Lit NYC
Episode Archive
Episode Archive
66 episodes of Lit NYC since the first episode, which aired on December 13th, 2018.
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Episode 34: Jake Berman’s The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been
January 5th, 2024 | 32 mins 17 secs
Author and cartographer Jake Berman talks with Alyssa Katz about how the great and not-so-great mass transit systems of the U.S. and Canada. the art of mapmaking, the secrets to the success of the few cities where riding the subway is the norm instead of the exception, and the future of New York City’s subways.
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Episode 33: Ellen Moynihan’s Recovered Cat and More New York Stories
December 30th, 2023 | 32 mins 31 secs
In the third and final installment of the pod's year-end mini-series of stories about a "New York minute," you'll hear from Michael Gartland and Ellen Moynihan of the Daily News, telling yarns about found beef, cops and lost cats. They’re followed by Justin Miller of New York Magazine on hearing an unsolicited tale of massages and romances. Finally, Mark Jacobson, the journalist and novelist who, among other things, wrote the articles Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet and The Return of Superfly that respectively became the TV show Taxi and the movie American Gangster, with a ramble about comedy in the city back in the day.
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Episode 32: J.T. Price’s Courteous Robber and More New York Stories
December 28th, 2023 | 42 mins 56 secs
In the second of three year-end episodes featuring stories about "a New York minute," natives Katie Honan and David Ray Martinez talk soap operas and families before transplants J.T. Price and Adam Levy talk about courteous robbers and courting wives.
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Episode 31: Steve Lynn's Kingpin Career and More New York Minute Stories
December 27th, 2023 | 37 mins 8 secs
Four stories about four New York minutes, with a pair about the drug business told by Cliff Michel and Steve Lynn, and a pair about gloom, glamor and gunmption told by Huge Perez and Flo Ankah.
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Episode 30: Mark Chiusano’s The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos
November 18th, 2023 | 39 mins 30 secs
Mark Chiusano, author of "The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos," talks with Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post about this character in the aftermath of the brutal new House ethics report about him.
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Episode 29: Sean Howe’s Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s.
September 30th, 2023 | 47 mins 11 secs
Sean Howe talks with Harry Siegel about his sprawling history of an American crack-up.
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Episode 28: Bill Griffith’s Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, The Man Who Created Nancy
September 23rd, 2023 | 45 mins 44 secs
Zippy creator Bill Griffith talks with Harry Siegel about his new graphic novel, "Three Rocks," about Ernie Bushmiller, the cartoonist who created the iconic strip, and goes deep into some New York City newspaper history in the process.
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Episode 27: Stephen Yang Talking Pictures
August 13th, 2023 | 53 mins 54 secs
Photographer Stephen Yang joins Alex Brook Lynn and Harry Siegel for a conversation about capturing private moments in public settings, the differences between photojournalism and street photography, why tabloids have traditionally frowned on high-contrast shots (spoiler: those require too much black ink to print) and much more.
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Episode 26: Ben Smith’s Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral
June 25th, 2023 | 40 mins 50 secs
Ben Smith talks with Azi Paybarah about Silicon Alley, the internet of the early 2000s, and why local politics is less scalable than it used to be.
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Episode 25: Paul Moses’ The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia
June 16th, 2023 | 32 mins 59 secs
Years before the NYPD targeted Muslims, Black radicals and other groups with specialized and sometimes undercover operations, the Italian Squad prompted pushback for its aggressive tactics, and from Italian-American leaders concerned about their community’s public image as immigrants sought to assimilate. Paul Moses, author of “The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia” recounts the NYPD’s efforts to grapple with organized criminals preying on Italian immigrants and the challenges and threats faced by the Italian-American officers trying to stop them.
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Episode 24: James Zollar Talking Jazz
May 22nd, 2023 | 31 mins 12 secs
Host Greg Glassman and fellow trumpeter James Zollar play together, and talk about what it takes to make it a musician in the Big Apple and much more.
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Episode 23: Steven Thrasher’s Viruses on Film
March 18th, 2023 | 38 mins 1 sec
Dr. Steven Thrasher — curator of the Viruses on Film series screening at BAM — talks about the experience of people coming together to watch movies about something that's everywhere but can't be seen. .
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Episode 22: Gary Weiss’ Retail Gangster: The Insane, Real-Life Story of Crazy Eddie
February 26th, 2023 | 44 mins 22 secs
Gary Weiss talks with Harry Siegel about his wild history of New York City's original retail gangster.
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Episode 21: Rusty Zimmerman’s Free Portrait Project
February 18th, 2023 | 42 mins 3 secs
Rusty Zimmerman is spending the year making oil paintings of and collecting oral histories from 200 people living in South Brooklyn. That includes Harry Siegel, who joined Rusty for a conversation about the project, how people can support it and see it, and why he's giving the portraits away for free to their subjects.
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Episode 20: Stacy Dillard Talking Jazz
February 5th, 2023 | 36 mins 37 secs
Trumpeter Greg Glassman sits down with saxophonist Stacy Dillard for a conversation — along with the two of them improvising on their instruments — about what it means, and what it takes, to make it as a jazz musician in New York City.
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Episode 19: Annemarie Gray’s Open New York
January 22nd, 2023 | 33 mins 38 secs
Open New York is an organization advocating to make it easier to build and manage housing in New York City — and now it’s broadening its agenda to also support advances in tenants’ rights. Will that be enough to change state laws and neighborhood politics to get more housing built? Alyssa Katz talks with Open New York Director Annemarie Gray about her group’s game-changing ambitions.