Author: openjargon

• The longest traffic-restricted "open street" in New York City is in Jackson Heights, Queens. 
• The working-class, predominantly immigrant neighborhood was an epicenter of COVID-19 in 2020.
• With open streets closing and shrinking across the city, 34th Avenue offers a model of community engagement.

On a recent sunny Friday afternoon in Jackson Heights, Queens, dozens of migrants filled out applications for asylum at folding tables set up in the street outside a local elementary school. Former Manhattan prosecutor Nuala O'Doherty-Naranjo, who operates the free legal clinic three days a week, sat nearby answering questions.

In good weather, she and her team — all volunteers — hold the clinic in the street, which was recently transformed into a car-free public plaza. Steps away, kids played soccer, a little girl tested out the training wheels on her bicycle, and a neighbor led a free crocheting class.

Just a few years ago, that same road — 34th Avenue — was a traffic-clogged artery. But a years-long, grass-roots effort has turned a 1.3-mile-long, 26-block stretch of the avenue — which the city council renamed Paseo Park — into the crown jewel of New York City's embattled Open Streets Initiative.

As New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reverses the city's attempt to reduce congestion in Manhattan, Jackson Heights has managed to cement its open street into a feature the community isn't willing to give up.

Turning a dangerous street into a center of community

O'Doherty-Naranjo remembers that the principal of a public middle school on 34th Avenue — one of nine schools with thousands of students within about 35 blocks — had to direct traffic as kids filtered across the street at dismissal, fighting for space with drivers.

"Drivers would literally just scream and honk at the principal as a thousand kids are crossing the district," said O'Doherty-Naranjo, who was the president of the school's parent-teacher association.

Then, one afternoon in March 2019, a 12-year-old boy was hit and seriously injured by a driver in a Jeep outside another of 34th Avenue's middle schools. That tragedy spurred meetings between the schools, the police department, DOT, and safe street advocates to speed the process of restricting vehicle traffic during certain hours.

Not long after, the pandemic hit. Suddenly, schools were closed and traffic slowed to a trickle. Central Queens' working-class immigrant neighborhoods had become the "epicenter of the epicenter" of the virus. Nearby, Elmhurst Hospital Center became one of the hardest-hit medical centers in the country.

The lockdown also shed a harsh spotlight on the area's lack of green space. Jackson Heights has among the least amount of park space of any New York City neighborhood.

With people cooped up in small apartments, O'Doherty-Naranjo and a group of other neighbors decided to start pushing to restrict traffic along most of 34th Avenue. They got the go-ahead, but they needed manpower to enforce it. About 100 volunteers were soon recruited to help set up and take down metal barricades at each intersection every morning and night to block the street from through traffic.

These days, 34th Avenue is the neighborhood's public backyard. All pass-through vehicle traffic is prohibited between 7 am and 8 pm every day of the year, although cars can still park on all of the blocks that aren't plazas.

The blocks immediately outside each school are permanently vehicle-free, an increasingly popular safety measure around the world. Residents have cleaner air and quieter and safer streets, as well as a community space they desperately need. Traffic accidents on 34th Avenue involving pedestrians are down 61%, according to the City Department of Transportation, and crashes with injuries are down 34%.

On a Friday afternoon in late May, 19-year-old City College student Braulio Tellez hung out eating pizza with his mom and sister while perched on the tree-lined median that runs along the center of the open street. Tellez grew up in the neighborhood and sometimes carries his telescope out at night to observe the moon and planets from the quiet of the road.

"It helps remove all stress," Tellez said of the traffic-restricted street. "I love it."

A 'superhighway' of pedestrians and bikes

Jim Burke, a longtime pedestrian and transit advocate, had lived in his apartment building right on 34th Avenue for a dozen years when the pandemic hit. But he knew virtually none of his neighbors. In the early days of the pandemic, bored in their apartment, Burke and his partner started regularly playing a coin-tossing game in the street. Soon, neighbors and kids began joining in.

