5 Stories You Need to Pay Attention to This Week

NEW YORK, NY — Kids, and many adults, will have a short week thanks to Columbus Day on Monday and Yom Kippur on Wednesday. But that doesn't mean it'll be a quiet week in the city (when is it ever?).

Patch breaks down a handful of the stories you'll be hearing about this week:

1. Oct. 10, 12: Columbus Day and Yom Kippur — Congratulations on (maybe) having a day off! Columbus Day has been a federal holiday since 1937, but it's been celebrated — especially by Italian-Americans — in New York City since 1866. Everything associated with the government is closed Monday — libraries (both NYPL and Brooklyn Public Libraries), schools (all public schools, many private/charter schools), post offices (also, no mail delivery) city and state offices. Banks are closed Monday as well. As for businesses, it's up to them to decide. Most stores will be open. Stock markets, i.e., the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, are also open. But once you send your kids back to school on Tuesday, they'll be off again on Wednesday for the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur, known as the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year on the Jewish calendar.
2. Oct. 10: Day after the debate — The second presidential debate happened Sunday night, Oct. 9, but you know the story all day on Monday will still be about what happened. Considering the lewd comments — and outright advocacy for sexual assault — from Donald Trump which leaked on Friday, this could be an explosive debate. There'll be plenty of breakdowns, winners and losers, and general Monday Morning Quarterbacking on literally every news outlet in the country on Oct. 10. You can follow Patch's coverage here.
3. Oct. 10-14: 6 train outta commission — There's some bad news this week for 6 train riders who need to travel overnight. MTA's FastTrack repairs come to the 6 line starting on Monday at 10 p.m., and go from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. every night this week. There will be no service in either direction from Hunts Point Avenue in the Bronx to 125th Street in East Harlem. Free shuttle busses will provide alternate service, stopping at each of the closed subway stops. The 6 will run normally in two sections — between 125th Street and Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan and between Pelham Bay Park and Hunts Point Avenue in the Bronx.
4. Oct. 11: Reporting on hate crimes — City Council Member Mark Levine is sponsoring a bill which would require the NYPD to report statistics on hate crimes. Right now, those numbers are just included among the total assaults, murders, etc. Information is kept, and released once a year, but the City Council is pushing for numbers to be released quarterly. The Committee on Public Safety will be holding a hearing on the bill on Tuesday at 10 a.m. Also, the City Council Stated Meeting — when all the council members vote on bills that came out of committee — will be on Oct. 13 at 1:30 p.m.
5. Oct. 15-16: Open House NYC — One of the coolest, but least known, initiatives of the city takes place every October when they open hundreds of usually off-limits city locations to the public. Patch broke down all of the locations here. But suffice it to say, this isn't something you want to miss when you only have two days to take advantage. You can take a tour of the United Nations, check out Google Headquarters, see the top of the Woolworth Building, or go backstage at the Apollo Theater.

Photo Credit: Patch