This just in: We learned that New York mayor Eric Adams was subpoenaed back in July. I asked our politics reporter Nia Prater what it all means. She says: “This subpoena suggests to me that they’re looking beyond Adams’ staff and are taking a closer look at how much of a role Adams himself might’ve played in any of the campaign activity under investigation. This doesn’t mean Adams will ultimately be implicated in anything. (Bill de Blasio is a perfect example of this.) But it’s certainly a level of attention that the mayor doesn’t need as he’s set to attend the DNC next week. Some think this signals that the investigation is likely nearing its end. Just in case 2024 wasn’t interesting enough already!”

We asked y’all to tell us: What day does summer end? The answers were … intense.

The biggest vote getters were Labor Day and the day after Labor Day, in a near tie for September 2 and 3. I love that. Many of us clearly feel that it is not Labor Day but the Tuesday back to work after a three-day weekend that is literally the nail in the coffin of summer. (Also, September 5 is the first day of school this year in New York City.)

However! A full 60 percent of voters disagree. Here’s the breakdown.

Dozens of readers thought that summer ends at the start of Labor Day weekend. That’s a sick take and I’m into it. Then, the next most popular date is September 22 — the equinox, obvs.

This is the problem with democracy. A minority agree strongly on one thing and so they get it, while a majority of people naturally don’t agree and want a bunch of other things. If only there was a system to represent an array of people with diverse interests! We should talk about that later this year maybe, no reason.

I read every single response and I was in tears! You people are mad! Here are some very compelling if sometimes intrusive thoughts, which become more madcap as we progress.

“Labor Day is the end of liturgical summer.” Incredible.

“Even though seasons only exist because of colonialism, I’m confident that summer is three months exactly: June, July, August.”

“September 2: The last day of Saratoga racing season.”

“Real talk though, I’ve started to say summer is over when August comes because August for teachers is the longest scary Sunday you’ll ever have,” says Ms. E. Oh no. Prayers up for you in the classroom!

“Culturally, summer ends the day we all go back to work after the Labor Day weekend. Beaches and ice cream stands close for the season; the summery part of summer is over. Literally, of course, summer ends near the end of September (9/20? 9/21? thereabouts) but while most of us know this fact, we also know that it is dull and dishonest to insist that this later date reflects summer’s end in any meaningful way,” writes Eevin.

“Summer begins with Memorial Day! Summer ends at Labor Day! Two easy Monday holidays to serve as bookends. I will be SHOCKED if this isn’t NYMag readership consensus!” Okay Bret!!!!

“Summer ends once you can’t go to the beach, and in NYC that’s Sept 8 this year. They might cave and extend it if there’s a heat wave, but otherwise, bye-bye summer.” Jamie, this made me sad.

“Summer Fridays over. School about to start. Vibes are busy,” says a September 3 voter.

“Labor Day weekend was THE END of the season when I was a kid. That was the weekend my mom and grandparents would finally take a short summer vacation trip out of NYC. We’d get back home Monday sometime, turning on the Jerry Lewis telethon. Then came back-to-school shopping (at TSS on Metropolitan Ave., natch!). And then it was the countdown to school starting later that week. I have never been able to look at the end of summer any differently as a result no matter how much older I keep getting!” — Hope

August 31: “This is probably the second most obvious answer (Labor Day being the first?) but August is summer and September just isn’t. That’s all there is to it in my head. Yes, in NYC the weather is often summer-like for a lot of September (and I find that frustrating because I don’t think it should be! Move on!). But summer as a concept is more about a feeling than a temperature and that, to me, ends with the month of August.”

August 31: “You Americans always make things more complicated than they need to be! (Don’t even get me started on your political system!) If you followed the system we have in Australia (only backwards because of the backwards seasons) then you’d feel so much less anxious and more in control. Our seasons fit neatly into three-month periods (aka quarters). Summer (your Winter) is 1 December to 28 February, Autumn (your Spring) is 1 March to 31 May, Winter (your Summer) is 1 June to 31 August, and finally our Spring (your Autumn) is 1 September to 30 November. Now take a deep breath and consider the beauty, consistency and routine in this system. It never changes and everyone is on the same page. Let’s hope that’s the same for your upcoming election - go Kamala Walz! All the sane people of the world are barracking (’rooting,’ as you say, but for Australians that’s slang for having sex LOL) for you! See you on the other side of November 5.” Tough but fair!

