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| It's Friday. |
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| Weather: Sunny, with a high in the mid-80s. Showers and thunderstorms are possible tomorrow, but skies should be clear on Sunday. |
| Alternate-side parking: In effect until Aug. 11. |
 @Naturenearyou, via Reuters |
| A week after some streets in Brooklyn and Staten Island flooded during a thunderstorm, a similar scene played out inside a New York City bus. |
| Passengers lifted their feet to avoid getting soaked. One man stood on a seat. |
| Perhaps more shocking: Just over an inch of rain caused the inundation. |
| What happened? |
| On Wednesday, a thundershower hit. That was "certainly not unusual," Tim Morrin, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said. |
| What was unusual was the storm's speed. |
| A little more than an inch of rain fell on Staten Island in about 20 minutes, according to local weather readings. Mr. Morrin said that speed was "remarkable." |
| The total rainfall that day was about 1.71 inches, he said. |
| Were the people on the bus all right? |
| Yes. |
| The rain flooded Richmond Terrace on Staten Island's North Shore. |
| More than one Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver reported the conditions, according to Shams Tarek, an M.T.A. spokesman. The driver of the bus pictured above evaluated the situation and decided it was safe to proceed, Mr. Tarek said. |
| Seated passengers lifted their feet to avoid getting wet. At least one rider, Lacy Shelby, recorded the scene on her phone. |
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| No passengers were hurt, the spokesman said. (The bus's exhaust pipe is on its roof, so ventilation was not an issue.) |
| The street flooded. Whose fault was it? |
| Mr. Tarek said the M.T.A. was a victim of the flooding. "This is a graphic example of the challenges our bus operators face on the road day in and day out," he said in a statement. |
| The Staten Island borough president, James Oddo, blamed the city, as well as local residents. |
| "Staten Islanders are responsible for those floods because you see drains all across the island that get filled with what? They get filled with litter. They get filled with plastic bottles," Mr. Oddo said in an interview. |
| City agencies are responsible for cleaning the catch basins that drain streets of excess water, he said, adding: "We have to point the finger at ourselves. We're the ones that have the littering problem on Staten Island." |
| Mr. Oddo acknowledged the challenges of climate change and said better infrastructure needed to be part of the solution. |
| He said the city recently approved plans to add more housing and businesses near the site of Wednesday's flooding. Mr. Oddo, who opposed the rezoning, said the city was "inviting tens of thousands of more people to endure what those folks on that bus endured." |
| Does the city have an infrastructure problem? |
| The city's commissioner of environmental protection said in an interview that intense rainfall, not the addition of people, was what presents a challenge to infrastructure. |
| The city's sewers can handle a lot: on a dry day, about 1.1 billion gallons of wastewater, according to the commissioner, Vincent Sapienza. "You can have five billion gallons, six billion gallons of wastewater" when it rains, he said. |
| The problem is when it rains fast. |
| The sewers can handle about 1.75 inches of rain an hour, Mr. Sapienza said. On Wednesday, it rained more than an inch in just 20 minutes. |
| The reason for last week's flooding that created a river on Brooklyn's Union Street: about three inches of rain in an hour, he said. |
| "Essentially every summer when we get these cloudbursts, these summertime thunderstorms, they can sit over one small area of the city and then there's flooding," Mr. Sapienza said. "So, we're used to it." |
| From The Times |
 James Keivom for The New York Times |
| The investigation into the deaths of twins who were left in a hot car was not complete, prosecutors said, raising the possibility that charges against their father could be reduced or dropped. |
| The Police Department has been loading thousands of arrest photos of children and teenagers into a facial recognition database. |
| The Manhattan D.A. subpoenaed the Trump Organization over Stormy Daniels hush money. |
| Meet the beetles: Researchers studying trees at Green-Wood Cemetery found a nonnative beetle previously unknown to science. |
| One night. One chance. One Liza (with a "z"). |
| [Want more news from New York and around the region? Check out our full coverage.] |
| The Mini Crossword: Here is today's puzzle. |
| What we're reading |
