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| It's Monday. Pride Month has just begun. |
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| Weather: Sunny but not humid, with a high near 70. Prepare for strong winds midafternoon. |
| Alternate-side parking: In effect today, then suspended Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for Eid al-Fitr. |
![Aunjanue Ellis and Ethan Herisse in]() Aunjanue Ellis and Ethan Herisse in "When They See Us," a Netflix mini-series.
Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix |
| The story was first told in blaring newspaper headlines and television sound bites. Then it became a documentary. Last week, it was revisited again in a four-part series on Netflix. Later this month, it will be the subject of an opera in California. |
| Yes, the story of the Central Park Five has often been recounted. But the case, and the themes that it highlighted, are a reminder of the kind of city New York was and, in some ways, still is. |
| What happened? |
| On April 19, 1989, a woman jogging in Central Park was raped and nearly beaten to death. Five teenagers of color, ages 14 to 16, were convicted of the crime. They spent six to 13 years in prison. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 after another man who was already in prison for similar crimes confessed to the attack. That man's DNA matched evidence from the crime scene. |
| In 2003, the exonerated men sued the city for wrongful conviction. In 2014, the city settled the case and agreed to pay them $41 million. |
| Why were the five teenagers convicted in the first place? |
| They were picked up by the police after the attack and questioned at length. At some point, confessions started coming out. They later recanted and said the confessions were coerced. The prosecutors proceeded anyway. |
| With inconclusive physical evidence, the statements were a key part of the prosecution's case. |
| The defendants were also found guilty in the court of public opinion. The Times and other outlets referred to them as a "wolf pack." |
| Donald J. Trump ran newspaper ads attacking them and calling for the return of the death penalty. |
| What were the five teenagers doing in the park that night? Some news reports called it "wilding," a term that was meant to describe various forms of illegality, but that later came to symbolize the guilty-until-proven-innocent atmosphere the teenagers faced. |
| Why does the case matter now? |
| Before Sandra Bland (2015), Eric Garner (2014) and Trayvon Martin (2012), there were the Central Park Five: Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray and Kevin Richardson. |
| The Times columnist Jim Dwyer covered the case for years. He said it showed how the criminal justice system could be "warped by forces like race, and how it is shaped by an atmosphere of fear." |
| It's a "mythic ideal that our courts and criminal justice system can be immunized or insolated" from these forces, he said. |
| What's the new story? |
| It's a four-part Netflix mini-series called "When They See Us," directed by Ava DuVernay — a lightly fictionalized retelling of the case (similar to popular retellings like "The People vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story.") |
| As Mr. Dwyer wrote, "With the license of imagination, it follows the boys as they turn to men, and opens interior spaces — personal torments, family turmoils, prison torture, the sustenance of odd friendships — to which daily journalism has little access, and in which it has scant interest." |
| The case was also the subject of "The Central Park Five," a 2012 documentary on PBS by Ken Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns. |
| Was anyone held accountable for the wrongful convictions? |
| When Mr. Dwyer was asked that question, he paused for a moment. |
| "To say one person or one institution should be held responsible — it underestimates how broad and wide-ranging the forces that shaped this calamity were," he said. "So, the answer is no, but the answer gets even worse." |
| Mr. Dwyer noted that when the city settled the civil case, there was no admission of wrongdoing. |
| The city's lawyer said, "Our review of the record suggests that both the investigating detectives and the assistant district attorneys involved in the case acted reasonably." |
| From the archives |
 Neal Boenzi/The New York Times |
| In 1964, when Gay Talese profiled Jim Buck in The Times, the headline read: "145-Pounder Walks 500 Pounds of Dogs." Mr. Buck was apparently one of the city's earliest professional dog walkers. |
