FAQ NYC

Other than the extreme heat, smoky air, flash flooding and deaths from an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, it’s remained a lovely summer in New York City — including for night fishing..

FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, including “shark” Zohran Mamdani’s aggressive early plans for his reelection bid, an older generation of Democratic leaders flopping about like fish out of water as the tide rolls out, and much more.

Mayor Mamdani this week blamed the previous administration for a map of immigrant enclaves that didn't include Little Italy, and said the city would include it next time.

Hosts Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss the mostly bad-faith criticism of the map, the eternal arguments about which New Yorkers are represented and which are neglected, how his administration set itself up to get attacked here, and much more

When Zohran Mamdani urged New Yorkers to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees, echoing what mayors before him have advised during heat waves for decades, his critics again lost their minds.

Hosts Katie Honan and Harry Siegel talk with Alex Brook Lynn, FAQ NYC's original producer calling in from Paris, about heat waves, sharks in the water, swimming in the Seine and much more.

A sudden City Council push to hold up the budget due Tuesday if City Hall doesn’t increase funding for the wildly popular — and thus wildly expensive — CityFHEPS housing vouchers represents a big new test for Mayor Mamdani and his incredible winning streak.

Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more, and Straight Arrow News senior politics reporter — not to mention FAQ NYC co-founder — Azi Paybarah joins the pod for a deep dive into his story about a bizarre cluster of zombie AI news sites in a story that begins in SoHo.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani put a lot of his newly won political capitol on the line to try and shift the shape of the Democratic Party in New York City and beyond, and won big — proving that his theory of the case didn't end with his election.

An hour and a half after the polls closed, FAQ NYC taped a special episode along with Ben Max and with Katie Honan calling in from Claire Vadez’s exuberant election night party.

Is the Knicks win after more than 50 years  a good omen for summer? Co-host Katie Honan talks with Rachel Holliday Smith, the managing editor of The City Reporter, about summer 2026. Then she speaks with Janet Fash, a longtime New York City lifeguard whose memoir "Lifeguard: A Love Story" comes out June 23.

Bex Max joins Christina Greer and Harry Siegel for a FAQ NYC-Max Politics crossover just after game four to put down politics for once and talk about the Knicks' incredible comeback and a city that’s dizzy with excitement and overdue for a celebration. .

The New York Knickerbockers will come into Madison Square Garden Monday night for the first NBA finals game at Madison Square Garden this millennium having last lost a basketball game 46 days ago. That’s roughly four times as long as peak Lin-sanity and full four Scaramuccis.

Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel talk about the city’s blue and orange tinged euphoria, the orange man who’s attending game three and much more, starting with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s effort to tap into the city’s basketball excitement while spending some of his political capital on behalf...

Gwynne Hogan joins FAQ NYC to discuss The City Reporter’s big investigation of months of street arrests in and around New York City,and her coverage of the violent scenes playing out now outside of where many of those immigrants are detained at Newark’s Delaney Hall:

Plus, hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel dig into the news from another jam-packed summer week in New York City including the strange political bedfellows in a wild race in Harlem, the afterlife of Eric Adams’ zombie city charter commission and much more.

Hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel discuss the suddenly unstoppable Knicks, the indefatigable mayor’s efforts to tap into the city’s surge of sports energy, a rainy start to what could be a long, hot summer, and much more.

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 Knic...

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 bef...

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 George 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...

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 peopl...

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...

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.

Just a month into this new era, Zohran Mamdani is trying to get his feet under him as the ground remains icy and precarious. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss that and much more, including a deluge of fake news about the new mayor online and the last governor's new talk show.

The new mayor appeared to clear the bar with the city’s response to the first big snow on his watch. Meanwhile, his predecessor’s people were in the news again as Adams’ former chief of staff is reportedly the subject of a federal grand jury while his favorite deputy mayor for public safety is taking a new job working for ICE in Long Island.

Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more including what the ICE killings in Minneapolis mean for New York, and how Italian-Irish tensions in the Catholic church...

Arthur Tress, whose newly published photographs of gay men in Central Park’s Ramble in 1968 and 1969 are the earliest shots of outdoor cruising in a natural setting, joins Harry Siegel and Alex Krales on Lit NYC to discuss his work in a New York City where homosexuality was still a taboo and a crime, why he’s publishing it now, and much more.

This episode was engineered by Noah Smith, and produced by Harry, Alex and Amy Sohn.

Eric Adams said we'd miss him when he's gone as mayor, but he's still popping up — hawking an NYC cryptocoin in Times Square and taking potshots at his replacement when he isn't jet-setting or lashing out at an airport heckler.

The hosts discuss that and much more, including Zohran Mamdani's push after winning his own race to elect more socialists and the Democrats who aren't happy about it.

This episode was hosted by Christina Greer, Katie Honan, and Harry Siegel, who's also the FAQ NYC podcast network's executive producer. It was engineerred by Noah Smith.

Not even two weeks into the big job, Zohran Mamdani and his team are up and running — yet still struggling to get their footing.

Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel dig into that and much more, including the new mayor's responses to pro-Hamas chants in Queens, and to two fatal police shootings in the same day.

This episode was engineered by Noah Smith.

An iconic restaurant in Fulton Mall became an Arby's, before it was revived amid the pandemic.

St. John Frizell, one of the stewards of Gage and Tollner joins Lit NYC hosts Amy Sohn and Harry Siegel to talk about the craft of the cocktail, the business of Brooklyn, the nature of the great good place, and much more.

This episode was produced by Amy and Harry, and engineered by Noah Smith.

Way back in March of 2025, when Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani was at one percent in the Democratic primary polls, he promised THE CITY's FAQ NYC his very first sit-down interview as mayor.

On Thursday afternoon, Mayor Mamdani made good on that promise, sitting down with hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel for a wide-ranging conversation that covered the ICE murder in Minneapolis and "a year of cruelty," his softening stance on abolishing the NYPD's gang database, his message to Jewish New Yorkers who haven't been convinced by his messaging so far, and much more.

This episode...

Back when he was a longshot Democratic candidate, Zohran Mamdani said on this podcast that it would be his first interview as mayor — we're still here and with lots of questions to ask.  

Hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel discuss that and much more, including his inspiring inauguration and how longtime Public Advocate Jumaane Williams is already finding his voice and stride as a partner to this mayor instead of a foil to Eric Adams.

This episode was produced by Noah Smith.

As the mayor elect races to get ready for a big show and the big job, Eric Adams has been awfully busy in his final few days in office. Christina Greer and Harry Siegel discuss all that and much more — including then longshot Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani's public promise way back when to give our podcast his first interview as mayor.

This episode was engineered by Noah Smith.

In 1980, a movie narrated by a sociologist once described as Jimmy Stewart’s urban planner cousin, and full of surveillance footage of the city's public spaces, delivered perhaps the richest and wisest look ever made at how New Yorkers use the city's public spaces.

Municipal Art Society president Keri Butler joins LIT NYC hosts Harry Siegel and Amy Sohn to discuss William H. Whyte's brilliant The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, which of his zen koans about those spaces have stood the test of time in a technologically transformed world, and much more.

This ep...