925 NYC kids get free books for Dolly Parton Appreciation Day: ‘She was one of us’

🔮 Central Park’s horse-drawn carriage drivers said they feel “betrayed” and forgotten Wednesday after Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin struck a deal to ban the centuries-old practice.

🔮 “As we have said, the owner of the Second Avenue property originally approached us regarding a potential sale, and we recognized that the site’s proximity to our hospital could help support these long-term community healthcare needs,” said Steve Ritea of NYU Langone Health.

🔮 The irate Avila-Chevalier — a DSA candidate endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani — turns to the supervising cop and gets in his face as he tries to hold the barricade, yelling “stop escalating… you are escalating… you are pushing.”

🔮 The leafy Brooklyn nabe miserably failed the eight-week pilot program — which took ASP parking days from four to two — with a little more than half its drivers finding the willpower to move their cars for the 1.5-hour inconvenience, officials revealed Thursday.

🔮 The city Parks Department started accepting bids this week for the rare opportunity to run the beachfront amusement attraction and other nearby rides for the next two decades, a job that will likely call for pumping lots of cash into the aging infrastructure.

🔮 The white bird was snapped in a papparazzi-esque picture this weekend, titillating neighbors who are apparently impressed that he got such a sweet new Uptown pad without even having to interview with a co-op board. “It’s always fun to see what kind of wildlife we can get living near Central Park, but this was far more unique and exciting,” said a woman who snapped a picture of the owl from her West 76th Street and Central Park West patio, who asked to be identified only as Ms. Williams.

🔮 Hermann Merkel was the first to document the blight in 1904 — writing that “unless some radical measures are taken, or a natural enemy of this fungus develops, it is safe to predict that not a live specimen of the American Chestnut will be found two years hence in the neighborhood of the Zoological Park,” the former name of the Bronx Zoo. The blight would go on to decimate nearly 4 billion American chestnut trees across North America, rendering it “functionally extinct.” But the 20 saplings aren’t exactly the same trees whose canopy once blanketed the US — the 3-foot-tall trees planted Monday are a hybrid mix that horticulturalists hope will make them stronger against the blight they expect to eventually creep onto the trees. “These trees most likely will get the disease, and it will impact them.

🔮 The 1-liter steins and never-ending costume opportunities could be why just 16% of New Yorkers statewide pledged to participate in Sober October this year, compared to an average rate of 26% nationally, the survey found.

🔮 What may have won Kraft, 25, the title, however, was the sidestep dance moves Styles is known for — and that students he spent the summer working with mistook him for the former boy bander.

🔮 It’s not clear when the animals would have scurried into the package, but tracking data shows that it was passed off to five different USPS locations across its four-day journey from Miami to the Upper East Side — including a night at a Midtown distribution center after the mail carrier pushed back its delivery day.

🔮 Police have not identified her as a suspect, but are investigating whether she may have been involved.

🔮 “I wanted to make sure that if I wasn’t able to do anything, I would just be able to save him long enough for EMS.”

🔮 She left and came to live by me, but she would come back [to him].”

🔮 The Big Apple celebrated the late singer and icon Friday for an official Dolly Parton Appreciation Day — and nearly 1,000 lucky kids will get books for a year in her honor.

🔮 “This summer, the mayor of New York demonized supporters of Israel and focused on singling out the Jewish state for criticism,” said Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of the Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, referring to Mamdani’s alleged divisive recent anti-Israel comments.