| See more old photos at our archival storytelling project, Past Tense, and on Instagram: @nytarchives. |
| From The Times |
 Stephanie Keith for The New York Times |
| Could prostitution be decriminalized in New York? Some Democratic lawmakers are about to propose a comprehensive bill. |
| Tony Soprano's house is on the market for $3.4 million. Make the owners an offer they can't refuse. |
| When Spike Lee moved to the Upper East Side, the house was missing a door and hinges. |
| The "gravity knife" led to thousands of questionable arrests in New York. Now it's legal. |
| The estranged husband of Jennifer Dulos, a woman who disappeared in Connecticut, was arrested. |
| [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 |
| The Museum of Broadway will open in Times Square next year. [amNew York] |
| Two gay pride flags were set on fire in Harlem on Friday, just before the start of Pride Month. [New York Post] |
| The city issued 123 summonses to people who defied an order to get the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. [Wall Street Journal] |
| Would you eat fish caught in the Hudson? Three anglers discuss their hobby. [West Side Rag] |
| Coming up today |
| Bronx officials and organizers hold a ceremonial pride flag raising at Bronx Borough Hall to begin Pride Month. 5 p.m. [Free] |
| See the Season 3 premiere of "The Handmaid's Tale" two days before it's available online, as part of the Split Screens festival at the IFC Center in Manhattan. 7 p.m. [$17] |
| Participants in the Moth Storyslam at the Bell House in Brooklyn tell true stories on stage without notes. The theme is chemistry. 8 p.m. [$15] |
| The singer-songwriter Emma Jayne and the soul-pop duo Lohai in concert at Mercury Lounge in Manhattan. 9:30 p.m. [$10] |
| — Vivian Ewing |
| 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: His stage is the E train |
 Brenda Ann Kenneally for The New York Times |
| From The New York Times Magazine's New York Issue: |
| It's a familiar phrase to anyone who rides the subway. |
| Two or three dancers place a boom box to one side of the train and work their way through a routine. Usually, commuters look away. On occasion, they're openly hostile. |
| But that doesn't happen very often with Ikeem Jones. |
| He works the crowd with care. Some regular riders know him and have high expectations. One woman, after hearing his spiel recently, pulled him close and said, "Shut up and amaze me." |
| Mr. Jones's preferred dance genre, known as "litefeet" or "getting lite," started on the streets of Harlem and the Bronx in the early 2000s. |
| Over the past decade or so, litefeet has gone global. Mr. Jones appeared in a Budweiser ad campaign, dancing next to a small boom box under some train tracks. |
| But dancing in a subway car is still technically illegal. Mr. Jones has been arrested five times. "I wouldn't end up on the island or the boat," he said, referring to Rikers Island and a floating jail on the East River. "But I would have to pay the ticket." |
| This spring, Mr. Jones, his wife and their 9-month-old daughter moved from a homeless shelter in Bedford-Stuyvesant to their first apartment, in East New York. He works at a Family Dollar store in Brooklyn — and dances — to pay the bills. |
| Sometimes it takes him just an hour or two on the train to make enough. "I go home after a hundred dollars — that's when I feel at peace," he said. |
| Read Mr. Jones's whole story — and see him dance. And click here to watch a dozen artists, from a Broadway star to a sword swallower, show off what it takes to make it in New York, the greatest stage town on earth. |
| It's Monday — "Shut up and amaze me." |
| Metropolitan Diary: Breakfast special |
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| Dear Diary: |
| I went to a restaurant in the theater district I had never been to before. I saw that the menu, oddly, lacked the customary breakfast and brunch dishes I prefer: no omelets, no cereal. |
| Wondering what to do, my eyes strolled to the bottom of the page. Under "Sweets," I discovered this item: crepes filled with chèvre, covered in powdered sugar and drenched with blueberries in syrup. |
| Somewhat indulgent for 11 a.m., but the prospect of getting up and leaving seemed inconvenient and embarrassing. I took the leap. |
| The verdict? Not bad. After the busboy had cleared the table, the waiter returned. |
| "Care to order dessert?" he said. |
| — Don Hauptman |
