FAQ NYC

Latest Episodes:

Episode 489: A Full Plate for a Young New Mayor Mar 30, 2026

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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.

Episode 488: The Readymade Art-Bomb Who Exploded in NYC Mar 29, 2026

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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.

Episode 487: Mamdani's New York Is Starting to Take Shape Mar 23, 2026

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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.

Episode 486: The Mecca of Basketball Is Back Mar 16, 2026

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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.

Episode 485: The Vital Records of Mr. George Rex, ‘The Last Slave’ Mar 13, 2026

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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.

Episode 484: An Explosive Scene at Gracie Mansion Mar 09, 2026

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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.

Episode 483: Reviving the Missing Link in Queens Mar 07, 2026

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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.

Episode 482: The Local Politics of America’s War in Iran Mar 02, 2026

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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.”

Episode 481: The Other Guy Was No Joke Feb 27, 2026

Show notes

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.

Episode 480: “Curb Your Dog. Don't Let Your Dog Curb You.” Feb 23, 2026

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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.

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