Burke grew up in the Bronx and the Rockaways and remembers that as kids, he and his friends "owned the streets," where they played every day. He figured adults and kids alike should have that same experience on 34th Avenue.

"One thing led to another and then we started raising money," Burke said. "People looked out their windows and said, 'Oh that looks like fun, I don't want to stay in my house for another minute.'"

O'Doherty-Naranjo and Burke co-founded the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition and used the funds they raised to put on programming — hiring yoga and Zumba instructors to teach free classes, volunteers to lead English lessons, and even enlisting doctors to dispense free medical advice. The effort was entirely volunteer-powered for the first 18 months before the city stepped in to help.

"In the summer, I see a lot of people doing activities, or going out, walking, kids playing with chalk — just cool things that I didn't have when growing up," said Yorladiz, a Jackson Heights native who regularly walks her four-year-old daughter up and down 34th Avenue. "It's yoga night, it's salsa night — they're always doing something."

These days, Burke can't spend more than a few minutes on 34th Avenue without running into a neighbor he knows.

"It's become this superhighway of kids and families and neighbors," O'Doherty-Naranjo said.

These days, controversy on 34th Avenue mostly concerns a surge in mopeds, which tend to use the street as a cut-through.

Shekar Krishnan, the councilman who represents the neighborhood, held a "Moped Crisis" town hall recently and says the City needs to come up with a plan to redesign the street to keep mopeds off of it and create safer ways for them to travel on other streets. If the Department of Transportation is going "to oversee the expansion of public space, in addition to their other work," Krishnan said, "they need to get far more serious, and ambitious, and creative in how they do so — and, frankly, listen to the communities."

Burke and O'Doherty-Naranjo don't want to ban mopeds from 34th Avenue. They recognize that other streets often aren't safe for moped drivers, many of whom are delivery workers.

Funding for open streets can be hard to come by, however. Across the city, 83 miles of open streets dwindled to about 20 miles between 2020 and 2022. DOT only allots $20,000 a year for 34th Avenue, Burke said, which is just a fraction of the funds needed to operate the open street all year round. The city has also been slow to reimburse neighborhood groups supporting open streets across the city.

Burke estimates 34th Avenue needs at least $50,000 a year to operate with a decent amount of programming — and the City still owes it $10,000 from last year. The more money the street has, the more instructors, artists, and musicians it can pay to lead workshops, beautify the street, and put on performances.

Unlike many other open streets across the city, 34th Avenue isn't a commercial street — it's entirely residential in between its many schools and one small park. "A lot of the places that New York City has done these kind of more groundbreaking projects, they've been in wealthy neighborhoods," Dawn Siff, the director of the Alliance for Paseo Park, a nonprofit supporting the open street.

Siff and others hope 34th Avenue will become a public park that prioritizes people on foot. She pointed to models in cities like Mexico City and Paris. Just across the East River, there's a great model in Manhattan's High Line.

O'Doherty-Naranjo and Burke want to see the open street extended all the way down to the end of 34th Avenue near Citi Field. They all envision a greener street, with flood mitigation like rain gardens — and more public art. Burke said he hopes the city will eventually be filled with connected open streets.

"Someday, my dream would be to interconnect them, where you could visit every neighborhood," he said, "and you could do so by traveling on an open street with your family, whether you're walking, or using a wheelchair, or biking."

Do you live on or near an open street in New York City or a traffic-restricted street elsewhere? Reach out to this reporter at erelman@businessinsider.com.

• Max is the latest streaming service to boost prices.
• Spotify also recently announced its monthly subscription was getting more expensive.
• Overall, your streaming bill this summer is likely higher than last year.

It's not just your electrical bill that's expected to go up this summer.

Your streaming bill is also likely to hit your wallet harder this summer compared to last year.

Ten of the top streaming services have boosted prices at least once in the past year, according to an analysis conducted by Business Insider.

