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The 10 Most-Read Op-Eds Published by Gotham Gazette in 2019


opinion town hall

(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Along with our in-depth reporting, election guides, podcasts, and more, Gotham Gazette also publishes an active opinion page of guest columns by those who make submissions to us (along with a few regular columnists we work with consistently).

We’ve published hundreds of op-eds this year from elected and appointed government officials, advocates and activists, nonprofit leaders, academics, think tank analysts, and other New Yorkers with an interesting point of view or story to tell related to local public policy or politics.

Some of the op-eds we publish are more opinionated than others, while some seek to more simply provide new information to the civic-minded public others have a distinct political bend. Many are deeply researched and carefully crafted pieces of journalism.

Below are the 10 most-read op-eds published by Gotham Gazette in 2019. (If you have a submission, pitch us any time by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and be sure to read up on our opinion page or peruse some of the work from our regular opinion writers through the “columnists” tab on our main menu bar.)

The 10 Most-Read Op-Eds published by Gotham Gazette in 2019:

1. I was Andrew Yang’s First ‘Freedom Dividend’ Recipient - When He Fired Me
by Kimberly Watkins
“After the game show stunt that Andrew Yang pulled at the presidential primary debate last week, a lot of people have speculated that he should and will drop out of the race soon. But there is another reason why Andrew Yang doesn't belong on the national political stage, and it involves the reason that Yang fired me in 2007 and how my termination highlights the danger of his "freedom dividend" program.”
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2. Amazon Was Never Going to Create 25,000 Jobs in Queens
by Peter Harrison
“Now that Governor Amazon Cuomo is grovelling for Amazon to come back to New York, it’s important to remember that the original sin of the “HQ2” deal is still true: Amazon was never going to bring 25,000 jobs to Long Island City.”
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3. Attorney General James Should Sue to Dissolve the Trump Organization
by Ron Fein & Jed Shugerman
“For a company of only a few dozen employees, the Trump Organization has accumulated an astonishing rap sheet of fraud, crime, and other corporate misconduct over the years. And since its owner came to occupy the Oval Office, the company has sunk to new depths as a vehicle for influence and corruption by supplicants from corporate lobbies and foreign governments.”
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4. Public Defenders as Prosecutors: Unanswered Questions
by Steven Zeidman
“The recognition that prosecutors were a primary cause of mass incarceration has spawned a movement for progressive prosecutors. While exactly what it means to be a progressive prosecutor is far from clear, at a minimum it reflects a change in the way prosecutors approached their work over the past several decades.”
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5. Public Defenders are Exactly Who We Should Be Electing as District Attorneys
by Eliza Orlins
“Imagine this: you're a 50-year-old black man working as an assistant manager at a Gristedes in lower Manhattan, where you've worked for the past 25 years. It’s a typical evening: you close up the store and prepare for your long journey home to Harlem with a couple bags of groceries you bought for your family.”
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6. City Council Fire Department Proposals Don’t Match Need for Reform
by Carol Kellermann
“Last week the City Council presented its response to Mayor de Blasio’s preliminary budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. It proposes to add $1.5 billion in annual operating expenditures and more than $1 billion in capital spending to the budget proposed by the mayor. Among the proposals are four that would significantly increase spending on the Fire Department and for which there is no clear justification other than political expediency. Two of them would not only be expensive, but would undermine provisions of contracts agreed to through collective bargaining.”
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7. Leaving the REBNY vs. NIMBY Doom Loop
by City Council Members Brad Lander & Antonio Reynoso
“This past week, amidst flooded streets, blackouts, overheated jails, and subway failures, New Yorkers saw the consequences that result from a failure to engage in strategic long-term planning for the future of our city. In the final decisions of the 2019 Charter Revision Commission, we also missed a big chance to do something about it.”
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8. Cuomo’s Getting His Belmont Arena, But the Numbers Don’t Add Up
by Norman Oder
“Three lessons from the long battle over Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn are that promises of huge financial benefits deserve skepticism, that independent studies trump promotional ones, and that scenarios should be presented as a range of outcomes, rather than just the best case. Unfortunately, those lessons have been ignored regarding the new sports-and-entertainment arena complex planned at Belmont Park in western Nassau County, with the New York Islanders as anchor tenant and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, surely anticipating a big ribbon-cutting in 2021, as the chief cheerleader.”
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9. Facts Don’t Support Expanding the Size of the MTA Police Force
by Rachael Fauss
“MTA Chair and CEO Pat Foye says the transit authority’s operating budget is in “dire” condition and independent budget watchdogs are alarmed its deficit is growing to unmanageable levels. Citizens Budget Commission estimates the MTA will be $740 million in the red in 2023 -- and this does not include new debt payments for the new, massive $51.5+ billion 2020-2024 capital plan. Separately, NYPD data shows subway crime is down 3% from last year, and Police Commissioner James O’Neill says the subway, which carries 6 million passengers a day, averages only six major crimes a day.”
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10. The State’s $7 Billion MTA IOU Comes Due
by Jim Brennan
“MTA officials acknowledged at their June 2019 board meetings that the agency is borrowing money to be repaid through a New York State law that promised to have the State of New York provide the MTA $7.3 billion once the authority had exhausted its own funds on spending for the current five-year capital program.”
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Honorable Mention
Sentenced to Death by Incarceration in New York State Prison
by Steven Zeidman

