Episode 479: Free Buses Won’t Make NYC More Affordable. New Trains Would.

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.

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.