Max was the latest to boost prices, effective immediately for new subscribers and by the next billing date on or after July 4 for current subscribers.

Ad-free plans will increase from $15.99 to $16.99 a month and $149.99 to $169.99 a year for annual plans. The Ultimate ad-free plan which includes 4k UHD streaming, will increase from $19.99 to $20.99 a month and $199.99 to $209.99 a year.

Those with the ad-supported plan will be spared — for now. Max's streaming plan with ads remains at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.

Max wasn't the first price hike announced this week. A day earlier, Spotify announced that Premium monthly plans for Individual, Duo, and Family were increasing by $1, $2, and $3, respectively.

Video and music streaming services have overwhelmingly surged since last summer, and not just by raising existing plans.

They've also seen some changes. Amazon Prime Video introduced ads earlier this year. If you want to avoid them, you were forced to upgrade to a more expensive plan, which costs an extra $2.99.

Netflix first introduced its ad-supported plan back in 2022, which has remained the same price since launch, $6.99, and helped the company's subscriber base reach new heights.

The changes highlight the efforts that streaming companies are making to boost their revenue per subscriber — which included an industry-wide crackdown on password-sharing. Netflix led the charge, announcing that it was limiting viewership to household members and charging $7.99 a month for each outside user. Since then, many of its rivals are planning to follow suit, including Disney+ and Max.

Some streaming companies are also moving toward bundled pricing, with the combined costs of multiple streaming services starting to rival cable TV. An analysis conducted by the Financial Times last August priced a top US streaming service bundle at $87, exceeding the $83 average cable package.

However, viewers who don't mind some ad breaks will still find themselves enjoying streaming as a cheaper cable alternative.

With prices continuing to rise along with the heat, it will be interesting to see if consumers add pruning their streaming package to their summer chores list.

• Emily Piehl owns a house with a big backyard in Antioch, about 60 miles from downtown Chicago.
• A year ago, she started renting out her backyard as a private dog park, charging $10 an hour.
• The income she is earning from the side hustle, through the app Sniffspot, has helped the single mom of two.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Emily Piehl, a 54-year-old elementary school STEM teacher from Antioch, Illinois, who started renting out her backyard on Sniffspot in 2023. The essay has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a single mom living in Antioch, Illinois — between Milwaukee and Chicago — with two teenagers and a hound.

I've been teaching for a long time and earn a decent amount of money, but the cost of living has increased. In the past, I've had some trouble paying bills. I don't have a spouse or a roommate, so I don't have other income coming in — it's just me and my kids.

A little less than a year ago, I saw an ad on Facebook about hosting on Sniffspot. It's an app that helps homeowners in renting out their yards as private dog parks. It's a good option for dog owners with reactive pets or those who are uncomfortable with traditional dog parks.

After finding out more information about Sniffspot, I decided to clean up my backyard and give it a try.

I'm making a good amount of money

I have a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house. It has a large fenced backyard that's about a quarter of an acre. There aren't a lot of trees, making it a great spot for dogs to run around and have fun.

Since starting to rent out my yard last July, I've earned $3,000 so far. While it's not a large amount of money, it covers nearly two mortgage payments. Additionally, it has allowed me to purchase new tires for my vehicle, handle bills, and recently, fund a two-night hotel stay for my kids and me to travel to Pennsylvania to visit my sick dad.

Before Sniffspot, these extra expenses would have really impacted my monthly budget.

It's not difficult becoming a Sniffspot host

Preparing my yard to host wasn't difficult. I didn't have to do any major tree trimming, just some cleaning up.

I added a patio umbrella, relocated a table to a specific area, placed cushions for chairs, and bought some dog toys. I probably spent around $200 — I didn't put a lot of money into it.

There aren't many Sniffspots in my area, but I have visitors often, even during the winter months.

