The Hell Gate Podcast

The Hell Gate Podcast

Local dispatches, analysis, and conversations from New York City’s worker-owned, subscriber-funded news outlet. Subscribe: https://hellgatenyc.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes

August 8, 2025 35 mins
Our city's fine rats are bathing in fountains and tanning on lily pads, Cuomo and Trump are reportedly gabbing it up, and Elizabeth Warren is back on CNBC to dish it out against our raging billionaires. It's the dog days of summer and the anti-Mamdani coalition cooked up a new set of logos but it doesn’t seem like anybody is quite hitting the mark. Then, the team interrogates the biases in John Catsimatidis's "Mamdani Policy Impact...

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A mass shooting in Midtown earlier this week left four dead, and one of the victims was a cop. True to form, Cuomo and corporate media have taken this as a cue to attack Mamdani for his stance on the NYPD, and, similarly true to form, totally miss the point. The team unpacks how the shifting demographics of voters in the city—and its cops—complicate the cookie-cutter picture they’ve been painting for the past few decades. Then, a b...

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The team talks about the Trump administration's escalating pressure on our fair city, beginning with Columbia University's massive, humiliating settlement. Was it worth it, Columbia? Which then brings us to the federal government suing the Adams administration over New York City's sanctuary policies—how is Mayor Eric Adams reacting to Tom Homan finally being "up his butt"?


Then, our intrepid correspondents discuss a Phish show t...

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July 18, 2025 36 mins
We begin with the obligatory unpacking of Trump/Epstein and soon move on to our own local sex pest attempting to make a comeback using Zohran Mamdani’s social media strategy. Katie breaks down why Curtis Sliwa is neither the hero Gotham needs nor deserves, but why he should stay in the race anyway... And finally, Max wraps up the pod with a saucy surprise… 

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July 11, 2025 35 mins

The Failing New York Times is at it again, digging into the depths of Mamdani’s college applications and collaborating with a eugenicist to… what end exactly? This week the team talks race, and unrelatedly, why Sid Rosenberg is so red. (Is it because John Catsimatidis is making him that way…? Maybe.) The anti-Mamdani coalition is mustering its forces, and Mamdani is fielding it all. Finally, we ponder whether police commissioner Je...

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The ranked choice ballots have been counted and Zohran Mamdani’s win is even more decisive. Now that we’ve entered the valley between the primary and general elections, what is the landscape looking like? The team digests the state and country’s (mostly racist) immediate reactions to Mamdani’s primary win, and considers who in the field is worth really paying attention to. Meanwhile Adlan gets a mysterious email tip to come down to...

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June 25, 2025 40 mins

The editors gather in the early morning to commiserate and lick their wounds over Cuomo’s tragic loss… How did we get here? How could a democratic socialist run a campaign in this city and win? We’re kidding, the Mamdani campaign threw a perfect game, and rewrote the electorate. 


Last night the team was running around the city covering the election—at watch parties for Adams, Lander, Cuomo, and Mamdani—all with radically di...

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June 20, 2025 37 mins


The election is underway and the team is tossing and turning. Pre-debate polls still show Zohran Mamdani losing, and meanwhile Cuomo is on TV, his Dodge Charger is blocking NYC traffic, and his super PAC is flexing anti-Zohran ads into every gym and sports bar and laundromat in the city. Meanwhile Brad Lander got arrested by federal agents —and was given critical support by the coalition of candidates that, in this election cyc...

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June 13, 2025 33 mins
This week, the editors can’t help but hash out the state of the race—early voting opens up this Saturday, June 14th. Cuomo may have taken a beating this week from Brad Lander at the second mayoral debate, but the poll margins are extremely tight. Still, Cuomo is characteristically absent from spin rooms, spaghetti dinners, and our good graces. It’s hard to divine what might happen now. Are TV ads better than gra...

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June 6, 2025 36 mins

This week we unpack the latest craven twist in the mayoral dogfight—the first cross endorsement of the race… for Andrew Cuomo… from Jessica Ramos. Yes, Ramos who questioned Cuomo’s “mental acuity” and referred to him as “the Democratic Party's Trump.” 


A few blocks away from the endorsement, ICE agents clad in masks and hoods continue to lead asylum seekers into vans, and transport them to this administration’s immigration-...

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This week, the editors discuss Mamdani’s new poll numbers, and whether ranked-choice voting will really coax rival candidates to finally team up. Will the underdogs manage to band together against asteroid-like candidate Cuomo? (Yes, we discuss the 1998 film Deep Impact.) Also, what the hell is going on with Eric Adam’s crypto-lifestyle? Why is he in Vegas? And what does this have to do with the SoHo kidnapping? 


Then, Chri...

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This week the team talks over some of the business you’d rather not have to wade through: Andrew Cuomo’s appearance on the Bari Weiss podcast, which, for better or worse, is probably the longest we’ve heard Cuomo speak since the pandemic. And the latest in the long line of indignities that the tiny institutional body of the CCRB has weathered trying to hold cops accountable in NYC.

Host...

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At the Public Theater, the Hell Gate team somehow wrangled three politicians onto bar stools to get: blasted with an air horn, roasted for not knowing any Knicks players (other than Jalen Brunson), and scrutinized for how they’d deal with NYC not-so-hypotheticals as mayor. Scott Stringer, Brad Lander, and Zohran Mamdani shared the stage with some real camaraderie, and the team mulls over what went right, wrong, weird, and whether a...

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What a week—for one, it seems like some cosmological force (new pope included) is on the Knicks's side. And how do we feel about a pope from Chicago? Hot or not? We also chat about mayoral candidate Brad Lander's bid for nuance, in an empty synagogue. Finally, we give a shoutout to our very own Jessy Edwards, who was announced as a finalist this week for a little thing known as a Pulitzer.

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Hell Gate's Nick Pinto discusses a new civil rights lawsuit that reveals the disturbing details of the NYPD's gang database, and what's behind the recent uptick in bogus arrests. And remember three years ago when Mayor Adams asked for photos of cops on their phones? Thanks to contributor Erin Durkin's FOIL request, we finally know what New Yorkers sent in. We also check in on the mayoral race and do a close read of some candidates'...

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April 25, 2025 42 mins
We break down some of our top stories this week, from Mayor Adams criticizing the right to due process (unless it's for himself), to what's going on with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, to the Cuomo campaign's latest gaffe. We also discuss "Writing on Raving," a new anthology about the rave scene in Brooklyn and beyond, with co-editors Zoë Beery and Geoffrey Mak.

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On this week's podcast, we discuss Cuomo using ChatGPT to help write his housing plan, and the state of the Democratic mayoral primary. Also, Vybz Kartel is free! And Hell Gate's Adlan Jackson was there for his Barclays Center show.



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April 11, 2025 38 mins
It's finally the episode we know everyone's been waiting for—the mouse episode, where Hell Gate staffers discuss the various ways we've been traumatized by mice in our apartments. What New Yorker can't relate? Plus, we discuss Governor Hochul's efforts to exterminate discovery reform.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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April 4, 2025 39 mins
Eric Adams is free—from his federal charges and the Democratic Party. We break down the dismissal of his corruption case, and how his decision to run for reelection as an independent could shake up the race.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hell Gate's March Madness of NYC Hot Takes continues! Thanks to our readers' bracket picks, only the spiciest takes have risen to the top, and this week we're squaring off over the Elite Eight. We also chat with $20 Dinner writer Scott Lynch about the new, incredibly useful and interactive $20 Dinner Map, and what he's learned covering more than 100 New York City restaurants for Hell Gate.

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