For this "Summer Best-Of" we've put together some of our favorite conversations our centennial series, 100 Years of 100 Things:

Ashley Stimpson, Maryland-based freelance journalist who writes about science and conservation, takes us through the past 100 years of kids going to the woods for summer camp.

• Victoria Rosner, dean of the Gallatin School at NYU and the author of Machines for Living: Modernism and Domestic Life (Oxford University Press, 2020), talks about the post-World War I development of modernism (and post-modernism) across the arts and beyond.
• Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for Fresh Air, Georgetown professor and the author of So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures (Hachette, 2014), looks at the 1925 publication of the novel, The Great Gatsby, and why it continues to resonate with readers one hundred years later.
• Polo shirts, khaki shorts, and boat shoes: the classic uniform of elites on their days off.  Avery Trufelman, host of the podcast Articles of Interest, delves into the last 100 years of preppies and their clothes.

These interviews were polished up and edited for time, the original versions are available here:

100 Years of 100 Things: Summer Camps (Aug 26, 2025)
100 Years of 100 Things: Modernism (Jan 8, 2025)
100 Years of 100 Things: The Great Gatsby (Jan 13, 2025)
100 Years of 100 Things: Preppies and Their Clothes (Mar 26, 2025)

The Fordham Tri-State Tick Risk is at 10 out of 10 this summer. Thomas Daniels, research scientist in vector ecology, director of Louis Calder Center in Armonk, the biological field station of Fordham University, talks about what led to the population surge and best practices to avoid picking up ticks outdoors and the diseases they carry.

After the next round of ranked choice voting results came in, Assembly member Zohran Mamdani's lead grew to 12 points, meaning he easily secured the official Democratic nomination. Elizabeth Kim, Gothamist and WNYC reporter, reviews the data and talks about what this means for the general election.

Now that we have the full results of last Tuesday's mayoral primary election, Michael Lange, New York City based researcher, strategist, political organizer, and author of the newsletter "The Narrative Wars" on Substack, talks about the coalition of voters that came together to decisively elect assemblymember Zohran Mamdani as the Democratic nominee after correctly predicting the political winds were in his favor despite polling which showed otherwise. 

Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent at KFF Health News and host of the What the Health? podcast, talks about the House and Senate budget bills and what they would mean for Americans' access to healthcare.

Ruth Marcus, a contributor to The New Yorker and a former columnist for The Washington Post and the author of Supreme Ambition: Brett Kavanaugh and the Conservative Takeover (Simon & Schuster, 2019), talks about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and takes stock of what the Supreme Court's latest decisions mean for the identity of the court and the ability of judges to check executive power. 

Right before the full results of New York City's ranked choice voting in the mayoral primary is released, Steven Romalewski, director of CUNY Mapping Service in the Center for Urban Research at The Graduate Center, CUNY, talks about his predictions based on the first choice data.

Patrick McGeehan, reporter for The New York Times covering infrastructure in New York City and surrounding area talks about Gov. