Ric Burns, director of the epic New York: A Documentary Film, joined the FAQ NYC hosts on Thursday evening for beer and cider at Schneider’s Saloon inside the Tenement Museum to talk about 21st century scandals and hopes in the space where German immigrants huddled to do just that in the 19th Century.
In episode five, we debrief the first mayoral debate and preview the second one as Andrew Cuomo struggles to gain ground against frontrunner Zohran Mamdani with wild card Curtis Sliwa also in the mix. Plus, two-time former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton joins to explain why he wouldn't advise Jessica Tisch, or anyone else, to run the NYPD on Mamdani's watch. Remember: early voting begins on Saturday. Visit vote.nyc or call 1-866-VOTE-NYC to find your early and election day polling sites — they m...
The legendary illustrator talks with LIT NYC hosts Amy Sohn and Harry Siegel about what he wants to illustrate now that he no longer needs to take assignments, how New York City shaped his work, why he thinks being called "the Vermeer of the Borscht Belt" is a misnomer, and much more.
In our fourth episode, we discuss the federal indictment of New York Attorney General Tish James, how the mayoral candidates are reacting, and how the next mayor could influence President Trump’s approach to the city. Then, DSA-backed City Council Member Alexa Avilés of Brooklyn, chair of the Council immigration committee, joins us to talk about Trump’s immigration crackdown, her hopes for a Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and her own potential run for Congress. — FAQ NYC and Max Politics are teaming up f...
In episode three, we talk about the massive infrastructure cuts trickling down from the federal government – one of the many developments that have us holding our breath for what’s to come in our city. We’re also joined by ‘Gridlock’ Sam Schwartz, who gives us the lowdown on the past, present and future of transit in New York. — FAQ NYC and Max Politics are teaming up for a limited series, coming to you every Tuesday through November, featuring special guests who will help us dig into the latest...
In our second episode, the hosts debrief about Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to drop his re-election bid. New York Attorney General Tish James also joins us to talk about the cases she and Donald Trump have brought against one another, and her support of Mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani. FAQ NYC and Max Politics are teaming up for a limited series, coming to you every Tuesday through November, featuring special guests who will help us dig into the latest in the mayor's race – and what's at stake ...
"The tabs were this incredibly paradoxical force in New York during these years. On the one hand, they were totally polarizing, turning the world into into heroes and villains, good guys and bad guys — like comic books for adults. On the other hand, everyone is reading the Post and the News and Newsday, and they were unifying all of New York around these storylines." Jonathan Mahler joins LIT NYC hosts Harry Siegel and Amy Sohn to discuss his new "The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Oppor...
In our debut episode, Public Advocate Jumanne Williams joins us to talk about his arrest outside of 26 Federal Plaza, what the mayor and other elected officials can and should be doing in response to President Trump's threats, and why Williams thinks it's time for New York Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs to step down. FAQ NYC and Max Politics are teaming up for a limited series, coming at you every Tuesday through November, featuring special guests who will help us dig into the latest in the m...
Laurie Gwen Shapiro, the author of "The Aviator and the Showman: Amelia Earhart, George Putnam, and the Marriage that Made an American Icon," joins Harry Siegel and Amy Sohn to dig into what they don't tell you in the children's books about the life and death of the world's most famous female flier.
While Eric Adams says Andrew Cuomo is spreading fake rumors that he’s out, even Donald Trump seems resigned to the idea that Zorhan Mamdani will be New York City’s next mayor — and is threatening to punish the city and the state now that Gov. Kathy Hocul has endorsed the Democratic nominee. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all that and much more from another jam-packed week in New York City.
The incumbent mayor polling in the single digits regained the spotlight after Labor Day as he insisted he was running to somehow win a second term, not auditioning for a job as the Trump administration's new ambassador to Saudi Arabia. But even then, he seemed at least as concerned with dragging down Andrew Cuomo as he did in lifting himself up. The hosts run down all that and more more from a week so wild that the thing where the Adams campaign invited Muslim leaders to City Hall to celebrate t...
The summer’s done, Jerrold Nadler is ending his storied Congressional career at the end of his term, nodding at the need for generational renewal in the Democratic Party, and it looks like Eric Adams might be out of work soon, too, as Zohran Mamdani has maintained a healthy lead in the mayoral race entering its final two-month sprint.
Just two lawyers have remained inside 26 Federal Plaza every day as it’s become the epicenter of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda in New York City, with “large masked men with guns” stationed outside of courtrooms to drag away people showing up for civil hearings. Allison Cutler and Benjamin Remy of the New York Legal Assistant Group’s Immigrant Protection Unit talk with Harry Siegel about what what’s different now than in Trump’s first term as he’s now targeting institutions as ...
Katie Honan never wants to be the story and is "tired of telling the story" but she recaps and reflects on a very weird week, why she's "filled with sadness about Winnie," and the film-noir feeling of getting left, quite literally, holding the bag full of crumbled chips and $300:
It's an Off Cycle episode, with photographer Stanley Greenberg sitting down with Harry Siegel and guest host Lizzie Walsh to talk about the epic new Waterworks: The Hidden Water System of New York. He discusses how the DEP tried to stop his first edition of Waterworks from being published after 9/11, how COVID helped lead him to create a totally new second edition, and much more.
