FAQ NYC
375 episodes - English - Latest episode: 18 days ago - ★★★★★ - 134 ratingsA 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.
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Episodes
Episode 260: A Pot Seller’s Post-Prohibition Plan
March 05, 2023 15:00 - 36 minutes - 24.8 MBBronxite Jason Morales has been selling pot, and racking up pot-related arrested, for 20-plus years. Now, he's thinking about a license and hoping for some support from the state that's promised to do legalization the right way and make right its historical wrongs — but has yet to issue a single license in the borough.
Episode 259: Phil, Till the Next Episode
March 01, 2023 02:00 - 24 minutes - 16.5 MBWas Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks’ “episode” — his word — in which he answered a couple pre-submitted questions from the public, but refused to answer one from a journalist, the newest entry in the Eric Adams extended universe?
Episode 258: ‘Crazy’ Eddie Antar Was the Original Retail Gangster
February 26, 2023 15:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MBGary Weiss joins the pod to discuss "The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie" and his book about that.
Episode 257: Where Eric Adams and Ron DeSantis See Eye-to-Eye
February 22, 2023 01:00 - 25 minutes - 17.7 MBA discussion of just some of the news from another jam-packed week in New York City with hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel.
Episode 256: A Portrait of the (Free) Portrait Artist
February 19, 2023 02:00 - 42 minutes - 28.9 MBRusty Zimmerman is spending the year making oil paintings of and collecting oral histories from 200 people living in South Brooklyn. That includes FAQ NYC's own Harry Siegel, who joined Rusty for a conversation about the project, how people can support it and see it, and why he's giving the portraits away for free to their subjects.
Episode 255: George Santos Is Real-Life George Costanza
February 15, 2023 02:00 - 36 minutes - 25.4 MBAnd there’s really nothing funny about it.
Episode 254: ‘It Was Very Easy to Survive, Except You Might Killed. (Probably Not.)’
February 10, 2023 03:00 - 39 minutes - 27.4 MBLeonard Abrams, the founder and editor of the late, great East Village Eye (1979-1987) and Julie Golia, curator at the New York Public Library, which just acquired the paper’s archives, talk about chronicling, and preserving, the paper’s coverage of a time when “you go down to the Lower East Side [and] it’s very easy to survive except you might get killed—but probably not. So that was enough for a lot of people who really wanted… to do something meaningful with their lives. And they were able...
Episode 253: ‘Horn Maintenance’
February 05, 2023 17:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBTrumpeter Greg Glassman sits down with saxophonist Stacy Dillard for a conversation — along with the two of them improvising on their instruments — about what it means, and what it takes, to make it as a jazz musician in New York City.
Episode 252: A ‘High-Risk’ Shell Game from Eric Adams’ NYPD
February 01, 2023 03:00 - 35 minutes - 24.6 MBA new grand jury for Donald Trump, a new podcast by Eric Adams about Eric Adams, a perfect sample for Jay-Z and only Jay-Z and much more.
Episode 251: The Fletcher Family on Remembering the Husband and Father They Lost to COVID
January 28, 2023 15:00 - 25 minutes - 17.8 MBJoshua, Ziggy, Maddie and their mother Veronica open up to reporter Liz Donovan about how much Joseph Trevor Fletcher was loved, how loving he was, and how they’re navigating grief and carrying on in his absence.
Episode 250: Eric Adams: "I Am the Colgate"
January 25, 2023 03:00 - 33 minutes - 22.9 MBJohn Lennon said “I am the Walrus.” Eric Adams says “I am the Colgate,” and that he’s starting his own newsletter to spread the word about all the stuff he says he’s getting done that the press won’t fairly report. Okay, then…
Episode 249: Building a Bigger Tent to Build More Housing
January 22, 2023 17:00 - 33 minutes - 23.1 MBOpen New York is an organization advocating to make it easier to build and manage housing in New York City — and now it’s broadening its agenda to also support advances in tenants’ rights. Will that be enough to change state laws and neighborhood politics to get more housing built — and will building more housing really bring down rents for the masses? For the latest installment in her series asking the big question, What Is New York For?, The City Deputy Editor Alyssa Katz talks with Open Ne...
Episode 248: Rikers and the ‘World‘ Tour to Nowhere
January 17, 2023 01:45 - 46 minutes - 32.2 MBA conversation with the authors of Rikers: An Oral History.
Episode 247: A State of the State for an Unsettled State
January 12, 2023 01:00 - 29 minutes - 20.3 MBProfessor Christina Greer and Harry Siegel break down Kathy Hochul's first state of the state as New York's elected governor.
Episode 246: 2023 Predictions Through a Hazy Crystal Ball
January 05, 2023 03:00 - 42 minutes - 29.2 MBA look back at Eric Adams' first year as mayor, and ahead to the even bigger challenges looming for New York City.
Episode 245: The View From the Broken End of the Bottle
December 29, 2022 22:00 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MBAnthony Almojera, lieutenant paramedic with the FDNY EMS, explains what Eric Adams’ new plan for bringing more severely mentally ill street into hospitals can’t accomplish, how that population has changed over his two decades on the job as violence against, and what those encounters are actually like for the medical first responders regularly interacting with the city’s street population.
Episode 244: The Stories Behind the Pictures
December 25, 2022 15:00 - 40 minutes - 27.7 MBDaily News legend Susan Watts and THE CITY's Ben Fractenberg talk with Alex Brook Lynn about the art of shooting the news in New York, and share the stories behind some of their most powerful photographs.
