The Madelaine Chocolate Company has been in its current Rockaway, Queens factory since 1967. When the entire factory was destroyed due to flooding after Hurricane Sandy, the company had to start over from scratch. But, they survived and are now one of the largest manufacturing factories in New York City. Check out this short video from New York Magazine to learn more about how the company made it through tough times.

It hasn’t always been easygoing for the Farber family since the Madelaine Chocolate Factory opened in 1949. In 2012, in fact, their waterfront factory in the Rockaway Beach area of Queens was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. The storm caused $50 million worth of damage to machinery and equipment, and Jorge Farber, who took over the factory after his father died, was forced to make some tough decisions. Today, the company has rebuilt and remains a pillar of the community.

Created by producer/director Carson Davidson in 1955, this incredible vintage film provides a portrait of the Third Avenue El in its final year. Once present up most of Manhattan's numbered avenues, the 3rd Ave El was the last elevated train line in the City, replaced by our now ubiquitous network of subway lines.

A portrait of the Third Avenue Elevated Railway in New York City in 1955. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive. The music is Haydn's Concerto in D, played by harpsichordist Wanda Landowska. Davidson was a great fan of Landowska, and the rights to the music were held by HMV, who told the filmmaker that he could use the music, provided Landowska gave her approval. Through her secretary, Davidson discovered that Landowska distrusted filmmakers, had only seen one film in her life (which she disliked), but nevertheless "snapped up an offer of $200, all the money I had at the time," says Davidson.

Using data provided by the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission, data scientist, software engineer, and analyst Todd W. Schneider recently created this graph showing past 9 years of growth in the ride sharing industry versus the decline of NYC taxis. Combining all ride sharing services like Lyft, Juno, Via, Gett and the other one, versus a yellow/green cab combination, ride sharing apps provide 65% more pickups than cabs. Last year, they were tied.

February 2017 marked the first month that ride-hailing services collectively made more trips than yellow and green taxis combined, and by December 2017, ride-hailing services made 65% more pickups than taxis did. The ride-hailing cohort now makes more pickups per month than taxis did in any month since the dataset began 2009.

The accompanying article was originally written in 2016, but has been updated this month with more insights into the recent data.