New York City is in the midst of its second heat wave of the summer — and we’re only halfway through July.

While there’s no beating the heat (short of moving to San Francisco), government and nonprofit leaders across the city are deploying a range of initiatives to help New Yorkers make it through increasingly brutal summers. Gothamist set out to break down some of the ongoing efforts and assess what's working and what needs work.

The heat can be deadly, and it's likely here to stay. The city says three New Yorkers died in their homes from heat-related illness over the July 4 weekend.

A heat advisory remains in effect until 9 p.m. Wednesday, but we’ll only get slight relief later in the week. Heat index values are expected to reach around 104 degrees Wednesday, but highs will remain around 90 Thursday and in the upper-80s Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Canadian wildfire smoke could pose a continuing hazard through the week as well.

This sort of weather is likely to become increasingly common: The city's climate panel projects the number of days above 90 degrees could nearly quadruple, from about 17 a year to 69, by the 2050s.

Cooling centers

When temperatures in the city are expected to stay above 95 degrees for at least two days, the city activates its heat emergency plan, throwing open the doors to 650 cooling centers across the city.

These centers, intended to give residents a place to cool off, take the form of libraries, community centers, and even Petco stores. Officials say they pick locations New Yorkers know and feel comfortable visiting.

On July 2, when it was pushing 100 degrees, Grace Chin, 81, went to the Open Door Senior Citizen Center that doubled as a cooling center. Chin said the AC was one of the reasons she came to the community center, but she was also very excited to sing Chinese opera with her friends and teacher.

“I think of the singing,” she said. “I only think of the music, the music.”

Soledad Alvarado, a climate justice fellow at Water Front Alliance, said it’s important that the cooling center system include places like community centers — and that the program should expand to places like coffee shops and other commercial buildings. Libraries, she said, require a certain quietness that might not fit everyone’s needs.

The system has faced some criticism. The Office of Independent Budget examined the cooling centers operating last year and noted their ad-hoc placement across the city. The author of the report told Gothamist that, for example, there wasn't a correlation between neighborhoods with low access to air conditioning and the availability of cooling centers.

Last summer, the City Council passed a bill intended to codify the city’s cooling center programs. It directs the city's emergency management agency to consider various factors, including vulnerable populations, when picking locations.

Air conditioners

Air conditioners hanging out of our windows are commonplace — and increasingly necessary for a New York summer. But according to Emergency Management Commissioner Christina Farrell, 10% of New Yorkers don’t have access to AC. In its most recent heat-related mortality report, the Department of Health said 52% of the people who died at home had no climate control.

While cooling centers are generally open during the hottest days of the year, the report showed heat-exacerbated deaths occur when temperatures climb above just 82 degrees.

But by 2030, every tenant should have access to a cooling system under a law the Council passed earlier this year. Under the new rules, building owners would have to give tenants cooling systems that could keep their bedrooms down to at least 78 degrees.

Low-income New Yorkers can also get help with buying an air condition through the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In New York, the program helps applicants with the purchase and installation of cooling systems so long as funds for the year remain. But the application process for this year closed on June 5, which officials say is the earliest point in the year it’s ever wrapped up.

Caleb Smith is the New York City policy manager at the nonprofit We Act for Environmental Justice. He says New York could do more. The state sets aside only 2% to 4% of its LIHEAP dollars for cooling assistance, according to federal data. The majority of funding goes toward heating assistance.

“Extreme heat is the deadliest impact of climate change,” he said. “So there's a clear mismatch in terms of what resources are being provided compared to the gravity and danger that it presents as a climate hazard.”

Some other nearby states set aside much more for cooling. Delaware, for example, dedicates 20% of its funds to cooling.

Smith suggested additional funds could be set aside to help families pay for their cooling bill, too – not just the equipment.

Cool city

The city also has longer-term plans to remake the parts of the cityscape to help New Yorkers stay cool even as the mercury climbs.

In 2024, the city launched Climate Strong Communities, a program that helps at-risk neighborhoods develop their own strategies for mitigating extreme weather.

One idea to come out of Brownsville: “Cool” bus shelters.

Under the program, a group of private and public partners came together to put a special “passive cooling radiative” film on three bus shelters. The film reflects the sunlight and keeps surfaces cooler. (Residents can request bus stop shelters by calling 311.)

The city is also working on an urban forest plan, meant to expand the city’s tree canopy. The canopy currently gives the city about 23% coverage, and the city has a goal of increasing that to 30% by 2040.

A comptroller report from 2026 reported that tree canopy is unevenly distributed throughout the city, leaving areas like the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn with higher surface temperatures. Louise Yeung, chief climate officer for the Mayor Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, said that the urban forest plan will prioritize these sorts of communities.

Of course, it takes some time for trees to grow. Ariane Middel, associate professor of urban climate at ASU, called expanding the city’s tree canopy more of a “long-term strategy.” In her study 50 Grades of Shade, she found out that artificial shades such as shade sails, umbrellas and pergolas can keep people cool as effectively as trees can.

There are other ways to engineer a cool city. For example, this September, the city is expected to launch a “cool pavement” program to see if switching to different sorts of building materials on the city’s streets could help fend off the heat.

Protecting workers

Earlier this year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order directing agencies to develop heat safety guidance for outdoor workers.

Gabriel Montero, director of development and communications for Workers Justice Project, a nonprofit that organizes immigrant workers for better working conditions in construction, house cleaning and app-based delivery, said that this is an important first step for a workforce the city estimates at 80,000 people.

“That recognition matters because often these workers have been kinda left out of these conversations,” he said.

But there are other concrete steps the city could take, Montero said. For example, he’d like to see more climate-controlled rest hubs for delivery workers, like the one that opened at City Hall in April. He said they should be funded by the delivery app companies. He also called for hazard pay during extreme heat and multilingual training so workers can recognize signs of heat illness.

Jerome Sloss delivers Amazon packages out of Woodside, Queens, for the third-party contractor ASB Global. On a 10-hour shift, he makes between 80 and 100 stops, delivering as many as 200 packages. The heat slows him down, he said, and sometimes he feels like he could pass out. The van’s air conditioning doesn’t reach the back where he loads out, he said.

“It's just like a sauna,” he said. “There's no air flow.”

He said his facility handed out water and bags of ice during the heat wave, but that only goes so far.

“I don't think anybody should be outside working for prolonged periods,” he said.

The company’s management hasn’t returned a message seeking comment on the conditions Sloss described.