| A car almost fell into a sinkhole in Bushwick. [Bklyner] |
| More than 900 city classrooms tested positive for lead paint. [Chalkbeat] |
| Benches, bike racks and potted plants are squeezing vendors out of valuable sidewalk space. [Wall Street Journal] |
| A man said he was assaulted on Canal Street while wearing a "Make American Great Again" hat. [Daily News] |
| Coming up this weekend |
| Friday: |
| Eat fresh New York City oysters and learn about their history with the Billion Oyster Project at the New-York Historical Society in Manhattan. 7 p.m. [$20] |
| Relive the jazz era with a screening of "A Great Day in Harlem" at the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan. 7 p.m. [Free with admission] |
| Saturday: |
| Watch the martial arts classic "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and a demonstration for Lou Reed Tai Chi Day as part of the Bric Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival at the Prospect Park Bandshell. 7 p.m. [Free] |
| Explore social-justice-themed children's books at the Woke Baby Book Fair at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. [Free] |
| Root for teams competing in the Dragon Boat Festival at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. [Free] |
| Sunday: |
| Sculpt penny-size everyday objects at the Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan. 10 a.m. [Free with admission] |
| Learn about the pre-Columbian history of crops in indigenous and African diaspora cuisines at a workshop at the Green Acres Community Garden in Brooklyn. 11 a.m. [Free] |
| — Melissa Guerrero |
| Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times's culture pages. |
| And finally: The Big Apple Roll |
 Woofsnap |
| The Times's Nefertari Elshiekh writes: |
| Hundreds of people are on a roll, and tonight they'll arrive in Times Square with bright clothing, glow sticks and blinking lights. |
| The Empire Skate Club's Big Apple Roll, which calls itself the biggest roller-skating event in New York City, kicked off yesterday with a glide over the Manhattan Bridge. It keeps rolling through Sunday. |
| Tonight's skate covers 15.5 miles in Manhattan. Participants traverse the George Washington Bridge on Saturday and travel through Astoria, Queens, on Sunday. |
| [See a schedule of all the skates, as well as more details about the event.] |
| Rick Trager, who has been running the free event for the last five years, said the rush of skating through the city and seeing tourist attractions from a new perspective make the weekend special. |
| "People come from various places around the country and even the world to skate the Big Apple Roll," Mr. Trager said. "Skating through Times Square is such a blast. We get cheers and looks from everyone there. People aren't used to seeing this big mass of skaters." |
| In total, the event, which is for intermediate to advanced skaters only, covers about 100 miles. |
| Seeing the large groups might encourage New Yorkers who have never skated to try it, Mr. Trager added. |
| "We want to get away from that '80s and '90s stigma about skating and get more young people involved," he said. "It's a great way to meet people and have a great time while exercising." |
| Metropolitan Diary: Doctors Hospital |
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| Dear Diary: |
| It was 1965, and I was expecting my second child. My doctor said we would be using Doctors Hospital for the delivery. I was not familiar with it, but friends told me that it was well known as a place where the rich and famous went and that it was somewhere on East End Avenue near the East River. |
| On the night before my due date, my husband and I left our daughter with my mother and went to a late movie in Queens. Around midnight, I began to feel some pains. We left the movie, drove to my mother's home to pick up my suitcase and then set off over the bridge to Manhattan. |
| "Where again is the hospital?" my husband asked. |
| "It's somewhere near the East River on East End Avenue," I said. "So make the first right leaving the bridge." |
| Making our way to East End Avenue, we began to look frantically for something resembling a hospital. My labor pains were getting stronger, and my husband was starting to panic. |
| After driving several blocks, we came to Gracie Mansion, where several police officers were standing watch. My husband pulled over and asked if they could direct us to Doctors Hospital. They all said they knew of no hospital nearby. |
| A woman walking her dog within earshot pointed to a building that was literally across the street. |
| "Hey, guys," she said. "It's right here!" |
| — Mary Anne Bradley |
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