new york – Jessica S. McKenzie

Grist: This power plant stopped burning fossil fuels. Then Bitcoin came along.

On the sleepy shores of New York’s Seneca Lake, a cryptocurrency company is showing how Bitcoin can keep fossil fuel use alive.

This article was republished by Mother Jones as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

National Geographic: Crowded peaks? Not on this little-known trail in the Adirondacks

Hiking New York’s historic Northville-Placid Trail is a great way to avoid crowds—and be reminded of the importance of trail networks.

Backpacker: A 40-Mile, Quarantime Hike Through New York City

We were coming down the final stretch of a grueling two-day backpacking trip, debating whether we should knock off early. It was a situation I’ve been in before—weighing the effort to summit one last peak against tired legs, blistered feet, and a shorter route back to the trailhead.

Only this time, it wasn’t a mountain my boyfriend and I wanted to bag: It was Staten Island.

Gothamist: NYCHA Residents Endure Quarantine Without Cooking Gas

There’s no quarantine baking for the residents of 303 Vernon.

That’s because the NYC Housing Authority building in Bed-Stuy has been without cooking gas since March 30th, and there’s no clear timeline for it to be restored. Denene Witherspoon, the president of the Tenant Association, said she was told it could be six more weeks. In the meantime, the 576 residents have been given one hot plate to cook on per unit, regardless of whether one person lives there or eight.

Civicist: Bed-Stuy Strong: Scaling Mutual Aid During COVID-19

On Tuesday evening, several dozen Brooklynites gathered together in one of the only spaces available to us right now—on Zoom—to sing Happy Birthday. But the honoree wasn’t a person; it was the one-month anniversary of Bed-Stuy Strong, a mutual aid network that was started to respond to the coronavirus crisis in New York City, and to give residents in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant—where I’ve lived since 2011—a way to help and to seek help from their neighbors. Since early March, more than 250 mutual aid groups have emerged in mostly urban neighborhoods across the country, all of them undoubtedly juggling similar challenges of coordinating volunteers, needs, tasks, and money as the crisis intensifies.