Last year, I wrote mundane predictions for a 2022 almanac for NYC. It was my first time really trying my hand at mundane astrology. I've been meaning to report back on how I did, and I finally got around to it! Here's what I got right, what I didn't, and some ambiguous outcomes:

What I Got Right

I predicted there would be "momentum for workers and healthcare" in April: "Unexpected coalitions may form between different groups as possibilities for a more inclusive future are entertained."
On April 1: "An Amazon facility on Staten Island, N.Y., voted to become the company’s first unionized U.S. workplace in a mammoth upset that would be one of organized labor’s biggest victories in decades."

For March: "Venus is still traveling neck and neck with Mars, and when they enter Aquarius on the 6th, New Yorkers may soon be in the throes of a spring awakening filled with lust for good times. However, Saturn is there too, so this party will, to some extent, have a chaperone."

On March 7th, COVID restrictions were dropped, and then the Post published this a couple weeks later. Not entirely sure about the chaperone, because, you know, no restrictions. Perhaps the chaperone/Saturn was just the COVID we ignored all along :)

"September's Mercury Retrograde looks significant for NYC...Media coverage may bring to light a crisis in the city's infrastructure or facilities. After Mercury backtracks into Virgo on the 23rd, more details may come out."

In the rough draft, I specifically called out jails and prisons, but my editor changed it. This isn't the first time Rikers has been exposed in the news, but it's been a big part of the news cycle over the past month or so, with this dropping on the 28th.

I also wrote that toward the second half of September, "conflict may swell in the organized crime world, or perhaps there'll be some sort of crackdown on fraud or corruption." And, well,:

For June: "Mars and Jupiter are both egging each other on in Aries, which might bring criminal justice and policing issues to the fore, hearkening back to what was happening during the second half of 2020."
In June, Adams and the City Council agreed on the final budget, with slightly more funding for the NYPD and cuts to education. This spurred more protests, and was definitely a grim callback to the protests outside City Hall in the summer of 2020.

Also for June: "There may be public demonstrations and attention on the courts, and this may be part of a broader national issue, perhaps with events in other cities influencing those in New York."
This was when the Supreme Court Roe v Wade decision was handed down, and New York was boosting its legal protections for patients and abortion providers, and generally positioning itself as a safe state.
This was a weird one, for July: "Mercury spends half the month in Cancer. This brings added media attention to the local government and celebrity class, particularly on the 16th, when Mercury joins the Sun and delivers what may be a very public expose in the news."

Ivana Trump died on July 14 and ABC mistakenly published a rough draft of her obituary titled "DO NOT PUB" while Mercury was still super combust.
On the 15th, the medical examiner's findings were announced, and in the days surrounding her funeral, we got a very revealing look into the upbringing of the Trump kids.
In February, I wrote, "Venus and Mars seal the deal midmonth, signaling some sort of accord or a fresh start around revenue and taxation." This conjunction happened on Feb 16, the very day Adams presented his first budget.

What I Got Sort Of Right

"The mood around town at the very beginning of March may feel contentious. Public discontent, particularly around cost of living and abuse of power, may swell early in the month and reach another critical juncture around the 21st."

I'm not totally sure about public discontent being higher than it is generally, but this seemed to line up with a swell of awareness around violence and affordable housing fuckups.

On the 19th & 20th there were 29 people shot in 24 separate incidents, which led Adams to roll out more Neighborhood Safety Teams. On the 26th, Ron Kim called on Hochul to declare a state of emergency due to hate crimes against AAPI New Yorkers.

Also on Mar 21: A “bureaucratic nightmare” has left 2,500 city-funded apartments for homeless New Yorkers who need mental health care and other social services open — enough units to house every person living on the streets or in the subways."

I’m chalking this up to “sort of right” because it’s unclear how much the affordable housing dysfunction is really a significant departure from the norm in a city where cost of living is a perennial concern.
With Venus+Jupiter in Aries/NYC's 7th in May, I wrote that "wedding season is kicking off in surplus mode." This actually turned out to be true on a national scale, not sure how much this is really a departure from the norm for New York specifically.
"With Saturn and Neptune both stationing retrograde and pinging various aspects of the city's chart involving recreation, revenue, public health, and its inhabitants, an important turning point or milestone may be reached around the implementation of legal recreational cannabis."

On June 22, a cannabis advisory board was appointed and an investment firm was named to manage the social equity cannabis investment fund.

However, Saturn and Neptune stationed *retrograde*, so I should have known implementation would stall somewhat after the milestone. NYC was still not allowing licensed dispensaries to start selling, so a bunch of unlicensed vendors popped up instead.
"This year, Leo Season places us midway between eclipse seasons. The City Council may play a crucial role in advancing some sort of legislation this month that changes the way resources are generated and allocated."

