De Blasio’s State of the City at Kings Tonight

FLATBUSH – The Mayor will deliver his 5th State of the City at the Kings Theater on Flatbush Avenue tonight at 7:00pm, and the theme is “Making New York America’s Fairest Big City”.

The Mayor previewed the event on NY1 last night, promising that “whatever we do, we will be asking ourselves this question: Does it help us to become the fairest big city in America?”

Flatbush is certainly a good choice to highlight some of the issues – 67th Precinct just to the east of the Theater had 17 murders last year – more than three times the city-average murder rate per capita, we have some of the worst affordable housing and displacement issues in Flatbush and Crown Heights, high youth unemployment and are on the edge of Brooklyn where you may seriously think about having a car (if you can afford it), because public transportation is way inadequate anywhere south of the Park.

The folks from Flatbush Tenants Coalition will be out by the Theater starting at 5:30 pm asking Mayor to do better to protect tenant’s rights as waves of gentrification keep washing over Brooklyn resulting in evictions that should not happen – like the elderly Ms. Noel – who lost her home while away and died homeless.

He will speak at 7:00 pm, and it will be streamed live.

If you are driving, traffic will likely be terrible on Flatbush and Beverley, radiating out as it usually does.