FAQ NYC teamed up with Max Politics for a live podcast event on Thursday, with special guest Kathryn Garcia reflecting on her 2021 mayoral race where she came just 7,000 votes short of upsetting Eric Adams , what's different this time around and the difference between politics and policy: "I hope that despite what's happening at the Federal level, people still will choose public service because it actually does matter to people in their day to day lives. Being a politician is not the same as bei...
May 31, 2025•1 hr 52 min
“It's hard to be a human in New York but it's downright dangerous to be a baby squirrel,” says Kyra Tippens-Richan, who spends her work days performing autopsies on animals and her off-hours caring for squirrels. She shares her story, and then Ben Max stops by to run down the competitive races down-ballot ahead of the FAQ NYC-Max Politics live podcast coming Thursday that's all about the mayoral contest along with special guest Kathryn Garcia.
May 27, 2025•39 min
Time's running awfully short for Zohran Mamdani to turn momentum into position, Adrienne Adams to ignite or anyone else to catch up with Andrew Cuomo, who's happy to stay out of the fray, keep unscripted interactions with voters let along other candidates to a minimum and other otherwise trust, like Eric Adams did four years ago, that even Democratic primary voters are more conservative than most of the party's candidates. Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much m...
May 19, 2025•32 min
While New York City mayor went to DC to kiss the ring, Newark’s mayor got himself arrested trying to visit a newly opened ICE lock-up in his city. Meantime, Andrew Cuomo was docked $600,000 by the Campaign Finance Board on Monday for illegally coordinating with his own super PAC — but still seems to be on track for a victory in the Democratic primary that often decides the city's mayor unless something changes in the race's closing days. Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discus...
May 12, 2025•31 min
Mamdani momentum is monumental, but Cuomo remains a steep cliff to climb with time running short. Co-hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss that and much more, including Kathy Hochul’s premature “budget deal” proclamation, Eric Adams’ “best budget ever” proposal, and Donald Trump’s brutal federal spending plan that neither New York leader seems to be taking into account. Plus, Maya Kaufman of Politico New York breaks down the landslide loss for longtime 1199 boss George Gres...
May 05, 2025•49 min
With not even 60 days to the Democratic primary, the field is running out of time to catch up with Andrew Cuomo while the governor — as the mayoral candidate’s team still refers to him —tries to run out the clock while keeping the public and the press at arm’s length. Co-hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, plus Harry talks with Dana Rachlin of We Build the Block and the Brownsville Safety Alliance about a very different approach to public safety — one that cent...
Apr 28, 2025•47 min
While Eric Adams, no longer facing the prospect of a prison sentence, is rocking too-tight tees and trying to find the right tone to convince New Yorkers to give him a second term, new First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro is taking a very public, aggressive approach. FAQ NYC co-hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss that and much more, including the Trump administration bearing down on New York, Katie’s experience covering Pope Francis’s visit to the city a decade ago, and much m...
Apr 21, 2025•27 min
As the former governor racks up more big endorsements for his mayoral run while putting out reportedly AI-assisted policy plans and mostly avoiding the press, co-host Christina Greer asks if the frontrunner in the polls wants a marriage with New York City or just a wedding. It remains to be seen, though, how his lead holds up as the election heats up and the “dwarves” — as one Cuomo aide has described them — running against him combine their matching funds to try and convince Democrats not to ra...
Apr 14, 2025•30 min
“I'm running to bring a safer, more affordable and better run city,” says city Comptroller Brad Lander, offering himself as the candidate with both a vision and “a track record of making government work for people.” In the latest installment of the pod’s series of sitdown interviews with the Democratic mayoral contenders, Lander talked about how he’d accomplish his “number one commitment I am making in this campaign to end street homelessness for people with serious mental illness,” his ambitiou...
Apr 12, 2025•59 min
“We are so tired of the trauma, we are so tired of the drama, we are tired of the scandal,” said City Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams. “When I saw four deputy mayors resign at the same time and it appeared to be because our mayor decided to cozy up to the chaotic Donald Trump — I saw the brains walk out of the computer and I saw the crumbling of the infrastructure of New York City and I could not sit back and do nothing about it.” Speaker Adams also discussed why she’s “more...