Sniffspot allows hosts to set their price, though they offer a recommended price. To determine my rate, I looked at similar Sniffspots within a 10- to0 15-mile radius. I settled on $10 per hour.

The company has a policy where, if guests bring additional dogs, they receive a 50% discount. A lot of my guests have two dogs, so if they come for an hour, they're charged $15. Sinffspot takes out their fees, so I typically earn around $11.12.

I could charge more, but I don't want to charge too much and not have people come.

When I started, the first visitors I had were two women I know, and my neighbor across the street.

Now, I have around six to eight regular visitors. Two of them have memberships and visit frequently, with one even coming twice a day or at least every day. Then there are others who come every once in a while. Recently, I've been getting a lot more returning guests.

The people who use my property are mainly in their 20s and 30s. While I've never asked them directly, I imagine many of them live in areas without fenced yards.

I have minimal contact with visitors

I typically don't have any direct contact with guests. They just schedule through the app and notify me of their arrival.

I provide information on accessing the yard through the side gate, and then they have the space to themselves. If they have any questions, they can message me through the app, which makes everything convenient.

I've never felt uncomfortable with people in my yard. They've always been respectful of the property and clean up after themselves. I haven't encountered any problems so far.

I had a guy visit a few times who had recently adopted a new puppy from a local rescue. He was working with a dog trainer because his dog would bark and lunge at people while walking.

The trainer suggested trying out a private dog park. He mentioned that the first time his dog was off the leash in my yard, it was his first time ever. It made me so happy.

It's nice to peek out of my kitchen window and see all of the dogs running around and having fun.

The passive income has been a blessing

I am a single parent, and I don't have family in the area. For a long time, I've been trying to find ways to make extra money without having to do a lot of extra work. (I even considered driving for UberEats for a while.)

While there are other methods to make money, like renting out rooms in your homes, I prefer not to do so while my kids are at home.

Being on Sniffspot helps me have a little comfort. When I first started, my 17-year-old son told me, "That's passive income, mom." He's right.

Hopefully, more and more people will learn about Sniffspot.

• Three Gen Z software engineers at Google shared their résumés that landed them an interview.
• One applied with references and the other two sent in cold applications. 
• All three interned at a Big Tech company, had a 3.6 GPA or higher, and studied computer science.

Google is well known for offering its employees cushy Silicon Valley pay and enviable office perks — but it's also known for being extremely competitive.

The tech giant reportedly receives millions of applicants a year and has been said to be more difficult to get into than Harvard.

So what does the résumé of a successful applicant look like?

BI spoke to three recent graduates who now work as software engineers at Google. They each shared the résumé they used to land an interview — but it's important to remember there's no silver bullet for getting your foot in the door at Google.

Two of them sent in cold applications, and the third applied with references. All three went through Google's lengthy interview process which included a super round of interviews that lasted multiple hours.

The three résumés varied in style and content. Some were heavy in text and others didn't fill the full page. But one factor all three applicants had in common was an internship at a Big Tech company.

They also all had a degree in computer science and listed their GPAs, which were between 3.6 and 3.8.

Check out their résumés below and see what the Googlers had to say about what they think stood out in their applications.

Kevin Tsui is a 24-year-old software engineer at Google. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information in 2022 and said he applied to Google with no referrals at the time.

Tsui said he felt it was important to show multiple years of work experience, even if not every internship was related to what he does now.

He also said he felt that spending two years at a bigger name, like Amazon, which also gave him global product experience, may have helped him stand out.

Tsui said he decided to include outside interests on his résumé, like cooking and traveling, because he wanted to show that his coworkers could connect with him outside work.

A job isn't just doing that kind of work 24/7, Tsui said, you need to "be a person" in your off hours.

Tsui said he felt that it's important to be a team member and sociable.

Eric Stein is a 23-year-old software engineer at Google. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 2022 and applied with three connections at the company.

He said he thought his involvement with the Google Developer Student Club was the biggest contribution to his résumé, and it ended up getting him his references too.

