Episode 241: Fear and Felonies
A conversation about fear, crime, Al Sharpton and what, if anything changed in New York's political dynamics after Democrats mostly survived this year's election.
Dec 14, 2022•29 min
FAQ NYC
A weekly dive into the big questions about this city of ours, hosted by Christina Greer, Azi Paybarah and Harry Siegel, and produced by Alex Brook Lynn.
Last refreshed: ⓘ
Follow this podcast in the Metacast mobile app to refresh it and see new episodes.
Podcasts are better in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more
Episodes
Episode 240: Get Intimate With the City You Only Thought You Knew
Michael Kimmelman, author of The Intimate City: Walking New York, joins THE CITY's Alyssa Katz in the latest installment of her series asking the big question: What Is New York For?
Dec 11, 2022•40 min
Episode 239: ‘Not on Miss New York’s Watch’
Taryn Delanie Smith, AKA Miss New York 2022, joins the pod just ahead of her bid to become Miss America 2023, to discuss “the advocacy role, the immense philanthropy that goes into the job” and to discuss using social media to make the most of her position: “It's really just me being a friend, a New Yorker, and saying ‘here’s something that you didn't know about social services. Here's what you didn't know about transitional housing programs in your community. And here's why they need your suppo...
Dec 07, 2022•49 min
Episode 238: The City Wants to Help People Who Don’t Want To Be Helped
Brian Stettin, city hall’s senior advisor on severe mental illness, explains Eric Adams’ new approach and why “compassion and care” should take priority over consent when city workers encounter people who aren’t able or interested in caring for themselves even when those people don’t present any immediate danger.
Dec 02, 2022•35 min
Episode 237: Eric Adams' New Mental Health Plan Is Less Than It Seems
The mayor says that forcing people with untreated mental illness into hospitals is a "moral obligation," but it's not clear how that's different from what the city was already doing with those people almost always released after 72 hours.
Dec 01, 2022•26 min
Episode 236: NYC’s New Weed Wild West
A year and a half after legalizing recreational marijuana, the first retail licenses have finally been issued even as the black market is booming and smoke shop robberies are through the roof. Ashley Southall, who covers cannabis in the city for the New York Times, goes into the weeds to explain what New York’s doing — and not doing — to correct the drug war’s damage, whether buyers can really trust the stuff getting sold here with California packaging, and much more. Listen here.
Nov 27, 2022•38 min
Episode 235: ‘Democrats Are a Huge Part of the Problem’
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams rejoins the podcast to talk about his primary run against Kathy Hochul, the party's poor performance in November from candidates running as "Republicans light" and much more.
Nov 22, 2022•38 min
Episode 234: Mmmm, Chaat Dogs
Pervaiz Shallwani dipped a hot dog into New York’s melting pot, and what came out was delicious.
Nov 20, 2022•26 min
Episode 233: Bucks and Blame to Spread Around
Who's responsible for Democrats' losses in New York even as the party over-performed expectations nationally? Everyone seems to be pointing figures, and they might all have a point.
Nov 16, 2022•32 min
Episode 232: Was COVID NYC a Better Version of Ourselves?
Jeremiah Moss, the author of Feral New York, talks with THE CITY's Alyssa Katz about the "tremendous community connection and and oftentimes joyfulness in a moment of tremendous trauma and tragedy” for the people out in the streets amid the city's shutdown and reopening.
Nov 13, 2022•33 min
Episode 231: Hochul Makes History as Red Wave Falls Short
Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max joins an election-night FAQ NYC podcast to offer some late-night early analysis in an episode that began before the governor’s race was called and continued after it was.
Nov 09, 2022•41 min
Episode 230: Andrew Cuomo Says Cities Are in Trouble in a ‘Post-Covid World’
The former governor won't say if he voted for Letitia James, but he’s got lots to say about how the Democratic Party has lost the script on crime as people “are afraid of the feeling I get in the city,” and much more.
Nov 06, 2022•59 min
Episode 229: Will Lee Zeldin Defund the MTA?
The City senior reporter and bona fide train knower Jose Martinez joins FAQ to break down the gubernatorial race's very high, yet hardly noticed, stakes for the already troubled future of the city’s circulatory system.
Nov 02, 2022•36 min
Episode 228: Lee Zeldin Is ‘That Guy’
Co-host Christina Greer doubts that Lee Zeldin will upset Gov. Kathy Huchul, but she does think that “He's just that guy. Where it's just like, you're really dangerous but because you don't look like a DeSantis or an Abbott people don't think that he's as dangerous as he is. He's got the Youngkin effect.” And co-host Katie Honan shoots down the Congressmember’s debate claim about smelling pot on his one train ride during the race, which she joined as a reporter: “I’ll say on the record, I rode t...
Oct 30, 2022•30 min
Episode 227: Sandy Was Just the Start. Is New York City Building Resiliently Enough for What’s Coming Next?
“You might want to get a snorkel”—In a special episode of FAQ NYC, Samantha Maldonado and Kendra Pierre-Louis look at the damage the “superstorm” caused 10 years ago in Coney Island and around the city, and the construction that’s followed.
Oct 26, 2022•36 min
Episode 226: The Girl From Marvel’s Boy-Club Bullpen Tells All About Old Times Square
Ann Nocenti, the writer, journalist and filmmaker who wrote and edited some of the most iconic Marvel comics of the late 1980s and early 1990s, joins the FAQ NYC podcast to discuss her early years in New York as “the girl who lived behind the fishtank,” quite literally, how her work in asylums influenced her stories about superheroes, creating Marvel’s first openly transgender character, the role of “fake news” in the comics she’s working on now, and much more.