This was when Adams was negotiating again with City Council over the earlier proposed school budget cuts. "Some City Council members who voted in favor of the city’s budget said on Monday that they now regret the decision and apologized to parents."

I’m calling this “sort of right” because you can find news stories about budgetary legislation pretty much any day of the week.
A general thread was the eclipses going through NYC's 2nd and 8th houses, which I tied to budget reform and a new agenda around resource distribution.

This was kind of expected anyway with a new mayor taking office, but I wrote this before Adams was elected, and I think I was too optimistic about how good the reforms would for New Yorkers (sigh).

However, the timing seemed to work. When Venus was stationing direct in late January, I predicted the "new mayor will be met with demands around women's issues, the arts, and childbirth" and that "some of the financial moves taken this month (and beyond) may center these issues. In late January, Speaker Adrienne Adams was throwing her support/putting pressure on Adams to fulfill one of his campaign promises to implement a city-subsidized child care program.

In mid-April, a couple weeks before the Taurus eclipse that I wrote may extend an "unexpected amount of financial support to the neediest New Yorkers," Adams announced he added $250 million to the existing $92 million spent annually on Earned Income Tax Credit.

There was also a lot of substantial movement related to budgets and the economy around those eclipses (April 30, May 16): on May 10, Hochul announced $35 million in support for abortion providers and Adams announced $50 million in childcare funding. On May 15, Adams reduced fines for small businesses, and on May 23, the city comptroller called for a $2 billion addition to the city’s rainy day fund.

What I Got Wrong

There was a new moon in January in the city's 4th house, conjunct the Sun (head of state) and trine Uranus in the 8th. I wrote, "This lunation ushers in a new agenda that prioritizes reform around housing and the distribution of resources." I guess...lol.

He let the eviction moratorium expire in January and requested federal aid, but he also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit.

I think what this was actually pointing to was that Adams started his term with a strong rebound in property values that gave him an extra $1 billion in unexpected tax dollars to work with (aka give to cops).
Also an interesting statement to evaluate: "We start the year with Jupiter in Pisces, the city's 6th house of public health. The city's emergence from the pandemic, and the ability of the public health infrastructure to address future outbreaks, may feel more secure."

I mean...I don't think this really came true, but most people are behaving as though it is, so there's your Jupiter transit. Broadly speaking, medical departments are dangerously spread thin around the country. Then again, the sentiment I've gotten from healthcare workers I've talked to is that it's still nothing close to what spring of 2020 was, and NYC's winter omicron wave did start declining pretty much as soon as Jupiter entered Pisces. So I guess this is an ambiguous one.
Another not quite: Mercury stationed direct on Feb 4 conjunct Pluto/the city's Mercury. Prediction: "A plan to transform local transit, particularly underground, may take form, but with Mercury squaring the city's Moon, it's going to come with a few groans from the public."

I'm pretty sure this was just Adams and Hochul teaming up to send more cops into the subway to harass/remove homeless people. I misattributed what was actually much more than "a few groans," inflicted on the most vulnerable population.
There was a full moon on April 16 "exactly opposite the city's Moon and square its nodal axis, which looks like a significant turning point for the collective well-being and sense of shared destiny among New Yorkers. Pluto is also stationing on the degree of the city's North Node throughout April, emphasizing the seismic magnitude of what it takes to bounce back from a pandemic."

So...I think this was the subway shooting that happened on April 12. That definitely prompted a lot of existential panic, I think, but it seemed a lot more literal than my prediction. Pluto as a terrorism incident, go figure.
Now that the Mars Retrograde has came and gone, I think I got that one wrong as well. Mars entered Gemini on Aug 20 for 7 months, and I wrote, "This period may be marked by prolonged strife or indecision that implicates local universities, courts, or airports."
The 9th house theme that emerged instead was the migrant crisis, during which other states were sending newly arrived immigrants and asylum seekers to New York City in a bad faith effort to overwhelm the city’s existing infrastructure.
One that was just flat wrong, for January: "As a new taxation scheme advances, questions of how the city's nightlife, performing arts centers, and entertainment industry can be supported in radically new ways may figure into this." I haven't seen any strong evidence for this.

Most of this post was originally published as a Twitter thread in October 2022.

Forecasting NYC: What I Got Right (And What I Didn’t) In 2022

Reflections On Leaving: Notes From A Progressed Balsamic Moon Phase

Hot And Bothered: The Union Of Venus And Mars