Friday, September 19, 2025

September 19, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Friday, September 19, 2025 

Welcome to another Friday edition of the Tech:NYC Digest, featuring our favorite five highlights in New York tech this week.

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The lightbulb hunter of East 58th Street (Curbed)

  • David Brooks knows a thing or two (or three) about lightbulbs. He’s the owner of Just Bulbs, a small shop in midtown that sells, well, just bulbs. 💡

    • That even includes the recently banned incandescent bulbs, a hot item for some folks with lightbulb allegiances. 

    • As for what bulbs Brooks uses himself? His favorite color of light is 3,500 kelvin, which, he says, can only be LED.

The New York Liberty are building a new generation of diehard basketball fans (Gothamist)

  • The New York Liberty moved from White Plains to Barclays Center in 2020, and the team’s fandom has since only grown.

    • When the reigning WNBA champions play tonight in a winner-take-all playoff game in Phoenix, expect bars around the city to be lit up in the team’s seafoam green. 🗽 

    • Check out the Liberty Bar Network here for a watch party near you.

NYC’s Transit Tech Lab helps area agencies explore AI to fix ridership, inspection challenges (StateScoop)

  • NYC’s Transit Tech Lab just published results from its 2025 cohort, where tech startups partnered with NYC-area transit agencies to pilot solutions addressing ridership and inspection challenges.

    • One company used AI to analyze 40 GB of historical drone footage over nearly 4 miles of track, identifying maintenance issues in 17 hours, with estimated savings of ~30 hours of manual inspection, ~$800 per mile, and reduced risk to on-track staff. 🚉

The Power Lunch Price Index! (The Lo Times)

Hundreds of Ryans gather in NYC for Guinness World Record attempt (Patch)

  • Calling all Ryans — no Bryans allowed. Hundreds of people named Ryan came together last weekend in Union Square to attempt to break a world record for the largest gathering of people with the same first name.

    • Proceeds from the event went to the Ryan Callahan Foundation, started by the former New York Rangers captain to raise money for pediatric cancer patients and their families.

    • The org hasn’t released an official tally of the event yet.

Break a record this weekend, New York! 💿

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