Friday, January 9, 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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The man who controls the lights at 270 Park Avenue (Curbed)
Artist Leo Villareal is quietly controlling one of Midtown’s most ambitious high-tech artworks: a living light installation made of nearly 1.5 million programmable LEDs crowning 270 Park Avenue, the new JPMorgan Chase tower. 💡🏙️
Titled “Celestial Passage,” the piece uses custom-built software to generate slow, layered patterns visible across much of Midtown.
From a makeshift rooftop studio, Villareal fine-tunes the building in real time, continuing a career spent turning infrastructure into meditative public art.
‘They told me to do .5’: Mamdani takes selfie after holding influencer briefing (NBC New York)
Mayor Zohran Mamdani held his first “new media” briefing at City Hall, exclusively for influencers and content creators. 🏛️
Seventy creators from Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X, Substack, and various podcasts were in attendance, representing a combined reach of nearly 80 million followers.
Woman returned a lost wallet on the subway. Four years later, it led to one of the most unexpected friendships (People)
A true New York story: A wallet left behind on a New York City subway car on Christmas Day in 2021 became the unlikely start of a lasting friendship between two strangers. 🫂
Instead of turning the wallet over to police, Neena Roe tracked down its owner, via Facebook and returned it in person — a small act that led to shared meals, visits, and a bond that deepened over time.
Four years later, Neena’s TikTok about the friendship has gone viral, striking a chord with viewers drawn to a reminder of some delightful consequences of everyday kindness.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen wins High Line commission (New York Times)
A 27-foot-tall sandstone Buddha by artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen will preside over 10th Avenue starting in spring 2026 as the next High Line Plinth installation. 🪨🕊️
Titled “The Light That Shines Through the Universe,” the sculpture resurrects one of the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban 25 years ago.
The piece will be installed in late April and remain on view for 18 months.
Kids getting joy out of ‘duck libraries’ popping up throughout New York City (ABC New York)
“Duck libraries” are popping up across New York, inviting kids — and adults — to take a tiny plastic duck and leave one behind. 😊
Dog walker JJ Cerillo, now known as the city’s unofficial “duck librarian,” helps restock the boxes and document the growing movement on Instagram.
The idea has spread beyond the city, inspiring similar duck exchanges as far away as Scotland.
Have a quacktastic weekend, New York! 🦆
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