On this day: “When Bravo’s Summer House stops filming the day after Labor Day but cameras have to go back up to capture the dramatic end of a relationship everyone and ‘Page Six’ saw coming.”

September 1: “End of the summer — and get this, also THE YEAR! The reset (on vibes, style, life decisions) is always September.”

September 2: “It’s the last day of the Minnesota State Fair, and for Minnesotans, that’s the end of the summer.”

September 3: “Mostly capitalism. By that point, the pumpkin spice lattes are back. The pumpkin butter is out at Trader Joe’s. Your most insistent friends are burning fall candles and insisting it’s ‘sweater weather’ when it is still absolutely roasting out, babe. But also the community pools are closed and all the kids are back in school. Labor Day has always been the end of summer, and it still is. (It should be federal law that you can’t send kids back to school till after Labor Day. Low priority for a federal law, but I stand by this point.)” Hard agree, Annie!

Labor Day: “Labor Day is always the last summer bash — yea yea yea we can party with late sunsets in warm water through mid-October in the Northeast (that’s when the summer and the beach are really magical and shhhhhhh) — but Labor Day is THE DAY. You should wait until Tuesday 9/3 this year to swing through Starbies drive-through and snatch your mega large PSL. Or at least wait until then to start talking about it.”

September 5: “First day of NFL football, baby!!”

September 10: “Just a feeling. It ends a little before the actual First Day of Fall but a little after Labor Day.”

September 10: “Just a feeling. It ends a little before the actual First Day of Fall but a little after Labor Day.”

August 21: “I follow Jake Cornell’s updated seasons calendar, which states that Summer 1 runs from June 1–August 21. It feels right.” Kathryn, you have changed lives today.

August 26: “The outdoor pool closes during the day, because the lifeguards go back to school. And, it starts staying dark longer, so you have to run with a headlamp on.” Compelling!

September 15: “September 15th is the deadline day for partnership tax-return filing, which marks the last day that I’ll be super busy. The day after, when I’ll finally be free from 16-hour days and working weekends, there will no longer be a summer worth enjoying,” says Rob, who sounds like he could use a hug.

September 15: “The ides of September feels like a logical stopping point,” writes Amelia.

September 15: “Once kids are back in school (which should start the middle of the week after Labor Day, as God intended) and football has been on TV for a few weeks, there’s an undeniable shift in the air. Cutting summer off at the end of August is too abrupt, but September 22 or 23 is too close to spooky season to ever feel like summer. September 15 gives you two weeks of what feels like bonus summer to enjoy without pushing it.”

September 15: “SCHOOLS BACK!! SHIP THOSE KIDDOS INTO EDUCATION-STATION. NO MORE UNSTRUCTURED FREETIME IN THE CITY! DADDA AND HIS PARTNER ARE EXHAUSTED.” Okay, good luck, Matt!!!

September 21: “It’s not just that it’s the equinox, it’s also post–Labor Day — a necessity —and it’s the point by which any activities that were on pause during the summer have started up again. It’s also a compromise between October 1, which is definitely fall, and like September 8th, which might count as the last reaches of summer,” says Sarah.

September 21: “Yes, it’s the autumn equinox. But it’s also usually the weekend that my husband and I start spending weekends in the city again. Even at the beach, the salt air starts to have a chill.”

September 21: “FALL EQUINOX BABY, gotta squeeze every last drop from summer!!! Don’t let the tyranny of long weekend holidays or the start of the school year get you down!!!” I appreciate the exclamations, Nozlee!

September 21: “Equinox, baby! Don’t overcomplicate what the sun has sorted out.”

September 21: “Last day of Virgo season. The seasons and the astrological signs are intertwined neatly and orderly.”

September 30: “If the weather is nice enough to take the ferry to Red Hook and sit in the backyard at the Ice House, it’s still summer.” Thank you, Emily.

September 30: “In the year of our lord 2024, it continues to be hot and summery through much of September, at least in NYC. Rather than delude ourselves by saying an 80-degree day on September 17 counts as fall, I prefer to launch head-first into the autumnal spirit on October 1 when we kick into pre-Halloween gear and temps begin to drop/the jorts are put away.” Thank you, Emma!

September 30: “September is secret summer for adults, when the kids are B2S and it’s still hot.”

