I write about New York City: its politics, its policy and how it’s governed.
I’m managing editor of Vital City, a journal of ideas about New York policy. For sixteen years I edited opinion at the New York Daily News, as op-ed editor and then editorial page editor.
Before that, speechwriting and policy in New York and Washington. Years ago I wrote headlines for The Onion. I publish Thoughts About Stuff on Substack. I live in Brooklyn with my wife and our two daughters.
Twenty years of columns and editorials, mostly about New York.
Earlier work, by publication: New York Daily News · The New York Sun · The Washington Post. Full portfolio at Authory. New work goes up on the Substack.
Maps and data tools about New York, built with AI. The two newest, then a dozen of the hundred-odd I’ve made.
Full-text search across New York City Council hearing transcripts and written testimony. Results come back as exchanges: the question, and the answer.
Open↗New York City’s budget parks pensions, health insurance and legal payouts in three central accounts. Put that money back on the agencies that incur it and the Police Department costs $11.5 billion, not $6.3 billion.
Open↗Selected
An interactive history of New York, from the Lenape to the present.
Open↗Click any spot in the city and get a full report on it: neighborhood, districts, representatives and more.
Open↗New York’s electricity in real time: demand, supply and price, from the grid operator.
Open↗A live map of the ships, ferries and tugs moving through New York Harbor.
Open↗Pick a precinct and a day and see what the 911 system logged, hour by hour.
Open↗A map of 594 cemeteries and burial grounds in the five boroughs, including the ones that no longer exist.
Open↗Where America’s immigrants live, county by county, by country of origin.
Open↗Every building in New York, mapped by age, height and type.
Open↗A century of mayoral campaign promises from the candidates who lost.
Open↗NYPD CompStat crime data, made easier to read and compare.
Open↗Scans local news sources to catch New York stories as they break.
Open↗3,000-plus city datasets, mapped and searchable in plain English.
Open↗All of them are in the experiments catalogue →
Where to find me.
Questions, tips or corrections.