FAQ NYC

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 lofts that you see. Cold water, some of them didn't have electricity. It required a lot of ingenuity on the part of the artists to even make these places livable, but the fact that you had these places was a stimulus to a community and see that's another thing that I wanted to stress in this book,” Hoberman says, noting that they made art at a time when the government was busting comedians and banning films here. “I guess people can appreciate that there was a time before cell phones, but a lot of the people in this book didn't have telephones at all. That was a luxury that they couldn't afford. So how did they meet? How did they connect? There were bars and cafes that they went to, there were neighborhoods that they lived in, there was a sense of community that the city fostered kind of in its indifference.”

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 York City at the time. While her editor and husband try to steer her away from covering notorious gangster Sai Wing Duck, AKA Mock Duck, Archie chases down the story of his adopted daughter being taken away from him by the city as it also plans to raze Chinatown.

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 Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, including what seems like a race to the bottom between Adams and Andrew Cuomo, before Andrew Rein of the Citizen Budget Commission comes on to talk about the deep hole the city and state are in even before Washington makes more social safety net spending cuts. When New York’s been in trouble before, the feds spent billions. Now the Trump administration is taking billions away but local spending is spiking and something is going to give.

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 Rollins keeps getting the short end of the stick, and end it with a riff on headless horsemen, Knickerbocker dreams and New Yorkers who again "begin to grow imaginative—to dream dreams, and see apparitions.”

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, including a summer of drones vs. sharks, Eric Adams railing at a fundraised in the Hamptons of all places about the elite press supposedly picking on him, and Cuomo’s post-primary conundrum.

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 voting has started in the primary — and Mayor Eric Adams is looming in the general election.

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 mayoral debate, where Katie will be one of the moderators.

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 is impossible for the new prince to avoid the imputation of cruelty, owing to new states being full of dangers… Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable. "Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you."

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 being a bureaucrat, and I am very proudly a bureaucrat, but folks should try both and. In New York City, where you have these opportunities, you shouldn't be afraid to give it a shot. I'm very happy that I did It. It was an incredible experience, somewhat like building a startup, and I would encourage people who might not think that they have it in them to join government as a bureaucrat or actually run for office to do it — and though I did not choose to do it a second time, I've heard that you get better." Then hosts Ben Max, Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel dig into the homestretch of this year's primary race, while hearing thoughts and answering questions from an audience of engaged and insightful New Yorkers.

“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.

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 more, including Albany's arrogance, The Wizard of Oz and The Wiz, and how the hipster burnt his tongue.

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 discuss all that and much more, including Albany's latest quarter-trillion-dollar big ugly and another occupation attempt at Columbia the day before the NYPD came down hard on less radical protesters the next day on Brooklyn College students.

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 Gresham in that union’s election, and what that could mean for New York politics and the future of organized labor.