We Must Seize Today’s Path to Actually Closing Rikers; It May Not Be Here Tomorrow
by Council Speaker Corey Johnson & Jonathan Lippman

Keeping the Lights On Off-Broadway: How the City Must Step Up
by Robert Stanton

I’m Not Running for Congress; Here’s Why
by State Senator Gustavo Rivera

The Schools Chancellor Goes Rogue on Specialized High School Admissions
by Larry Cary

Negotiation Lessons from the Amazon Deal Blow-up
by Daniel Garodnick & Robert Bordone

The MTA is Fiscally Exhausted
by Rachael Fauss

[READ: The 10 Most-Read Gotham Gazette Stories of 2019]

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

The 10 Most-Read Gotham Gazette Stories of 2019


groundbreaking gov twa

(photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)


As 2019 comes to a close, we’re looking back at some of our “best” and most-read articles of the year. We have a lot of reporting that we’re proud of -- some of which was really well-read, some of which may not have received the attention it deserved. Gotham Gazette readership increased for the sixth straight year in 2019, and was up about 30% from 2018. Thank you to all those who have been reading, we appreciate it and enjoy doing what we do to bring you important local news with our unique in-depth, accountability-focused style.

In a separate post, we’ll highlight some of the “best” reporting (editor’s choice) that we published that isn’t among our ten most-read articles listed below.

This most-read list does not include articles like election guides or candidates lists or even our summaries of voter turnout numbers, all of which are often among our most-read posts. The list below also does not include opinion pieces (there’s a separate post for the most-read guest columns of the year). Also, while this list reflects our best-read original Gotham Gazette reporting of the year, any list like this will be somewhat biased against stories published in the last month or so of the year, but that’s how it goes.

Our ten most-read articles of 2019:

