Faq Nyc

Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel join guest Jeff Coltin to look ahead to summer in the city, consider the state of political goss in this town, the strangest Congressional race playing out in Manhattan and much more.

Will New York State ever pass the budget that was due more than a month ago? And how is New York City supposed to work out its own budget, which it’s legally required to balance and pass by the end of June, without knowing how much money the state is providing? Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel dig into that and much more, including a grim projection about New York City’s shrinking public school system.

Zohran Mamdani’s first political endorsement since becoming mayor predictably didn’t pan out, but Lindsey Boylan wasn’t the candidate he’s betting his political capital on.  The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all that and much more, including why bringing casinos to New York is such a terrible idea, what’s so good about bodega cats and bad about restaurant dogs, and much more. 

Which came first, the state budget or the city’s spending plan? As the Mamdani administration pushes for new taxes and more money from Albany the FAQ NYC hosts discuss all that and much more, including how sports and politics are getting mushed together first between the NBA Playoffs and the coming “Trump Station,” and between the World Cup and a looming “weekend of hell” and the Mamdani administration, and much more.

The former president with a supposedly funny name who was smeared as an African-born socialist made a surprise appearance at a Bronx pre-school that opened up on a Saturday so the tots could hang out with him and New York City’s actually African-born socialist mayor with a supposedly funny name at a very sweet and tightly stage-managed event open only to invited press. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss the first public meeting of two guys with funny names and audacious hopes for the Democratic party and much more, including the city’s title dreams for the Knickerbockers and fading hopes for the Metropolitans in the latest episode of the only podcast about the only city in the world.

FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel visited the Greene Space in Soho on Thursday night for a sold-out live recording, hosted by ABNY, talking about Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first 100 days. “I would give him a B,” said Chrissy. “I'm a harsh grader, so I think that's a solid grade. We're seeing someone grow in real time. We are out of the campaign phase and deeply into the governance phase, and there are a lot of ways that Mamdani was naive in campaigning. If these things were so simple, people would have done them before.”

The new mayor captured City Hall with historic support, and polling shows he’s only become more popular since then. But now the question is if he can deliver – despite the resistance of the City Council and Gov. Kathy Hochul to let him cash in on the “tax the rich” revenue he promised to deliver. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all that and much more, including City Hall’s new racial equity plan and a horrific shooting in Brooklyn that brought renewed attention to the NYPD’s gang database.

Zohran Mamdani has been Hizzoner for just 88 days, and he’s already navigating the “poisoned chalice” of a big budget deficit he inherited while the credit agencies that could make it much more expensive for the city to borrow money are taking an increasingly dim view of its finances on his watch. Hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, including the mayor’s different responses to two high-profile terror attempts, on the latest episode of the FAQ NYC podcast.

An epic art show at the Lexington Avenue Armory made a young Marcel Duchamp, who was back in France, one of America’s first modern celebrities even before he first arrived in New York City for what became decades of painting, conceiving, chess-playing and love-making — though not always in that order. John Strausbaugh, the author of Duchamp Takes New York, joins the LIT NYC podcast for a wide-ranging discussion of an artist’s life in the Big Apple’s old San Juan Hill, and much more with Amy Sohn and guest co-host Brian Berger.

The new administration is cutting off the private legal support Eric Adams extended on the city’s behalf to himself and his police officer pals, and rolling out a new Office of Public Safety that’s a far cry from the ambitious Department he’s promised. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all that and much more, including Zohran Mamdani’s pretty weak — not to mention all-male — list of his all time favorite rappers.

Can former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s fortune help his former staffer, Micah Lasher, prevail in the wide open race for a rare open NYC Congressional seat, and mark an inglorious end to the Kennedy dynasty in the process? Does America’s attack on Iran make a Mayor Mamdani ally the favorite in his primary challenge to a Congressional incumbent? And how far into March Madness can the Blackbirds and the Johnnies take New York basketball? All that and much more gets mulled in Episode 486.

NYC Department of Records Associate Commissioner Kenneth Cobb and Research Associate Marcia Kirk visited Lit NYC to explain how the Municipal Archives came across the death ledger for the town of Newtown, Queens where Geroge Rex, who froze to death in 1885 at the age of 89, had his occupation recorded as “The Last Slave,” what the Municipal Archives has found since then about his life, death and family history, and much more.

A police-punching Jan. 6 rioter and far-right agitator pardoned by Donald Trump showed up outside Gracie Mansion this weekend with a couple dozen supporters for a “stop the Islamic takeover of New York City” clashed with about 150 counter-protesters there to “run the Nazis out. ” And that was before two alleged ISIS sympathizers drove in from out of state to throw bombs that smoked but didn’t explode into the chaotic crowd. Hosts Harry Siegel and Katie Honan, calling in from just Mayor Zohran Mamadani and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch held a presser outside Gracie Mansion on Monday morning, to discuss all this madness, how the city’s top officials are responding to it, and much more.

Geographer, cartographer and urban explorer Andrew Lynch, the chief operating officer of QueensLink, joins Lit NYC to discuss the group’s vision to transform the borough for the better by extending the M train from Queens Boulevard to the Rockaways on a railway that’s abandoned for 60 years while surrounding that with new parks and trails, how he got involved in this crusade, and much more.

The FAQ NYC hosts discuss the messaging from Zohran Mamdani about America’s new war, the mayor’s meeting with the president days earlier and much more. Plus, New York Working Families Party Director Jasmine Gripper joins the pod to talk about its agenda, “how the left ecosystem in New York is evolving in a beautiful way” and the split between the WFP and Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America in the race to replace Rep. Nydia Velazquez. “He's only been endorsing socialists” in district races, Gripper said..”The WFP sometimes endorses socialists, and sometimes we endorse people who wear a progressive hat, a liberal hat. I think the mayor is promoting one ideology. We're promoting a slightly different one. I don't think this stops us from working together.”

Joe Flaherty was a dock worker and high school dropout on the wrong side of 30 when he found an unexpected writer’s life beginning as a columnist for the Village Voice. A couple years later, he was running the 51st State campaign of Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin as two of the city’s most famous writers made their bid to run it on a 51st State platform built around the idea of giving New Yorkers more control of their own neighborhoods and slogans including “No More Bullshit” and “The Other Guys Are The Joke.” Joe’s son Liam joins Lit NYC to talk about the very different Park Slope he grew up in, what his father accomplished in his short life before succumbing to prostate cancer at just 47 years old, what his dad would make of Mamdani’s new era, and much more.

One more storm, many more mountains of snow for winter-weary New Yorkers to slog through and a second chance for Zohran Mamdani to show he's up to his endless blizzard of a job. FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel dig into all that and more, including Mamdani's dubious threat to raise property taxes in the city if Albany doesn't hike taxes on the rich and what that shows about who's missing from his inner circle.

Eric Goldwyn, an author of the new A Better Billion report from the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University, joins Lit NYC to explain its modest proposal to remap the city with 12 new projects, 64 new subways stations and 41 new miles of rail — all for about the same cost as making buses free.

Brian Stettin, who spent the Adams years as the senior advisor on the severely mentally ill for the office of the mayor before the Mamdani administration eliminated that position, joins the podcast for a wide-ranging exit interview. Plus, the hosts discuss Mamdani’s mounting early missteps, the bad-faith critics pouncing on them, and much more.

Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director Dave Giffen joins the pod to discuss the Mamdani administration’s efforts to bring unhoused people in from the vicious cold. Giffen talks about why he's seen the same problems repeat again and again under seven different mayors, and what it would take to actually change that dynamic and help put his group out of business.