"That showed my commitment to Google and my commitment to improving the world around me with technology," Stein said.

He said another highlight on his résumé was his inclusion of personal projects, like being the cofounder of Pareto Touch. He said he thought of it as a testament to his willingness to find work if he didn't have any. He also said he thought it showed his dedication to sharpening his skills.

Matt Wilkinson is a 24-year-old software engineer at Google. He graduated from American University in 2021 and applied to Google without a reference.

He said he thought his experience at Roku stood out the most on his résumé. While he's not necessarily working in the same specialization at Google that he did at Roku, he worked in a software engineering role at both jobs.

Wilkinson said he started off as a finance major and switched after sophomore year. He said because of that, he didn't have as many tech experiences and felt it was important to include some projects he worked on related to the field. He also said he thinks his role in one of the projects helped show leadership.

Do you work at Google? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work device and email at aaltchek@businessinsider.com

• Gen Z graduate Jane started working two jobs in college to pay for her rent and save for a mortgage.
• She told Business Insider being over-employed has a detrimental impact on her health and well-being.
• Jane said working hard is worth it if she can achieve FIRE by her early 30s.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jane, a 25-year-old over-employed worker in Canada. She asked to use only her first name for privacy reasons. Business Insider has verified her identity and employment. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I work two jobs a day. The first is my 9-to-5, and after that, I work in customer service until 10 p.m. I work twice as hard now so I can stop working earlier. My goal is to retire early, hopefully in my 30s.

I started working two jobs while I was finishing my sociology and business major in college in 2021.

There were so many remote opportunities during and following COVID-19. If I were having to commute between two jobs, I don't think I'd be doing this.

I was influenced by the FIRE community

I came across the FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early) on Reddit. I started documenting my FIRE journey on TikTok. I want to show there's a different path to retiring at 65.

My logic is to front-load my investing to my 20s and hope it pays off in the future. I want to be financially independent so that I can become "work-optional." I think that, in this economic climate, completely retiring and never making money again may no longer be possible.

But it might mean that I can take career breaks or have periods of life when I can cut back on work.

In college, I worked up to 40 hours alongside a 9-to-5

When I first started working two jobs in college, one was a 9-to-5 in marketing, and the other was in customer service, which I still have. Back then, I'd spend between 30 and 40 hours a week doing that on top of the 9-5. I book appointments for people. If they have an issue with their furnace or their toilet, I'd book a technician or a plumber. It's less stressful than marketing, where sometimes I worry about the projects overnight.

I also had a lot of homework. My marketing job was flexible, so I could do my college work during my lunch breaks or quiet periods. In reality, a remote office job is rarely 40 hours a week.

I had physical symptoms of stress

I was incredibly stressed during that period. I was determined to keep up seeing my friends and go to the gym too, so I sacrificed my sleep. I slept between four and six hours a night.

I had a permanent headache. It was really difficult.

I was renting, and I felt like I needed to prove that I could keep making my rental payments. I also wanted to buy a property, and having the income meant I could secure a mortgage in 2021. Having the FIRE mentality helped me push through.

I got all my schoolwork done, but it did take away from my college experience in some ways. If I'd had more time, I would've cared more about my major. But, investing in a property at that time was beneficial. Looking back, it was worth the trade-off.

I kept up my 2 jobs after college

It felt natural to continue working two jobs after graduating from college in 2022.

If I couldn't start out with a high-paying job like people going into STEM jobs, the least I could do is work harder.

I landed a new job as a marketing specialist, which was also 9-to-5. I kept up my customer service job, working 65 hours over two weeks. I did that from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and on the weekends.

I'd take two days off a week from my second job. Working on weekends sucked. I really wanted one day a week to lie in. But I don't find it hard to switch between the two jobs. I don't find customer service as mentally draining as marketing. It's not stressful, it's just time-consuming.

