FAQ NYC

A new poll shows the former governor with 32% support among likely voters. It's not just name recognition, though, or the mayor vying for a second term wouldn't be at just 6%, tied with Socialist Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, and behind State Senator Jessica Ramos at 7%, Comptroller Brad Lander at 10% and former Comptroller Scott Stringer leading the declared challengers at 12% — putting all of them way behind "Unsure" at 18%. The FAQ NYC hosts discuss all this, and much more, about the awfully uncertain and unstable election that's not even six months away, as it gets late early here.

On the first weekday of NYC’s new congestion-pricing era that's already being threatened by the incoming Trump administration, Jose Martinez, THE CITY’s senior reporter covering transportation, offers some perspective on what this means for the trains and streets inside the zone and throughout the five boroughs: "Politicians use the words historical a lot, but I do think that when they flipped the switch on this thing Saturday night, yeah, that was a bit of history here in New York. It's something that has just been brewing for years — now it's here."

Nicole Gelinas, the author of Movement: New York's Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, explains why she opens her epic account with the mayors who fought against the street-car system that once transported New Yorkers a billion times a year. From there, Gelinas talks with editors Harry Siegel of THE CITY and Ben Max of New York Law School about the promise of congestion pricing, the challenges to getting big things fixed let alone built here, the ghost of Robert Moses, and much more

The mayor’s right-hand woman was in cuffs, while Adams was taking part in a ridiculous perp walk that played out more like a glamor shot for a murderer. Hizzoner’s friend and ally in the NYPD, who Adams has gone to bat for again and again over charges of abusing his authority, resigned after being accused of using overtime to coerce a subordinate into sex. Even as there were two more terrible train murders on Sunday, Adams laid low. As the hits keep coming for an historically unpopular mayor who’s trying to duck the local press and ride out the end of the year while New Yorkers are otherwise occupied, hosts Chrissy, Katie and Harry discuss all that and much more.

Author and veteran columnist Amy Sohn talks with Harry Siegel about her book, The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, and Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age, and explains why the “zombie” Comstock Law still on the federal books kept coming up during 2024’s presidential election. Sohn details how the lives of two “sex radicals,” Ida Craddock and Sarah Chase, were upended as they crossed paths with Anthony Comstock, the mutton-chopped celebrity behind the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice and self-described “friend of women” who boasted about driving his enemies to suicide. It’s a story about how the government’s original anti-sex law — suppressing information about birth control as a form of obscenity — created mechanisms used to this day to suppress unpopular thoughts.

The mayor says he’s the same as he’s ever was even as his closest allies have left under fire and he’s executing what Trump’s incoming border czar says is “a complete 180” on immigration. In the last regular episode of 2024, hosts Chrissy and Harry discuss the mayor's maneuvering — "I don't know if the mayor is purging his old crew, or if his old crew is purging themselves before they have to perjure themselves." They also dig into the unprecedented number of car crashes following police pursuits on Eric Adams' watch, the Democratic challengers lining up early to take on Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2026, Brad Lander's sit-down with the New York Editorial Board, and more.

Just after Katie Honan and Harry Siegel recorded on Monday morning, a jury acquitted Daniel Penny of negligent homicide, the NYPD found the man they believe shot down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the City Council sued the mayor for declaring a state of emergency rather than implement the solitary confinement ban they passed into law. Ahead of all that, the hosts dug into how Trumpworld is reportedly laughing at a“Thirsty” Eric Adams, the limits of the mayor’s new “cancel me” appeal and his new talk about scaling back New York’s “sanctuary city” law even if lawmakers won’t go along, and much more, and much more.

Eric Adams seems to think so, and that Trump’s victory proves the left has lost its way. FAQ hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss the mayor’s solid political instincts and his dubious press strategy, why he’s still talking about Andrew Yang, and much more.

Why was Mayor Eric Adams swearing in Jessica Tisch as his fourth police commissioner in not even three years on Monday? FAQ hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss the historic turnover from an historically unpopular mayor, Rep. Ritchie Torrees' prospective challenge of Gov. Kathy Hochul, and much more. Plus, Katie digs into the Brooklyn diocese and the church that (sort of) tied together Sabrina Carpenter and Eric Adams.