1. Corey Johnson Wants to ‘Break the Car Culture’ in New York City; What Does That Mean?
by Noah Berman
“Imagine a New York where cars no longer rule the road, and pedestrians and cyclists reclaim dominance of the city’s public space. While a New York where cars don’t dominate the streets may seem like a fantasy, to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, it is the future.”
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2. 'We're in a New Era’: Inside the Crowded Race to Elect the Next Queens District Attorney and Reset the Borough’s Prosecutorial Agenda
by Emma Whitford
“Uncontested for seven terms spanning more than a quarter-century, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown has hung back while his counterparts in Brooklyn and Manhattan join a growing national conversation about criminal justice reform and the power of prosecutors to decarcerate jails. While the retiring Brown is a “dear friend,” former New York Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman told Gotham Gazette recently, “it’s time for a new prosecutor with new, up-to-date modern views.””
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3. ‘Hard to Define’: Melinda Katz’s Path to the Precipice of Becoming Queens District Attorney
by Samar Khurshid
““If it’s good for families, it’s good for Queens,” Melinda Katz likes to say. It’s a line she used in her first State of the Borough speech as borough president, a position she has held for six years and she now hopes will propel her to the office of Queens District Attorney.”
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4. How Vulnerable is Max Rose?
by Samar Khurshid
“Max Rose calls himself a “centrist populist.” The first-term Democrat who represents New York’s 11th congressional district, which spans across Staten Island and along the shore of Southern Brooklyn, appears set on trying to make that label stick, and in doing so earn a second term when voters head to the polls next year.”
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5. New York’s New, Untested Redistricting Process Set to Unfold After 2020 Census
by Samar Khurshid
“Following the 2020 Census, New York will kick off the decennial redrawing of its state legislative and congressional districts to ensure equitable representation based on population. But the next redistricting process is untested so far, having been approved after the 2010 Census when New York saw a severe undercount, contributing to the loss of one congressional seat, followed by a redistricting that many observers and elected officials criticized for creating overly complicated state legislative districts on partisan lines.”
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6. As New York Rethinks High School Graduation Requirements, Under-the-Radar School Group May Offer a Model
by Samantha Handler
“In a process likely to last years, the New York Board of Regents is considering changing high school graduation requirements, which may include revising or creating a substitute for the Regents exams. To graduate, most students must currently pass five Regents exams. But while the education policy-setting board recently announced its exploratory plans, another path to a New York high school diploma already exists: a set of performance-based tasks that test students on an array of skills meant to be more in line with college- and career-readiness than what typical standardized exams measure.”
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7. For Ruben Diaz Jr., A Booming Bronx and Plan to Run on Development
by Savannah Jacobson
“Development in the Bronx has defined Ruben Diaz Jr.’s borough presidency, now in its tenth year and coinciding with record economic expansion across the city and country coming out of the Great Recession. And Diaz Jr. has defined his borough presidency –– and plans to build his upcoming run for Mayor –– around economic and housing development.”
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8. There are NYPD Oversight Measures on the Ballot - How Significant Are They?
by Ethan Geringer-Sameth
“New York City may soon take several steps toward strengthening the power of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, or CCRB, the agency responsible for investigating misconduct allegations against police officers.”
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9. Speaker Says Assembly No Longer Supports Public Campaign Financing, Downplays Other Reforms
by Samar Khurshid & Ben Max
“Though Democrats have for years blamed Republican intransigence for the failure of key campaign finance and ethics reforms in Albany, those measures still appear stalled even as their party controls the entire state Legislature and governor’s office. On Friday, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said that the votes are not there in his chamber to approve a public-matching campaign finance system, despite the fact that the Assembly has repeatedly passed such a measure in the past when Republicans controlled the Senate.”
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10. As New NYCHA Chair Takes Over, the Future of Public Housing Hangs in the Balance
by Truman Stephens
““These first few months of our work have revealed NYCHA as an organization fraught with serious problems in structure, culture, and direction, and perhaps even worse,” wrote Bart Schwartz, the new federal monitor of the city’s public housing authority, in his first progress report, released July 22.”
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Honorable Mention
Little-Used Community Land Trust Model for Affordable Housing May See Big Boost
by Emma Whitford
“Manhattan City Council Member Carlina Rivera is part of a growing coalition of Council members pushing for city government's first major commitment to a seldom-utilized affordable housing model. In the face of rapid gentrification, they say, the city should invest $850,000 in Community Land Trusts, or CLTs, in the city budget currently being negotiated.”
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Why is Governor Cuomo Attacking a Longtime Labor Ally?
by Samar Khurshid
“Governor Andrew Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has in recent weeks repeatedly lashed out at state legislators from his own party and a long-time labor ally, 32BJ SEIU, as he points to the role of independent expenditures in state politics amid questions about his own fundraising habits and commitment to campaign finance reform.”
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Payphone-Replacing LinkNYC Kiosks Not Generating Projected Revenue
by Lisette Voytko
“During a February 2016 press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio made the first phone call on New York City’s first LinkNYC kiosk, stationed at the corner of 16th Street and 3rd Avenue. “It will be the biggest and fastest network in the world, and completely free of charge. And one thing I know about my fellow New Yorkers, they like things that are free of charge," said de Blasio.”
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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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Max & Murphy Podcast: Advocates Question NYPD's Gang Policing


police commissioner bill bratton host

(photo: Rob Bennett/Mayoral Photography Office)


December 18, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Questions About the NYPD's Gang Policing

PodcastJosmar Trujillo and Taylonn Murphy Sr. joined the show to outline their critiques of the NYPD's policing of gangs, including large raids and sweeps, a particularly fraught topic given recent attention on the NYPD's gang member database.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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