New York Magazine April 7-20, 2025

1 For New York’s latest cover story, features writer Rachel Handler previewed Michelle Williams’s turn in the FX tragicomedy Dying for Sex, about a terminal cancer patient’s quest to finally learn what turns her on (“A Death-Defying Sexcapade,” March 24–April 6). On Reddit, BrigidLikeRigid praised the accompanying photo portfolio, by Ellen von Unwerth: “Not only does she look very sexy here, but she also looks like she’s having a lot of fun.” Reynolds222 commented, “Beautiful piece. What lovely, strong women. An inspiration,” while bigopensky said, “Damn … this article had me in tears by halfway through.” On Bluesky, novelist Marissa Levien called parts of the story “a balm to my soul.” Commenter samanthastevens had a different view: “Gosh, what a tragic story. I can’t imagine anything sadder than being diagnosed…

IN THE PAST FEW WEEKS, federal agents have targeted nearly a dozen foreign-born students and faculty members, many of whom have criticized Israel or participated in campus protests against its brutal siege on Gaza. Meanwhile, the State Department—using AI to scan social media for evidence of pro-Hamas sentiments—has revoked some 300 visas, relying on a 1952 law originally conceived, in part, to deport “communists.” At the same time, the White House has threatened to revoke billions in federal grants to universities accused of “fail[ing] to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination” and strong-armed white-shoe law firms to join pro bono litigation to “combat antisemitism,” among other things. After detaining Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, who served as an intermediary between activists and administrators during protests last spring,…

SCOTT, A FATHER OF two boys ages 11 and 13, recalled recently hearing one say to the other, “What color is your Bugatti?” “That’s an Andrew Tate–ism,” Scott explained. “Someone’s criticizing him and he uses that as a retort: ‘Anything you have to say to me doesn’t matter because you don’t have a Bugatti and I do.’” Scott was only vaguely familiar with Tate, a central figure in the so-called manosphere, who has been accused of human trafficking and has a massive social-media following among boys and young men. But social media disseminates content like bits of microplastics that build up in our bodies—and the bodies of our children. These cultural fragments—remarks, jokes, expressions—are often so far removed from their source material that kids have no idea where they even…

DO YOU SEE THAT?” said Andrew Cuomo, making the rounds over brunch at Melba’s in Harlem one Sunday in March. Earlier that morning, he had given a speech at Mount Neboh Baptist Church on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, just down the street from here, calling for the hiring of 5,000 more police officers and levying a blistering attack on the left flank of the Democratic Party—some members of which were running against him for mayor—for uttering what he called “the three dumbest public-policy words you can utter: Cut the police.” The speech was well received, the former governor gained an endorsement from the pastor, a longtime ally, and now here he was remarking on the inverted political landscape of his party and trying to get in a couple more…

A STAGESTRUCK ADOLESCENT growing up in Washington, D.C., I had the same romantic view of Broadway from afar that every kid like me did back then—and maybe still does. A fantasy patched together from books (in my case, Moss Hart’s Act One), movies (All About Eve), and, with luck, family holiday trips to the big city to see a Big Broadway Smash. The Theater District I encountered when I moved to New York in the 1970s did not match that fairy tale. The neighborhood was blighted by prostitution, porn, and drugs; the city was facing bankruptcy; and suburbanites and tourists were shunning the sordid hellscape depicted in movies like Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver. Forty-second Street was now the Deuce. A Times Square marquee was more likely to herald Deep…

IN THE LATE 1980S and early 1990s, the giant Tower Records on 66th Street and Broadway was as close to a formal meeting place for gay men as a chain store could get. Located on the north border of Lincoln Center and just across the avenue from a Barnes & Noble, Tower was part of a literal cultural intersection. The store, which was usually open until midnight, was at times a vibrant cruising ground for men who liked men who liked opera, dance, music, movies, or theater. That was particularly true on Tuesdays, when new releases came in and guys could spend a late-evening hour happily perusing the CDs and perusing the perusers. Tower was also, in those years, a place where the terrifying and ever-accelerating speed with which AIDS…