Have It Both Ways: NYT Sunday Crossword of March 16

March 22, 2025

Here are my notes from solving the New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle of March 16, 2025.

This puzzle by Paul Coulter was titled Have It Both Ways. The twist to the puzzle involved five Down clues that were blank: [-]. The trick was that their fills were actually used in the topmost and bottommost Across answers that intersected them—as we’ll see.

Hanging on or leaving

I discovered the pattern first in the upper right region of the puzzle, with some help. 32-Across was [Subway commuters, informally], and I’d worked out _H_NGERS, using crosses including:

• HAIFA for [Port city near Mount Carmel],
• NIT for [A persnickety person might pick it],
• GANDALF for [Frodo’s enchanting friend], and
• NEUER for [German soccer legend Manuel who innovated the “sweeper-keeper” role],

I suspected it was some New York slang for subways riders, e.g., something about “tube”, as I’d heard of NY-specific terms like “bridge and tunnel”. I thought of CHANGERS—people who transfer trains?—but that didn’t seem right. I asked ChatGPT what New York subway riders are called, and it came back with “straphangers” which looked like it had to work. And it clicked—only PHANGERS would fit in 32-Across, but since 10-Down’s blank [-] crossed at the P, 10-Down could be STRAP, combining to form STRAPHANGERS. Here I actually thought the [-] clues would be dashes representing something long and straight, like a strap, but it turned out not so.

I continued on to 10-Across which was [Leaves a relationship] and had S_OMP_N_ which I couldn’t figure out either-“Stomps no”? But looking at the title “Have It Both Ways” again, and noting the cross with 10-Down’s [-], I realized 10-Down’s STRAP also contributed to this fill but in reverse: PARTS to form PARTSCOMPANY.

In ASCII art:

    SCOMPANY
    T
    R
    A
    PHANGERS

Decaffeinated mornings

After getting the scheme, I returned to the middle right region. For 69-Across [Not-so-joltin’ joe?], I had been wanting to use “decaf coffee” but there was not enough squares, just _COFFEE. Now knowing the pattern, I could fill DECAFCOFFEE by putting “decaf” in reverse for 69-Down’s [-]: FACED. This helped me get the cross on the other side, 89-Across’s [Got up and at ‘em], for which I now had FACEDT_____ and could guess and verify FACEDTHEDAY.

Dead set on passing notes

I also came back to the lower left region, since for 94-Across’s [Secretly communicating in class], “passing notes” had immediately come to mind but there were not enough squares. Now noting that the rightmost letter crossed with 97-Down’s [-], I could fill PASSINGNOTES using NOTES for 97-Down. Then it wasn’t hard to fill 120-Across’s [Felt absolutely determined about] using the reverse SETON to form WASDEADSETON.

Cocktails and looking good

40-Across’s [Old-fashioned garnishes] had been giving me trouble. I thought old fashioneds—whiskey and bitters—had cherry garnishes but that didn’t seem to work. Its end crossed with 46-Down’s [-], which also crossed with the end of 64-Across’s [Something one might need to look good in the morning] which I also had not been able to get, having tried GLASSES initially before I knew the [-] scheme, and then discarding it. I don’t remember which I discovered first, but with some useful crosses I was able to ascertain ORANGEPEELS for the garnishes and BEAUTYSLEEP for looking good.

Fonts and ghost stories

In the lower-right, for 122-Across’s [Like the typefaces Helvetica and Arial], I had wanted to use SANS or SANSSERIF but they didn’t fit the squares—SANS was short a letter, and SANSSERIF was way too long. Now accustomed to the pattern, I could observe 104-Down’s [-] enabled SANSSERIF with 104-Down filled with the reverse FIRES. And then it was easy to answer 100-Across’s [Settings for telling some ghost stories] with CAMPFIRES.

Blue jeans and machine learning

The upper left region caused me the most trouble. I originally had filled DENIM for 1-Across’s [Jeans material] but it hadn’t worked out and I erased it. Now knowing the pattern, I could use 5-Down’s [-] which crossed the last letter to fill BLUEDENIM, and then for 29-Across [Dug through for digital analysis] I could make use of the reverse to fill in ____MINED with DATAMINED. But the problem was the crosses inside this structure. For 18-Across’s [14-line poem with only two rhymes across three stanzas], it looked like SONNET would have to work, but 1-Down’s [Cornrow or challah feature] was surely BRAID, so I needed an R instead of an S to form RONNET, which wasn’t a word. I also couldn’t find 25-Across’s [Low-fat dairy desserts], which was looking like ICEMI_KS. The empty letter could be provided by 19-Down’s three-letter answer to [Rap title?] which I couldn’t figure out with either SONNET or RONNET providing a starting T for TI_.

To break the deadlock, I asked an LLM if it knew of any low-fat dairy desserts, and it came back with “ice milks” which I’ve never heard of, but fit.

Here I incorrectly thought RONNET was a joke answer to 18-Across, as in a “wrong sonnet” since a sonnet should have more than two rhymes, and finished the puzzle using TIL for [Rap title?], but thinking it could be a reference to forum posts titled “Today I Learned”. In retrospect, that didn’t make sense. After writing a draft of this post, I looked up another review and found the problem: the poem was RONDEL, a French poetry form. I also made a mistake filling ENEMA for 4-Down’s [Medical buildup of fluid], making use of the N for SONNET, but it should have been EDEMA turning the N to a D and allowing RONDEL.

And then [Rap title?] correctly becomes LIL, as in Lil Kim or Lil Wayne.

Here are other things to note for future reference.

Business

• Amana is an American household appliance brand.

Music

• The musical meter alla breve is two beats per bar (as opposed to the common four beats per bar), and suggests a quick tempo.
• Lento means slowly.

Nature

• The pawpaw tree is a small tree indigenous to North America that has a large yellowish-green fruit.

People

• Roberto Durán is a retired Panamanian boxer, most famous for his “No más” fight against Sugar Ray Leonard.
• Giotto (c. 1267-1337) was an Italian painter, considered the most important of his time, whose work departed from the Byzantine style and pointed toward the Renaissance style that took hold centuries later.

Places

• The Ural Mountains run mostly through Russia. They are the natural boundary between Europe and Asia within Russia. URAL features often in crosswords.
• Mount Carmel is in northern Israel near the Mediterranean Sea.

Religion

• Agnus Dei is Latin for “Lamb of God”, and a reference to Jesus in Christianity.

Transportation

• The Acela train is a high-speed rail operated by Amtrak in the U.S.

Words

• The word adenoidal describes a nasal-sounding voice. The adenoids are the tissue in the back of the nasal cavity, near the tonsils.
• The Latin word alia means “others”, as in et al (“and others”) which is short for et alia.
• An APB is an all-points bulletin, a broadcast to alert law enforcement officers that someone or something is being actively sought in connection with a crime.
• A cote is a shelter for mammals or birds, especially pigeons. The pigeon part was misleading for this puzzle, because [Cote quote?] was BAA. Cotes for sheep are also called sheepcotes.
• Good oh! is an exclamation of pleasure or agreement in British English.
• The color sienna is a reddish-brown shade.
• A till is a cash register, primarily in British English. The answer to [Till bills] was the denomination often found in—I guess—U.S. registers, which are $10, TENS.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed this puzzle. I thought the difficulty was okay for me—even though I allowed myself to look up factoids when stuck. The bi-directional down fills were a clever scheme and actually helpful in solving the puzzle. I made a mistake with SONNET and RONDEL but in retrospect I should have suspected something was wrong, especially with the incorrect TIL cross.