Thank you to readers who have come to this site over the years, even though it’s been largely inactive for a while. It’s currently inactive for good reason: I’m running for Manhattan District Attorney! I encourage folks to check out our campaign to transform justice in New York City. The election is in June 2021,…
(Photo by New York Times.) Henry Stern and I met over Big Pun. My first summer after college I was embedded in the Parks Department Historical Signs Unit with a dozen other students, cranking out short playground histories for 2001 plaques adorning outgoing Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Parks Commissioner Henry Stern’s names across the City.…
The internet is replete with powerful tributes to Muhammad Ali, but I’ll humbly add the story of his legal travails. This is excerpted from a Federal Bar Council piece I co-authored with Steve Edwards on boxing law. Re-reading this five years later, I am struck by the final quote, in which Ali forgives an institution…
Rivers Island is a depraved and dangerous place, a moral stain on New York City. The time has come to close it down. Starting March 11th, that will be the sole focus of my work, when I join JustLeadershipUSA as its new Director of Policy and Campaigns. JustLeadership’s founder and executive director, Glenn Martin, has…
Medical school starts with the dissection of a human body, a grisly task that tests whether you’re for real. If you think politics matter, Trump is that cadaver. There’s a desire to dismiss him as a racist carnival barker and ignore what his campaign can teach us, but that’s like turning away at the first…
This was scrawled on the Temple wall at Burning Man, and it really resonated: It’s all so terrifyingly simple We’ve overcomplicated it There is a deliberate continuum being maintained throughout all the detailed narrative No matter what your crazy theory is no matter what mouth noises or squiggly lines you make to point towards something…
Could Mayor de Blasio’s municipal ID program be the sleeper program to rejuvenate New York City? We all know this city is full of cultural gems, but now we no longer have an excuse to ignore them, just because we already experienced them once on a high school field trip or a first date. The Muni…
My life would be a lot more productive and a lot less interesting if I weren’t addicted to New York politics and fantasy basketball. Those two worlds collided last week when New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a cease & desist order against two Daily Fantasy Sports gambling sites, FanDuel and DraftKings. To make sense of…
These are grim times for New York political bosses. Former Speaker Sheldon Silver’s corruption trial ends on Monday. Former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ corruption trial has just begun. Former Kings County Democratic Chairman Vito Lopez is dead. Today is an for anniversary celebrating a rare win for New York reformers: on November 19, 1871, William…
The pews of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei were packed, with more standing in the back. The choir’s lead sang a gorgeous “Ave Maria.” Misty eyes listened to the recollections of friends and family. I was at the funeral for Vito Lopez, for many years one of New York’s most powerful politicians. Lopez…
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