How did the mayor end up so far behind the 8 ball that he's polling in the single digits in his independent run to win a second term? His press strategy, if that's even the word for it, is one part of the problem, and the signs of a city for sale as he's likely on his way out aren't helping.
What is Andrew Cuomo thinking with his weird new approach to social media, and wild swings at Zohran Mamdani? Will yesterday's leaders ever clear the stage, and will tomorrow's likely leaders get seriously vetted before they're vested with tremendous power? The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all that and much more, including the Trump pressure test on his old hometown that's just ramping up, Kathy Hochul's Frogger dance as she tries to stay in the middle without ending up as roadkill, and much more....
Hosts Katie Honan and Harry Siegel dig into a stunning Midtown shooting — the second in seven months in which a gunman traveling to New York City to murder businesspeople — and how the mayoral candidates responded to that. Plus, Katie goes deep on one simple trick for getting free drinks in a bar: Finding a gun left behind in a bathroom . And she explains how a “no moshing” sign at a nightclub led her down a rabbit hole to when Queens was America’s sweater capital.
In the latest episode of LIT NYC, host Alyssa Katz talks with J. Hoberman about his new opus, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde—Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop. “Certainly the cheap rents are essential. And the fact that there were areas of the city, of Manhattan, which had been in a way deserted because various light industries had left and there were spaces that artists were willing to colonize. You know, the original lofts were nothing like these designer lo...
The FAQ NYC hosts dig into the Trump administration’s latest demands for compliance, why Mayor Eric Adams insists New York is powerless to enforce its own laws and ordinances inside of the federal office building in lower Manhattan now doubling as a makeshift jail, and how the Department of Homeland Security has the city and the country totally krossed out, and wiggida wiggida wiggida wack. Stick around to the end for Prince, Muppets, and a legendary parodists’ paean to pigeon poisoning....
In the latest episode of LIT NYC, host Katie Honan talks with author Radha Vatsal, a speechwriter at city hall by day, to discuss her new novel about old New York, No. 10 Doyers Street, and “a past that was not as black and white as we make it out to be today.” Vatsal, an immigrant herself, explains how she came to tell a story of Chinatown in the early 1900s as seen through the eyes of Archana "Archie" Morley, the only woman at her newspaper and one of just a handful of Indian immigrants in New...
The last police commissioner is suing the mayor and the NYPD for running what he alleges was a crooked operation with Eric Adams’ cronies peddling promotions for payoffs. Incredibly, City Hall and one of those cronies responded by claiming the mayor’s pick, storied FBI agent Tom Donlon, wasn’t mentally up to the job — and on Monday Donlon put in a notice of claim against Adams and former NYPD Spokesperson Tarik Sheppherd for a $10 million defamation suit. Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Greer and H...
As Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams keep playing centrist chicken, the FAQ NYC podcast digs into all the latest developments in an upside down mayoral race where polls show a generic centrist would be tough to beat but the candidates clogging the middle lane now are each way behind in an upside-down race. Plus, co-host Harry Siegel opens the episode with a tale of two Lower East Side legends as the city honors Jack "The King" Kirby, after a promotional push from Disney, while saxophone colossus Sonny...
It seems like no one — from President Donald Trump to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York Post to the New York Times — can seem to line up a clean swing at Zohran Mamdani. Instead, the young socialist who just upended Democratic politics keeps benefitting from the wild shots aimed at him while members of the establishments determined to defeat him play wild game of chicken against each other. FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, includi...
What just happened, how did New York City get here, and what happens now?! Three guests with different behind-the-scenes perspectives about Zohran Mamdani's winning primary campaign and his alignment with the Democratic Socialists of America — Narrative Wars writer Michael Lange, city historian Asad Dandia, and City and State Editor Peter Sterne — join hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel to dig into all of that.
On an historic night for Zohran Mamdani, Katie Honan phoned in from Andrew Cuomo’s forlorn “celebration” moments after he conceded and as workers were already taking down the bunting. New York Law School Executive Editor Ben Max joined her and co-hosts Crhistina Greer to take in the moment and consider what it all means for New York City and the Democratic Party.
Christina Greer gives her perspective on the New York Times mayoral' panel ("everyone's a trope, right"), and the mixed message the paper sent by in effect overruling that panel to publish its own editorial blasting Mamdani, quickly dismissing Lander, and suggesting, without directly saying so, that voters should back Andrew Cuomo given that the race in their telling is a choice between the two leading candidates. Hosts Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more as early ...
Mayoral candidate and State Senator Jessica Ramos joined FAQ NYC in March to lament that ”there is, I think, a little bit of amnesia happening. I do think the press could do a better job of highlighting the myriad of ways in which Andrew Cuomo has created the mess that he now claims he is somehow going to fix. But I can't forget, right?" Now, Ramos is endorsing Cuomo, and hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss her surprise turn and much more ahead of Thursday's Democratic ma...
Polling shows that the mayor’s race is still the governor's to lose — but his lead keeps shrinking and he might well lose it in the home stretch. Cuomo’s limited public appearances haven't exactly inspired confidence, let alone the sort of energy that's evident in Zohran Mamdani's ubiquitous volunteers. Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss that and much more, including why Zellnor Myrie's appeal never took off and Machiavelli's advice concerning "cruelty and clemency": "It...
