A man armed with a machete attacked three people on the platforms of Grand Central–42nd Street on Saturday morning, slashing an 84-year-old man, a 65-year-old man, and a 70-year-old woman before police shot and killed him, shutting down one of the city's most essential transit hubs for hours and turning a Saturday commute into a citywide referendum on subway safety. Across town, the Rent Guidelines Board entered its most consequential cycle in years, with board staff reporting a 5.3 percent rise in owner operating costs even as Mayor Mamdani pushes for a freeze he cannot order into place, only a board he has largely appointed can deliver it. And the 2027 deadline to close Rikers is now openly acknowledged as gone, with borough-based jails not expected to open until 2029 at the earliest and the transfer process the law requires still largely stalled.

For a few hours on Saturday, one of New York City’s most important transit crossroads became a crime scene and a test of the city’s insistence that its subways are safe and manageable. Inside the Grand Central–42nd Street station complex, police officers shot and killed a man who, officials said, had slashed three people…