poinsettias and colored lights on the tree were being placed.”

- 2002, five inches: “’Yeah, snow â€" it’s perfect,’” said a man who moved to Manhattan from Miami six months before. ‘“I couldn’t have planned it any better. This is Christmas in New York, right? That’s what it’s all about.’”

Happy holiday!

Here’s what else is happening:

WEATHER

Decent for sleigh-flying. High clouds with a high of 39.

Clouding up with a chance of, yes, an evening flurry, but that’s about it, Rudolph.

Then colder â€" 19 overnight, 32 on Christmas Day.

Warmer on Thursday with a high of 42.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today, suspended tomorrow, and returns Thursday and Friday.

DE BLASIO WATCH

From Javier C. Hernández of The Times:

- Bill de Blasio, sworn foe of Wall Street excess, named a Goldman Sachs executive deputy mayor for housing and economic development. “I don’t care about any stereotypes or assumptions,” Mr. de Blasio said. [New York Times]

- The mayor-elect has no public appearances the rest of the week.

- But he has some holiday homework: picking a schools chancellor. The search has stretched on for weeks, but Mr. de Blasio is likely to announce his choice next week.

COMING UP TODAY

- Mayor Bloomberg thanks volunteers at the annual lunch for the homeless at City Hall, a restaurant in TriBeCa. He attends midnight Mass at St. Patrick’s.

- Cardinal Dolan says Mass at Rikers Island at 11 a.m.

- Darlene Love sings “Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)” and rings the closing bell as the stock exchange closes early at 1 p.m.

- Caroling opportunities: the Washington Square arch at 5 p.m. Stuyvesant Square (Second Avenue and 16th Street) at 5 p.m. Gramercy Park at 6 p.m. [Free]

- For your listening pleasure, WKCR is in the midst of its 10-day all-Bach festival. 89.9 FM or listen online.

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

IN THE NEWS

- The city is settling hundreds of federal civil rights claims filed by people who were arrested during the 2004 Republican convention. [New York Times]

- Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn is not closing next month after all. Governor Cuomo threw it a lifeline. [Capital New York]

- The City Council’s Republican ranks, soon to be down to three, face a tough road. [New York Times]

- Macy’s has a black Santa, but it doesn’t don’t make him easy to find. [Animal New York]

- Scoreboard: Knicks snuff Magic, 103-98. Pacers lap Nets, 103-86. Rangers bag Maple Leafs in a shootout, 2-1. Islanders beat Red Wings, 3-0. Blackhawks over Devils, 5-2.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Harlem Pier, 10:35 A.M.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Temperatures dipped but were still warm on Monday, winter’s second full day, as fog cloaked the view of New Jersey from Harlem. Tuesday’s high may not hit 40.

Harlem Pier, 10:35 A.M.

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Temperatures dipped but were still warm on Monday, winter’s second full day, as fog cloaked the view of New Jersey from Harlem. Tuesday’s high may not hit 40.

An Interview With the Next Police Commissioner of New York City

William J. Bratton starts his second tour as commissioner of the New York Police Department in a little more than a week. Since his selection earlier this month by Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, the usually gregarious police leader has shied away from the cameras, engaging in behind-the-scenes planning but making few public statements.

His first interview, a telephone conversation Friday with The New York Times, focused on his time as a security consultant and executive for an article about that underexamined part of his much-heralded career.

He was careful to avoid discussion of what he would do as commissioner - “You’re going to have to wait and see,” he said - but in the 19-minute discussion he provided some hints to the sort of leadership style he hoped to bring to Police Headquarters, 17 years after he left.

“You’ll be hearing a lot about collaboration, that’s going to be a major theme in the Police Department,” he said. “It echoes what the mayor is trying to do with city government. You’ll hear a lot of that terminology.”

It is a language and philosophy Mr. Bratton is comfortable with. His 2012 book, “Collaborate or Perish!,” written with Zachary Tumin, draws on Mr. Bratton’s experience as a police leader to provide advice to business readers on the benefits of teamwork and reaching out.

Indeed, almost immediately after being appointed by Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Bratton met with minority leaders and police reform advocates, seeking their views on the department’s stop-and-frisk practices and other contentious areas of policing.

Mr. Bratton said Friday that he was intensely focused on the transition at Police Headquarters. He said he has been working directly with the current commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly.

“Commissioner Kelly has been extraordinarily, extraordinarily helpful and available,” Mr. Bratton said.

“The commissioner and I met the other day and the transition could not be going more smoothly,” he said. “There is nothing that we have asked for that they have not responded to. They’ve been extraordinarily gracious.”

He heaped praise on Mr. Kelly’s tenure as commissioner, the longest in the department’s history. “He loves this city,” Mr. Bratton said, “he loves this department and he’s not going to do anything to impede the continued success of the N.Y.P.D. and the success of the city that he spent so much time serving.”

For Mr. Kelly, who first served as commissioner under Mayor David N. Dinkins, it is the second time he has handed over the reigns of the New York Police Department to Mr. Bratton, who replaced him after Rudolph W. Giuliani won the 1993 mayoral election on a law-and-order platform.