Oct 23, 2022•40 min
Episode 225: ‘Politics is Tidal’ - Can Kathy Hochul Stand Up to the Wave?
Jimmy Vieklind of the Wall Street Journal joins the FAQ NYC podcast to dig into why the governor’s race is getting much tighter in its homestretch, and why the key to a possible upset by Trumpy Republican Lee Zeldin “may, in fact, lie in New York City.”
Oct 21, 2022•36 min
Episode 224: How NYC's Suburbs Could Decide America's Future
New York has more competitive Congressional races than any state besides California. NBC's Steve Kornacki joins Azi Paybarah and Harry Siegel to break down the races here that could well decide which party controls the House.
Oct 16, 2022•34 min
Episode 223: Big Qs in Fine Print on the Back of Your Ballot
About these four proposals New Yorkers get to decide on, right after (mostly) guessing which judges to elect? Rachel Holliday Smith breaks down what's at stake, and why most voters have no idea about any of it.
Oct 12, 2022•38 min
Episode 222: ‘Same As It Always Is’—Manny Kirchheimer’s New York, and His Pandemic Time Warp
Alyssa Katz talks with America’s “least known great documentarian” about his 86 years living here, his work during the pandemic editing his footage of the city from the 1950s (and that you can see over the next two weekends at the Museum of the Moving Image), how graffiti trains inspired his film Stations of the Elevated, and the big question: What is New York for?
Oct 09, 2022•33 min
Episode 221: An Open Invitation to Mayor Adams
Is the left somehow to blame for the tent city for asylum seekers that the Adams administration had been erecting on Orchard Beach, and that's now going up on Randall's Island? Is New York really turning back into Fear City? If the "old normal" went away with the pandemic shutdown, what are the reasons to be hopeful about the emerging new normal? Christina and Harry discuss all that, and invite Eric Adams—who had a memorable meet up with us as a candidate—to come back on the pod now that he's ma...
Oct 04, 2022•30 min
Episode 220: From Emperor of the City to ‘Total Humiliation‘
Biographer Andrew Kirtzman joins FAQ NYC’s Weekend Edition to talk about his quarter century covering “America’s mayor” and the inevitable question: What happened to Rudy Giuliani?
Oct 02, 2022•37 min
Episode 219: The Mapmaker's Big ‘Surprise’
Dennis Walcott, chair of the Districting Commission drawing new City Council lines, joins the pod to explain why he was surprised to see the commission vote down its own map, and then Politico's Joe Anuta breaks down his reporting on how we got here (spoiler alert: City Hall got involved late) and what comes next.
Sep 29, 2022•48 min
Episode 218: A Nap for the City that Never Sleeps?
Dodai Stewart of the Times joins the pod to discuss her survey of New York City's formerly iconic 24-hour spots, from Wo Hop to Whitestone Lanes, that have now cut their hours, and Dr. Christina Greer and Katie Honan run down all the latest news from the city, starting with the first big departures from the Adams administration.
Sep 21, 2022•42 min
Episode 217: The Overwhelming Seductions of New York
Former MTA chief and NY lieutenant governor Richard Ravitch (who’s also a donor to The City) and Volcker Alliance senior director William Glasgall join the pod to break down their warning in the Daily News about the fiscal cliffs ahead—and explain why, in spite of those cliffs and the need for constant fiscal discipline, the city remains unbowed and its future remains bright.
Sep 16, 2022•41 min
Episode 216: Arsenic and Old Apartments
Greg Smith rejoins the pod to explain how he found out about the city tests showing arsenic in the water at NYCHA's Jacob Riis houses before anyone informed Mayor Adams or the tenants about them, and to break down everything we still don't know about what happened here—starting with why the city decided to look for heavy metals in the first place. It's a mess that says a lot about how the other half (still) lives.
Sep 07, 2022•40 min
Episode 215: Does Eric Adams Want To Be the Mayor or Just Play the Mayor?
Something in the buttermilk doesn't smell right, says Professor Christina Greer, and it doesn't help that he keeps dipping his toe into political races he keeps losing.
Aug 31, 2022•38 min
Episode 214: Election Night Extra: A Lot of L's to Go Around
The great Ben Max of Gotham Gazette joins Chrissy, Katie and Harry for an early assessment of the winners and losers on a rough night for Mayor Eric Adams’ preferred candidates in a weird August election with nearly as many losing candidates as voters.
Aug 24, 2022•47 min
Episode 213: Bringing Honesty to the Dangerousness Debate
In our 213th episode, Christina and Katie talk to New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie about his recent Daily News op ed "How N.Y. Dems should think about crime," his ongoing efforts to uphold bail reform, and his latest legislative accomplishments.
Aug 10, 2022•32 min
Episode 212: Dangerousness and the District Attorney
Some “personal news” for the pod: After 211 episodes FAQ NYC is now officially part of The City, the nonprofit newsroom all about New York and for New Yorkers. And for our 212th episode, we talked with Alvin Bragg, the district attorney representing the 212, about becoming a national figure of suspicion just after taking office, his accomplishments so far including the exoneration of Steven Lopez—the nearly forgotten sixth teen, just 15 when he was arrested, who went to prison after being accuse...
Aug 03, 2022•37 min
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android