This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board approved an almost $2 billion construction contract that seriously moves the needle on the long-overdue next phase of the Second Avenue subway expansion into East Harlem, handing a victory to MTA CEO and President Janno Lieber and delivering on a century-old promise to extend service into this working-class neighborhood.

It took seven years, bizarre local government stonewalling and town officials with egg on their face, but Muslims on Long Island, Inc. are finally getting a new mosque. Oyster Bay officials settled with Moeen Qureshi, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, and MOLI, agreeing to fast track permits and even pay MOLI $3.95 million for their trouble – a decision that came after they admitted under oath that that they had invented a fake SUV-driving grandmother as their key witness to block the mosque.

Mayor Eric Adams said this week that 311 complaints about rats have fallen for eight months in a row as New Yorkers adjust to the mindblowing policy shift of putting our trash in bins. Though she mysteriously was not present at the mayor’s press conference to celebrate his sanitation wins, Rat Czar Kathy Corradi deserves some credit for cleaning up the streets.

Give a mouse a cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk. Give a reporter a bag of chips with an envelope of cash inside, she’ll make it a viral story. Winnie Greco, a close confidante of Mayor Eric Adams, tried to cozy up to The City’s Katie Honan with a snack and a side of bribery – and is now suspended from the Adams campaign and under investigation by the feds. But when it comes to bribery allegations among Adams’ allies, this is just the chip of the iceberg.

It’s safe to say “it’s not going good” for Ingrid Lewis-Martin. The mayor’s former chief advisor was hit with four new corruption indictments this week. Prosecutors allege Lewis-Martin’s influence-peddling buffet netted her over $50,000 cash, more than $10,000 in free seafood for Gracie Mansion events, free karaoke parties and a speaking part on “Godfather of Harlem.” One of Lewis-Martin’s alleged co-conspirators was Jesse Hamilton, who was deputy commissioner at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services – until he abruptly resigned once the indictments dropped.

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players whom you can bribe with an eight-second television cameo and some cash to kill a pesky bike lane project. Tony and Gina Argento, the sibling duo behind Broadway Stages, initially succeeded in their aim – allegedly through a pay-to-play conspiracy with former City Hall official and aspiring actor Lewis-Martin – but now the Argentos could face time in prison. (They pleaded not guilty.) That bike lane’s not looking so bad now, is it?