Mr. Bratton developed a national reputation for bringing down crime and found local fame as a man-about-town, mixing at Elaine’s, the now-defunct Upper East Side restaurant, with the city’s political and cultural leaders.

Despite having returned to the city from Los Angeles in recent years, Mr. Bratton said he has yet to find a replacement for that social scene.

“Sadly, for those who liked to patronize Elaine’s, they’re like the lost tribe of Israel,” he said. “They’re all still wandering around trying to find another Elaine’s. Nobody has found it yet.”

He said that when he becomes commissioner next month he will visit the reporters who cover the Police Department from a tight warren of offices on the second floor of Police Headquarters, a space known internally as the shack.

“I’ll stop by down at the shack,” he said. “Who knows, that might be the next Elaine’s.”

New York Today: A Christmas Tree Secret

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times Most Christmas trees in the city are trucked in from far away.

Updated, 8:52 a.m.

Good Monday morning on what will be a wet finale to our freakish streak of warm weather.

Have you sourced your Christmas tree?

Odds are that it was not chopped locally.

Of the million or so Christmas trees harvested in New York State every year, only a small fraction are sold in the city.

After we mentioned this surprising fact a few weeks ago, we decided to learn more.

It turns out that most Christmas trees in the city come from North Carolina, which supplies Fraser firs and Douglas firs in vast quantities.

They arrive overnight on tractor trailers.

Vendors rely on North Carolina because of its large supplies and low prices.

One exception: the city’s Greenmarkets, where the trees are locally grown.

Nancy Daigneault, who has sold Christmas trees in Park Slope for 11 years, said all the trees at her vendor’s roughly 100 stands came from North Carolina.

Had she ever sold a tree from New York?

“Never,” she said.

Farms in New York State harvest enough Christmas trees each year to cover Central Park.

“It’s been hard to break in,” said Ned Chapman, a board member of the Christmas Tree Farmers Association of New York.

Most of those trees are sold in the rest of the state. But that could change soon.

The state recently earmarked $100,000 to promote New York trees.

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

WEATHER

A split day. Part I is rainy and warm. Part II is kind of like winter.

Temperatures will hover around 60 as perhaps half an inch of rain falls by afternoon. Then cloudy and down to 35, and staying cold through Christmas.

Sunday’s high of 71, by the way, shattered the record by 8 degrees.

COMMUTE

Subways: Delays on the N and Q. Check latest status.

Rails: Delays of up to 15 minutes on Metro-North. L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: No unusual delays. Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect even though it is Festivus.

DE BLASIO WATCH

From Michael M. Grynbaum of the City Hall bureau of The Times:

- The mayor-elect makes an announcement at a metal fabricator in Brooklyn at noon, perhaps naming a deputy mayor for economic development.

- On Sunday, Mr. de Blasio appointed Gladys Carrión, an experienced state social services official, to be child welfare commissioner. [New York Times]

- Asked if he might appoint Republicans to his inner circle, the left-leaning Mr. de Blasio quipped, “Let’s not get crazy about this diversity idea.”  [New York Times]

COMING UP TODAY

- Mayor Bloomberg cuts the ribbon on a Times Square street reconstruction and donates blood.

- New street recycling bins are unveiled uptown.

- Can’t wait for the New Year’s Eve ball drop? The giant lights that spell out the number 14 are on display at the Times Square Visitor Center.

- A film scholar presents clips from classic musicals at the Mid-Manhattan Library. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

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

IN THE NEWS

- A man threw his three-year-old son from a Manhattan high-rise and then jumped. Both died. The man had been sharing custody of the boy with his estranged wife. [New York Times]

- Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn will close within a month. [Crain's]

- Before the hospital closes, a theater company will stage an Edward Albee play inside it. [DNAinfo]

- Mayor Bloomberg finally made his “Saturday Night Live” debut. [New York Times]

- Jets top Browns, 24-13. Giants slay Lions in overtime, 23-20. Rangers tame Wild, 4-1.

AND FINALLY…

The year 1908 was our Christmas without movies.

On Christmas Eve, Mayor George McClellan shut down all 550 movie houses in the city.

He said that films were likely to burst into flame, and that the theaters had inadequate fire exits.

They were reopened a few days later.

Joseph Burgess contributed reporting.

New York Today is a morning roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning.

What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.

Find us on weekdays at nytoday.com.

Salvation Army Ring-a-Ding-Ding

Victor Kerlow

Dear Diary:

While walking up Lexington Avenue near Grand Central Terminal, I saw a woman ringing the bell and singing at a Salvation Army donation bucket.

As I got closer, I heard the words she was singing as she shook her bell:

“Wanted, young man single and free.
“Experienced in love preferred
“But will accept a young trainee…”

Read all recent entries and our updated submissions guidelines. Reach us via email diary@nytimes.com or follow @NYTMetro on Twitter using the hashtag #MetDiary.