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It’s Friday. Gary Coleman, who played a Manhattan boy named Arnold on TV, would have been 51.

Weather: Some rain and fog this morning, but sunshine by afternoon, with a balmy, breezy high of 57.

Then a cold, bright weekend with highs only in the 30s.

Alternate-side parking: In effect today, suspended on Monday for Lincoln’s Birthday.

Can anything go right with the L train?

It was going to be shut down for repairs. Then it wasn’t, but the alternative repair plan is expected to cause extreme crowding on a line already famed for packed platforms.

Then came the smell of burning oil.

For most of the week, noxious odors on the L have made passengers and transit workers feel ill.

It started on Tuesday. After people complained about the smell of gas, service was suspended for hours.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the problem was caused by diesel fuel leaking from a tank under a defunct gas station, The Daily News reported.

By Wednesday, transit workers were wearing masks.

On Thursday, my colleague Nate Schweber went to investigate.

[Read the full article by Nate and Michael Gold.]

“It smells like gas — it’s not good,” a passenger at the Graham Avenue station, Elsa Rosa, told him.

Sandhya Jain-Patel, 45, said that when she entered the station on Wednesday with her children, “my eyes started watering.” She sent them to school by Lyft. “So that’s money out of my pocket in addition to the money I pay for a monthly MetroCard.”

How bad is the smell?

The Graham Avenue and Lorimer Street stations, Nate wrote, had “a dizzying chemical” odor that “clouded the mind, unsettled the stomach and irritated the throat.”

The L train is not without its accomplishments. It has the best on-time performance of all the full-fledged subway lines.

But who wants to ride an on-time train that reeks?

Olivia Gallinaro, a 21-year-old acupuncture student, was so repulsed by the odor on Tuesday that she took a lengthy detour via the M train.

“I was annoyed, but I was like, what can we do?” she said. “When can we catch a break?”

Best of The Times

Almost $1 billion short: Mayor de Blasio said there may be cuts to some city programs thanks to less tax revenue being collected than expected.

Albany’s “Wonder Twins”: Two people have united to create a formidable challenge to Gov. Cuomo’s outsize influence.

Trump says residents should flee upstate New York: Republicans there did not disagree.

Scrutiny of the Metropolitan Detention Center: The Justice Department wants info on the jail’s response to a lengthy heat and electrical outage.

Waze gets in the way, police say: The Police Department wants the Google-owned app to stop sharing locations of drunk-driving checkpoints.

[Want more news from New York and around the region? Check out our full coverage.]

The mini crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.

What we’re reading

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’: Explained. [NPR]

Moving into Nycha for a month: Lynne Patton, the regional administrator for the federal housing department, will stay with four families. [WNYC]

Virginia’s attorney general said he was trying to look like Kurtis Blow: The Harlem rap icon responds to the expanding blackface scandal. [Daily News]

Woody Allen sues Amazon Studios for $68 million: He said it backed out of a deal to distribute four of his films, including “A Rainy Day in New York.” [TMZ]

“Tools & Tiaras”: That’s the name of the organization created by a female plumber on Staten Island to encourage other women in the trades. [Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls]

National pizza day is tomorrow

Eat responsibly.

Coming up

Today

“Liberalism & Democracy: Past, Present, Prospects,” a conference at the New School with panelists including Bill Kristol, Paul Krugman and Astra Taylor. 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. [Free, registration required]

The ’90s or the aughts? Hip-Hop and R&B Sing-Along at Schimanski in Williamsburg will help you decide. 8 p.m. [Free]

Learn botanical illustration while drinking botanical cocktails at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. 6 p.m. [$25, $10 for materials]

A roller-disco party at Crazy Legs Skate Club in Brooklyn to benefit immigrant legal services. “Guests are encouraged to come in a Beyoncé-‘Blow’-music-video inspired look.” 8 p.m. [$25]

“Movement Speaks,” a dance-fitness class for older adults of all abilities, at the George Bruce Library in Harlem. 11 a.m. [Free]

Saturday

The Lunar New Year Parade in Flushing kicks off at 11 a.m. [Free]

Asia Society celebrates the Year of the Pig with performances and crafts. 1 to 5 p.m. [$12]

Sunday

Do your creepy shopping at the Jersey City Oddities Market, featuring “40 vendors of the dead and macabre.” Noon to 6 p.m. [Free]

Last day for “Strange Form of Life,” a group show celebrating “the unfamiliar, the foreign, the strange,” at Peninsula gallery in Red Hook. [Free]

— Derek Norman

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.

And finally: Virtual reality at the Black ComixExpo

The Black ComixExpo is Sunday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Comic books and graphics novels won’t be the only things on display.

There will also be a virtual reality experience set in the future.

Here’s how one of its creators, Ash Baccus-Clark, described the experience: “So, you go in and you think you’re going to get hair braided, but you’re really going to get your brain optimized.”

Inside the experience, the year is 2053. You are not yourself, but rather a character — a black woman who is a senior in high school.

Inside the futuristic hair salon is a second character, whom Ms. Baccus-Clark described as a black female version of Dr. Frankenstein: a brilliant scientist whose creation has gone awry and is feverishly trying to set things right.

Ms. Baccus-Clark, a trained molecular biologist, is having some fun. You can’t build a virtual world inside a “neurocosmetology lab” without a sense of humor, right?

But underneath all that world-building is some very serious work.

Ms. Baccus-Clark and her colleagues are using a version of this exhibition to collect data about perception and bias. “We want to see whether or not embodying our audience in the body of a black avatar and showing them an empowering story can somehow decrease their existing perceptual bias,” she said.

Sunday’s exhibition is not part of that study, but it is a chance for people to experience something unusual.

Ms. Baccus-Clark said she and her collaborators at the design studio Hyphen-Labs were “casting a black woman in the role of hero, which doesn’t happen often.”

You made it to Friday — you are a superhero!

Metropolitan Diary: Stuffed Cabbage

Dear Diary:

My mother and I were shopping at Zabar’s. A tall man appeared next to us.

“Have you tried their stuffed cabbage yet?” he asked.

We paused to comprehend his question. Noticing the look of surprise on our faces, he smiled.

“They are really good,” he said. “Come this way.”

Following him through the store, we soon arrived at a container with two stuffed cabbages and some tomato sauce. He pointed at the container.

“This one, this is very good.” he said.

I was still puzzled by his enthusiasm and wondered if there was anything special in the cabbages.

“What’s inside?” I asked.

“You know, meat, like hamburger meat,” he said.

I looked at my mother.

“Yeah,” she said, “I know.”

“O.K.,” I said. “I’ll try.”

Once my mother had put the container in her basket, he looked satisfied.

“Enjoy,” he said, and then disappeared.

— Aiko Setoguchi

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