Episode 243: Libraries Are on the Chopping Block in Eric Adams' New York
December 22, 2022 01:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBChristina Greer and Harry Siegel reflect on the mayor's first year, which was anything but boring. and what's to come.
Episode 242: ‘A Typical Kid’
December 18, 2022 00:00 - 43 minutes - 29.7 MBAlex Brook Lynn talks about her brother Zack's schizophrenia and her family's efforts to navigate New York's broken systems. WARNING: This episode contains a discussion of suicide.
Episode 241: Fear and Felonies
December 14, 2022 19:00 - 28 minutes - 19.8 MBA 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.
Episode 240: Get Intimate With the City You Only Thought You Knew
December 11, 2022 14:00 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBMichael 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?
Episode 239: ‘Not on Miss New York’s Watch’
December 07, 2022 22:00 - 48 minutes - 33.4 MBTaryn 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 su...
Episode 238: The City Wants to Help People Who Don’t Want To Be Helped
December 02, 2022 20:00 - 34 minutes - 24 MBBrian 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.
Episode 237: Eric Adams' New Mental Health Plan Is Less Than It Seems
December 01, 2022 02:00 - 26 minutes - 17.9 MBThe 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.
Episode 236: NYC’s New Weed Wild West
November 27, 2022 14:00 - 37 minutes - 25.8 MBA 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.
Episode 235: ‘Democrats Are a Huge Part of the Problem’
November 22, 2022 22:00 - 38 minutes - 26.1 MBPublic 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.
Episode 234: Mmmm, Chaat Dogs
November 20, 2022 18:00 - 26 minutes - 17.9 MBPervaiz Shallwani dipped a hot dog into New York’s melting pot, and what came out was delicious.
Episode 233: Bucks and Blame to Spread Around
November 16, 2022 21:00 - 32 minutes - 22.1 MBWho'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.
Episode 232: Was COVID NYC a Better Version of Ourselves?
November 13, 2022 17:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBJeremiah 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.
Episode 231: Hochul Makes History as Red Wave Falls Short
November 09, 2022 05:00 - 41 minutes - 28.5 MBGotham 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.
Episode 230: Andrew Cuomo Says Cities Are in Trouble in a ‘Post-Covid World’
November 06, 2022 00:00 - 58 minutes - 40.5 MBThe 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.
Episode 229: Will Lee Zeldin Defund the MTA?
November 02, 2022 21:00 - 36 minutes - 24.9 MBThe 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.
Episode 228: Lee Zeldin Is ‘That Guy’
October 30, 2022 11:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBCo-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 rod...
Episode 227: Sandy Was Just the Start. Is New York City Building Resiliently Enough for What’s Coming Next?
October 26, 2022 19:00 - 36 minutes - 24.8 MB“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.
Episode 226: The Girl From Marvel’s Boy-Club Bullpen Tells All About Old Times Square
October 23, 2022 11:15 - 40 minutes - 27.5 MBAnn 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.
Episode 225: ‘Politics is Tidal’ - Can Kathy Hochul Stand Up to the Wave?
October 21, 2022 01:00 - 36 minutes - 24.7 MBJimmy 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.”
Episode 224: How NYC's Suburbs Could Decide America's Future
October 16, 2022 02:30 - 33 minutes - 23.2 MBNew 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.
Episode 223: Big Qs in Fine Print on the Back of Your Ballot
October 12, 2022 20:00 - 38 minutes - 26.2 MBAbout 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.
Episode 222: ‘Same As It Always Is’—Manny Kirchheimer’s New York, and His Pandemic Time Warp
October 09, 2022 04:00 - 32 minutes - 22.4 MBAlyssa 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?
Episode 221: An Open Invitation to Mayor Adams
October 04, 2022 19:00 - 30 minutes - 20.7 MBIs 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...
Episode 220: From Emperor of the City to ‘Total Humiliation‘
October 02, 2022 01:00 - 37 minutes - 25.4 MBBiographer 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?
Episode 219: The Mapmaker's Big ‘Surprise’
September 29, 2022 00:30 - 47 minutes - 32.9 MBDennis 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.
Episode 218: A Nap for the City that Never Sleeps?
September 21, 2022 21:00 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MBDodai 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.
Episode 217: The Overwhelming Seductions of New York
September 16, 2022 21:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBFormer 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.
Episode 216: Arsenic and Old Apartments
September 07, 2022 18:00 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBGreg 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.
Episode 215: Does Eric Adams Want To Be the Mayor or Just Play the Mayor?
August 31, 2022 19:00 - 37 minutes - 25.9 MBSomething 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.
Episode 214: Election Night Extra: A Lot of L's to Go Around
August 24, 2022 06:15 - 47 minutes - 32.4 MBThe 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.
Episode 213: Bringing Honesty to the Dangerousness Debate
August 10, 2022 21:00 - 32 minutes - 24 MBIn 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.
Episode 212: Dangerousness and the District Attorney
August 03, 2022 22:00 - 36 minutes - 25.2 MBSome “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 ac...
Episode 211: Can Old Dems Learn New Tricks?
July 28, 2022 02:00 - 36 minutes - 25 MBProfessor Christina Greer has a lot to say about the Jerry Nadler-Carolyn Maloney face-off in the new NY 12 and how Suraj Patel could end up deciding that race, the thus far one-sided public fight Jessica Ramos is trying to start with fellow leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and much more.