September 30: “Summer lasts until the day you say ‘I’m going to the beach this weekend’ and you get weird looks (this happens to me a lot).”

September 30: “The seasons have shifted! Climate change! It’ll still be hot af in Sept and goddamnit we don’t get enough snow. call it an unpopular opinion, idgaf.” Thank you, Ashley!

October 15: “I polled my 14-year-old bc we love the next generation’s perspective. (I’m an older Gen X.) He said (while walking outside to play basketball) that he gave that date because it’s ‘still warm out.’ He’s hopeful.”

July 5: “In my family, summer is over as soon as my father sends his yearly solstice text of ‘the days are getting shorter from here on out!’ Yes, summer ending the day it begins makes zero sense, but is summer not simply a state of mind? Anyway, I am less grim than my father, I say summer ends the day after the 4th of July. It is still hot and gross after Independence Day (for at least 2 more months!) but it’s all downhill from there. To me, summer is about anticipation, if nothing else.”

July 28: “This was when the light changed this year. Gone so soon!”

July 31: “Summer ends with July. Yes, August is hot and school is still out (mostly — I grew up in a place (not LA) that started public school in August) and lots of people in NYC are on vacation BUT. August is the point where everyone is tired of summer. Ask everybody you know who has a late July/August birthday how their childhood birthday parties went (not great)! Before summer became hotter than hell most of the time, it was only hotter than hell in August. August 1 through whenever we decide it’s fall (currently mid-ish September, this will get pushed back as the climate continues to change etc.) is the Misery Zone, when it is still hot and “technically summer” but summer activities have stopped being fun and no one wants to do anything. Everyone who went on vacation this month has COVID now.” LOL.

August 17: “Target, Home Depot, and other retailers began trotting out Halloween candy and decorations in July. JULY! Can you please make them stop? This is the third time my summer has been ruined by their displays of 7-foot skeleton dogs when all I wanted was a beach chair.” Noah, you are right.

August 18: “Because according to my sources, that’s the first day of school for Rydell High in 1958 and therefore when the song ‘Summer Nights’ was sung.”

August 19: “The stark realization that all the summer things you wanted to do will likely not happen weighs heavily here.”

August 25: “College fall semester starts bitch!!!” You are a real one for this.

August 28: “The day before I go back to ‘lecturing’ on ‘Economics’ at a crappy 2-year community college. Most of these students won’t even know what it means to balance a checkbook, yet want to be stock brokers.”

August 31: “Summer ends the last day of August because summer is the worst season of all four seasons and August is the worst month of all twelve months (yes even March is better), therefore when August ends so does the hellscape we call summer. Sure the ‘equinox’ isn’t until mid-September but who cares except the pagans. September brings apples and leaves change and school and structure and flannel we will wear even if we’re dying in a heat wave because September 1 means fall dammit.” Incredible, I don’t know what to say.

September 11: “The MTV VMAs are always the official end of summer and this year they’re on 9/11.”

September 11: “It’s my birthday. There are often significant changes on my birthday. There was the obvious horrific one, but sometimes good ones in my personal life. It’s also when fall activities ramp up. I think the new year should begin in September.”

September 22: “At 8:43 AM, to be precise. The Fall Equinox! It’s always the very moment when I realize (1) I have started wearing socks with my flip-flops, and not in a trendy, brat kind of way, and (2) the number of daydreams I have about sashaying through crispy piles of leaves and wearing sweaters and boots has begun to far outnumber my daydreams about garden tomato sandwiches. So, it’s really a socks equinox.” Okay, Meridith!

September 25: “The moon will be a Waning Gibbous. Gibbous means ‘hump back.’ The moon is sad, slouching toward fall.” And now, I am as well.

October 1: “It changes every year, but this is the day MLB wild-card games start this year. The summer is for chasing a playoff spot and when the chase is officially over for everybody so is summer,” writes a Mariners fan.

October 15: “I gave an exact date but honestly, summer ends when the first frost of the fall drops and all the mosquitoes get wrecked. This takes place on a different day each year (usually mid-October) and I live for it.” Same, Nalini.

October 27 (!!!): “The end of summertime coincides with the final Mister Sundays dance party at Nowadays :)”

November 28 (!!!!!!): “Thanksgiving — that’s when fall starts.” And sometimes the simplest takes are the wildest takes of all.

I’ll be at the pool until further notice (while I still can, I guess!).

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