FAQ NYC

Dr. Michael Lindsey, director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research, discusses his work leading the working group for the Congressional Black Caucus’ newly convened emergency Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. Then Alex Brook Lynn, in Albany, visits Albany to report on dark talk about dirty vice cops in New York City. Finally, Patricia Williams, mother of Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, calls in for Mother's Day to look back on raising a boy in Brooklyn.

This was going to be the year that pot was flat-out legalized in New York, or so said Gov. Cuomo, perhaps inspired by primary opponent Cynthia Nixon. Then three wo/men went into a smoke-filled room and everyone forgot about it. State Senator Diane Savino joins Chrissy, Harry and Cannabis Wire's Alyson Martin to discuss what happens, and what happens — or more likely doesn't — now.

New state Senator Zellnor Myrie walks up to Alex Lynn's rent-stabilized apartment to sit down with his constituent Christina Greer and talk about the rent-stabilized apartment he grew up in, why New York needs stronger new rent regulations, statewide, and more.

For now we see through a black box, darkly, as Albert Fox Cahn and Liz O'Sullivan of STOP - The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project — visit Bleecker Street to talk about what's happening with algorithms and AI in de Blasio's New York.

Within Universal Pre-K, there are two groups of teachers — one that works for the city, and one that works for community groups the city contracts with — that do the same work, for very different salaries. Christina Veiga of Chalkbeat joins us to talk about a looming strike, and the value of a woman's work in de Blasio's New York. Plus, Victoria Bekiempis calls in to run down the court drama this week from the NXVIM sex cult cum pyramid scheme, and more.

FAQ presents a new, highly irregular podcast about courts and the justice system with Victoria Bekiempis and Alex Brook Lynn talking with with legendary courts reporter Christina Carrega about the highly irregular trials of Chanel Lewis, convicted this week for the murder of jogger Karina Vetrano.

Rosie Goldensohn of The City comes in to explain how the city blew $369 million to save $30 million on a niche transportation system that charges $2.75 per ride that the city pays $13 to provide, state Senator Alessandra Biaggi calls in to discuss how $175 billion of state budget sausage gets ground up.

Mark Alan Stamaty’s great visual novel MacDoodle Street—the story of dishwashing poet Malcolm Frazzle that first appeared in the pages of the Village Voice in the late 1970s—is back in print thanks to the fine nerds of the New York Review of Books. Bill Bramhall, editorial cartoonist for the Daily News, joined Harry Siegel and Alex Brook Lynn for a conversation with Stamaty about his work, God, drugs, those hacks Artman and Andy Warhol, donuts and love, and, of course, umbilical oralism and the ultimate painting. In the spirit of his work, there are tangents within tangents — Emmylou Harris, maybe, helping a drunk Dave Van Ronk up from the sidewalk of MacDougal Street after a Kris Kristofferson show — as we stroll through the lost New York of MacDoodle Street without ever leaving Alex’s Bleaker Street apartment.

Harry Siegel and Alex Lynn talk with state Senator Jessica Ramos about sex work and the new push to decriminalize in in New York, and much more. Plus, Emma Whitford runs down her reporting on loitering laws, massage raids, and why the NYPD says we can’t arrest our way out of this problem; Harry talks with Peter Edelman about the criminalization of poverty, and Alex and Victoria Bekiempis go inside the courts.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez talks with Harry and Alex about his Justice 2020 action plan, what happens when prosecutors with legal hammers stop treating people like nails, policing the police, sex crimes and much more. Then Alex and Victoria go in the Manhattan courts to talk about a busy week there for the Trump gang, what with his old campaign manager getting charged in a court where the president has no pardon power, while his TV lawyer — our old mayor! — was back again to get divorced again. What da FAQ?