Apr 09, 2025•48 min
What's the difference between a parking lot, a park and a casino? Just a few words scribbled on some paper if Mets owner Steve Cohen gets his way, and it looks like he might now with a well compensated assist from State Senator John Liu that's also a kick in the shins of his legislative colleague and mayoral candidate Jessica Ramos. Co-host Katie Honan explains it all, and then Christina Greer and Harry Siegel go deep on the mayor's race, political science and why no one should be allowed to rev...
Mar 31, 2025•37 min
After eight Black elected officials from Southeast Queens put out a joint statement saying they were endorsing Andrew Cuomo for mayor, three of them said that, actually, they’re not doing that (and, in one case, won’t be ranking Cuomo at all). Guest Jeff Coltin of Politico New York, who broke that story over the weekend, talks with hosts Christina Greer and Katie Honan about how the powerful and controversial ex-governor is making things weird for elected officials and voters alike — and why the...
Mar 24, 2025•34 min
Vital City founder Liz Glazer talks about her group's ambitious new memo on What To Do (and Not To Do) About Subway Safety — and why the answer isn't gun detection technology, surging officers into the system or more fare-evasion enforcement. Plus, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel gab about the mayoral fund-raising numbers and the state of the race — including Adrienne Adams not yet qualifying for matching funds, Eric Adams' invisible campaign and tired St. Patrick's Day "joke,", and what's wrong wi...
Mar 17, 2025•47 min
Ramos also delved into her position as “a labor Democrat… in a lane of my own,” her “plan to call for a mental health emergency on day one of my mayoralty,” the city’s “new Gilded Age” and the battle for a casino license here (“Andrew Carnegie, who wasn’t as rich as Steve Cohen is today, by the way he built 2,500 public libraries”), and much more In the latest episode of the pod’s series of sitdown interviews with the Democratic mayoral candidates.
Mar 15, 2025•1 hr 3 min
In 1951, Frankie King of James Madison High was a Brooklyn legend, the youngest basketball player ever to make first-team all city before he withdrew from public life while remaining in and of the city — writing pornography for the mob to pay the rent, ambitious novels in his own voice and then a million-book-selling “cozy cat” series under the pen name Alice Nestleton. Writer Jay Neugeboren and his son, illustrator Eli Neugeboren, join LIT NYC host Harry Siegel to talk about their graphic novel...
Mar 12, 2025•50 min
While Andrew Cuomo tops the early polls, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is officially running for mayor and Mayor Eric Adams seems to be going through the motions. As New Yorkers try to make sense of the dizzying election shaping up here amid an unprecedented second Trump presidency that seems to be taking direct aim at the city and in its institutions, hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, including the “pro-Queens energy” that Katie saw at Speaker ...
Mar 10, 2025•31 min
"Democrats in general tend to show up to gun fights with bar graphs," Queens Assemblymember and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said as he sat down with the FAQ NYC crewto make his case. That boils down, he explained, to driving down the cost of living for New Yorkers and "less lecturing, more listening." In a wide-ranging interview — the latest in the pod’s series with the Democratic candidates — the Democratic Socialist with surging support discussed why "absolutely there's space to have my c...
Mar 07, 2025•35 min
There’s a direct line from the Transit Police beating Michael Stewart to death in front of horrified art students to Eric Adams being elected mayor — one that intersects with Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Spike Lee and Tucker Carlson. Journalist Elon Green, the author of The Man Nobody Killed: Life, Death, and Art in Michael Stewart's New York, the first book-length account of a crime that captivated the city and that no one was held responsible for as Mayor Ed Koch flatly called police brutali...
Mar 05, 2025•46 min
Sally Goldernberg, senior New York editor for Politico, talks with hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel about Andrew Cuomo (finally) entering the mayor's race this weekend with a sometimes grim, nearly 18-minute video announcement about how only he can save a city in crisis, followed by a closed-off and carefully choreographed campaign event. They dig into why running in the city, which the former governor hadn't lived in for decades, presents different challenges than running statewide — star...
Mar 04, 2025•55 min
Looking at the "different flavors of career politicians" running in the Democratic mayoral primary, "I didn't see anyone who could be independent of the machine that runs this city," said former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson. So he entered the race himself "to try and bring my party back to the center." In a wide-ranging sit-down interview with FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel — the latest in the pod’s series of interviews with the candidates — Tilson explained why...