She’s joined for this one by author Joel Kotkin, the Roger Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and director of its Center for Demographics and Policy as well as senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas in Austin. He’s been asking the same question for decades, highlighting Americans’ demonstrated preference for suburban life and the waning of “urban supremacy.” The two dig into New York City at the latest of its many historic crossroads, at a moment when the high cost and scarcity of housing mask troubling signs of decline and a need for grassroots renewal.

Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul have been tight to this point but the two centrist Democratic executives seem to be taking different approaches to dealing publicly and perhaps also privately with Donald Trump, who the mayor just hung out with at the UFC title fight at Madison Square Garden. FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel talk about that and much more, including the evidently widening space between the electorate and the people they’ve elected in New York.

It wasn’t a secret that Trump could be president again, or that his plans — starting with a mass deportation push — would have a huge impact on our New York City. So what are there so few specifics about what City Hall and others plan to do in response? FAQ NYC hosts Christina Greer, Harry Siegel and Katie Honan discuss that, park fires, Weiner’s return talk and much more from another jam-packed week in New York City .

Guest Ben Max joins hosts Christina Greer and Harry Siegel to start sifting through what Donald Trump’s win and Republican gains in the city mean for New Yorkers, Mayor Eric Adams and next year’s elections here as there's red all across the deep blue city. . They also discuss the stages of mourning, a grandma’s advice, the difference between a socialist and a dentist and much more.

In the calm just before the election-day storm, hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss the screaming match at the Marathon, reportedly over a photo op, between the police commissioner and his newly appointed chief of staff still doing double duty as the department's (reporter loathing) press secretary.. They also talk about subway surfing and the NYPD's ongoing efforts to use drones to try and stop that, handing out beers to marathon runners, and much more.

Hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss Trump's last days rally in his old Manhattan stomping grounds, and the mayor's defense of the president and the president's public praise of the mayor that's sure to re-circulate in 20025 ads from the Democrats running to replace him. They also discuss the NYPD's usual suspects who still seem to be the public face of the department rather than the interim commissioner who vowed the police would be speaking with one voice now, the rapper who turned down the key to the city, and much more.

Sasha Ahuja, the campaign director of New Yorkers for Equal Rights, makes the case for voting "yes" on Proposition 1 — and explains what the update to the state constitution would and would not do. Then hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss whether it's too soon to count out Eric Adams as a mayoral candidate, and the coming ticker tape parade for the Liberty after they brought New York its first basketball championship since 1976 and Brooklyn its first sports championship since 1955.

In the midst of a great season for New York sports, Eric Adams is racing to rebuild his organization on the fly while investigators are closing in on him and his inner circle. Is there some reason to trust the process now that most of the top officials recently raided by the FBI have been pushed out, while more public service minded officials are being placed in top positions? Hosts Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss that, the exhaustion of raking all this muck, why New Yorkers have been so sour on the mayor for so long, and much more.

The Adams administration departures are happening at a pace the podcast can’t match. Hosts Christina Greer and Katie Honan dig into Monday morning’s news about Phil Banks’ exit—but recorded too soon to cover the resignation of Winnie Greco and the firing of Rana Abbasova. Chrissy and Katie did also discuss who would want to board the Titanic right now, how city politics became “a non-stop soap opera,” the “interesting spot” Gov. Kathy Hochul finds herself in as Adams cleans house at her firm request, and much more.

Co-hosts Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel discuss the high court’s ruling in June that public servants are free to accept gratuities in exchange for their public actions, which the mayor’s attorneys brought up Monday in a motion to dismiss the charges against him. Plus, the pod digs into a new poll conducted just before the mayor was charged that shows New Yorkers overwhelmingly disapprove of his job performance, whether the city can still function while Mayor Adams fights the charges against him, and how his case and the city’s future could both be determined by what happens in the presidential election this November.

For the first time, New York City’s sitting mayor is now a criminal defendant — one who says the 57-page case against him is a pack of “lies” and that the federal government and the city’s permanent powers are trying to bring him down for doing right by New Yorkers. In an “emergency” episode marking this historical moment, Christina Greer, Katie Honan and Harry Siegel dig into the case against the mayor, his public defense, where the city looks to be going from here, how the example of Donald Trump looms over all of this, and much more.