I live frugally

I have a weird relationship with money, which I'm trying to work on. I earned 47,000 Canadian dollars so far this year from both jobs, which is around $34,000, plus commission, which varies. I save about 70% of that a month. I invest most of my savings. It's not for everyone, but it was important to me that I became financially literate in my 20s and was able to start investing early.

I live at home with my family too, and rent out the property I bought in college.

When I'm not spending money, I feel stingy. But when I do spend it, I feel guilty. Instead of buying lunch or a drink with dinner, I feel like I should save money for bigger things.

I struggle to keep up with hobbies

I used to go rock climbing and paint, but I don't have time for hobbies. I try to see my friends when I have evenings or weekends off. But after working all day, I often just want to stay at home and decompress. I could go to the gym or take a walk at lunch, but I often want to nap instead or play on my phone. I just want to do something passive.

When the sun goes down at 6 p.m. in winter, I've had days where I look out of the window and realize I've had no sun or exercise all day.

To give myself more time to go outside and exercise, I reduced my customer service job hours to 55 hours over two weeks and stopped working Sundays in May. I'm still burned out, though.

My family is proud of my ambition, but I think they'd prefer I didn't work so hard. Living at home, they can see how it affects me.

There are also so many smart people in my community. I feel pressure to keep up. My older brother is quite accomplished, so a little of the pressure I feel comes from comparing myself to him.

My drive to continue outweighs my burnout. I know it's not good for my physical and mental health or my sleep, but I'm so focused on my goal that I'm willing to sacrifice that for a few more years.

If you work two full-time jobs and would like to share your story, email Ella Hopkins at ehopkins@businessinsider.com.

• Alphabet, Inc. on Wednesday announced the appointment of its new CFO, Anat Ashkenazi.
• Ashkenazi previously worked at Eli Lilly for more than two decades.
• She will receive a nearly $10 million signing bonus, $1 million salary, and stock options.

Alphabet, Inc. on Wednesday announced the appointment of Anat Ashkenazi as its new Chief Financial Officer, who will oversee Alphabet and Google operations.

Upon signing up with the tech giant, the former Eli Lilly executive raked in a $9.9 million signing bonus, The Wall Street Journal reported, in addition to an equity grant worth $13.1 million in the form of restricted stock units, plus her $1 million annual salary — with eligibility for annual bonuses up to 200% of her base salary.

Ashkenazi will stay on as senior vice president and CFO at the pharmaceutical company through the end of July before taking on her new role with Google. A search is underway for her successor at Eli Lilly where she worked for over two decades, Business Insider previously reported.

According to her biography, Ashkenazi graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she earned her bachelor's degree in finance and economics, and Tel Aviv University, where she earned her MBA.

Before joining Eli Lilly in 2001, she worked in financial services at Maalot Standard & Poor's and Bank Hapoalim in Israel.

More notably, the last 23 years of her career have been spent in various roles across Eli Lilly — including positions in strategy, finance, and, most recently, as senior vice president, controller, and CFO of Lilly Research Laboratories.

As senior vice president, she served as CFO for several of the company's global sectors, including manufacturing and research and development, and oversaw the corporate strategic planning team.

During Ashkenazi's tenure, Eli Lilly has achieved a market cap of over $800 billion, largely thanks to two of the company's newer products — Mounjaro and Zepbound, popular antidiabetic medications for weight loss and treating type 2 diabetes.

Her transition to Google comes as the tech giant invests heavily in artificial intelligence. Alphabet's stock hit its all-time high on May 21 at $179.54 per share.

"This was a strong candidate that fills a void for Alphabet at a key time in its growth transformation and AI Revolution," Dan Ives, Wedbush Securities managing partner, told Business Insider: "She has a strong reputation and great CFO experience. Right hire at the right time."

In her new role at Google, Ashkenazi will succeed Ruth Porat, who served as CFO before she was named chief investment officer last year.

Representatives for Google and Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.