Feb 25, 2025•49 min
It felt like a year's worth of news happened in the week two weeks since the FAQ NYC hosts last convened, with another few years worth about to drop. They dig into the confusion and concern at City Hall and through the government, the increasingly angry mayor, the still far-from-settled field in the mayoral race, and much more
Feb 25, 2025•31 min
"You simply can't trust Eric Adams nor those that are closest to him," former assemblymember and Mayoral candidate Michael Blake said as he sat down with FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel on Tuesday. "And when you have four deputy mayors who have quit on him after Eric Adams quit on New Yorkers on MLK Day, it's a clear indication that it's time for us to quit on him and move on. And so where do we go from here? I'm laying out a very different vision of what can be for New York City....
Feb 19, 2025•55 min
The author joins Harry Siegel and guest host Brian Berger of Straus News for a deep dive into his latest book, the excellent and almost undefinable Brooklyn Crime Novel. Lethem digs into his reasons on re-reexamining the Brooklyn he wrote about 20 years earlier in The Fortress of Solitude, but doing so this time with the tools of a journalist including long interviews conducted amid the dislocation and isolation of the COVID lockdown, and much more:
Feb 15, 2025•54 min
When Katie Honan called in to discuss the latest New York City news Monday morning with co-hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel, she did so while posted outside of the David Dinkins Municipal Building where Mayor Eric Adams had convened his top commissioners and officials. Katie hopped off the call mid-way through the episode to get back to reporting, and then broke then news that Hizzoner had told his team to trust him and refrain from criticizing Trump or interfering with ICE. Hours later, t...
Feb 11, 2025•41 min
“I've always represented a community that knew we could hold two things together at the same time: that we want to hold officers accountable when they step over the line but also that we need them as part of our public safety ecosystem,” state Senator and mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie said in a wide-ranging interview. “I've never been a defund-the-police Democrat, because my community has never been a defund-the-police community. We have always asked for police officers, but my mom doesn't wan...
Feb 06, 2025•50 min
When Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy put out the news Sunday night that Mayor Eric Adams wasn't feeling well and was clearing his public schedule, it came just a week after City Hall's late-night news that he'd cancelled his Martin Luther King Jr. Days plans and was driving to D.C. to attend Donald Trump's inauguration. Sally Goldenberg, the senior New York Editor at Politico, joins hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel to talk about the embattled mayor's surprising new...
Jan 28, 2025•36 min
“I think this election is about who can put the city back together, and I don't think people are going to buy the woe-is-me Eric Adams story,” Stringer said in a sitdown interview. “Maybe Trump will buy it, but I don't think voters are going to buy it.” In a wide-ranging conversation —the first in a series with all of the declared candidates — the former comptroller who lost to Adams in the 2021 primary explained what he’s been doing since then as “a New Yorker without portfolio,” laid out his v...
Jan 22, 2025•52 min
A new poll shows the former governor with 32% support among likely voters. It's not just name recognition, though, or the mayor vying for a second term wouldn't be at just 6%, tied with Socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, and behind State Senator Jessica Ramos at 7%, Comptroller Brad Lander at 10% and former Comptroller Scott Stringer leading the declared challengers at 12% — putting all of them way behind "Unsure" at 18%. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all this, and much more, about the awfully...
Jan 13, 2025•28 min
On the first weekday of NYC’s new congestion-pricing era that's already being threatened by the incoming Trump administration, Jose Martinez, THE CITY’s senior reporter covering transportation, offers some perspective on what this means for the trains and streets inside the zone and throughout the five boroughs: "Politicians use the words historical a lot, but I do think that when they flipped the switch on this thing Saturday night, yeah, that was a bit of history here in New York. It's somethi...
Jan 07, 2025•34 min
Nicole Gelinas, the author of Movement: New York's Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, explains why she opens her epic account with the mayors who fought against the street-car system that once transported New Yorkers a billion times a year. From there, Gelinas talks with editors Harry Siegel of THE CITY and Ben Max of New York Law School about the promise of congestion pricing, the challenges to getting big things fixed let alone built here, the ghost of Robert Moses, and much more...
Dec 28, 2024•59 min
