Faq Nyc

A 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.

Public 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.

Pervaiz Shallwani dipped a hot dog into New York’s melting pot, and what came out was delicious.

Who'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.

Jeremiah 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.

Gotham 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.

The 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.

The 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.

Co-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 rode the subway with Lee Zeldin, and there was no pot smell. He said there was pot smell. And the only reason I noticed that is because there usually is a pot smell, right? So I was shocked that there wasn’t.” Plus, Laura Kavanaugh is now the first female commissioner of the FDNY, the city’s still not ready for what’s coming a decade after Sandy, and much more.

“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.

Ann 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.

Jimmy 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.”

New 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.

About 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.

Alyssa 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?

Is 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 mayor.

Biographer 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?

Dennis 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.

Dodai 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.

Former 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.