Friday, August 7, 2026
Welcome to another Friday edition of the Tech:NYC Digest, featuring our favorite five highlights in New York and tech this week.
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Building a marathon man: Selecting the tech stack (Sports Business Journal)
Preparing for the New York City Marathon now comes with a team of AI trainers. ⌚
A Sports Business Journal reporter is detailing his training journey for the New York City marathon using a full stack of sports tech, including AI coaching, gait analysis, smart insoles, and wearable sensors that track everything from stride mechanics to impact forces.
The experiment offers a glimpse at how elite-level training tools are becoming accessible to everyday runners tackling New York's biggest race.
It’s the summer of soundwalking. He is your sherpa (New York Times)
Do you ever just stop and listen? Just hear us out. 🎙️👂
One of this summer’s hottest walking tours is being led by sound artist Jacek Smolicki.
He leads special “soundwalks” through New York using specialized microphones that amplify sounds humans normally can’t hear — from bubbling microbes in Central Park ponds to vibrations traveling through tree roots and even the hiss of Con Edison steam stacks.
City launches online map to track affordable housing projects (NY1)
Ever wonder where the city’s next affordable housing projects are actually being built? There’s a map for that. 🗺️
The city has launched the new LIFT Tracker, an interactive online map showing more than 100 city-owned sites where the Mamdani administration plans to build over 50,000 new affordable homes.
The tool is designed to let New Yorkers track construction progress in real time as the city works toward its goal of building 200,000 affordable homes and preserving another 200,000 over the next decade.
Together with Bilt 🤝
Your neighborhood is full of Bilt Points you’re not earning yet.
Beyond rent and mortgage payments, Bilt members can link their credit and debit cards to stack points at local spots on top of existing card rewards — and the in-app Concierge surfaces member benefits at restaurants, fitness studios, and on Lyft rides nearby.
Old NYC subway cars have an unexpected second life on the ocean floor (BGR)
Some subway cars just change routes instead of retiring. 🐠
More than 2,000 decommissioned subway cars have been deliberately sunk off the East Coast, where they’ve become artificial reefs teeming with fish, mussels, and other marine life.
The decades-long program saved the MTA millions of dollars while giving aging train cars an unexpected second life beneath the waves.
Challenge accepted: We went hunting for the secret bolt in Central Park (Gothamist)
Central Park is hiding one of Manhattan's oldest surviving artifacts. And almost no one knows where it is. 🔩
Buried somewhere in the park is a 218-year-old metal survey bolt, one of the markers engineer John Randel Jr. used to map out the intersections of Manhattan’s future street grid in the early 1800s.
Its exact location is intentionally kept secret to protect it from theft, inspiring one Gothamist reporter to spend two hours wandering the park in an unsuccessful — but very New York — treasure hunt.
Find some treasure this weekend, New York! 🏴☠️
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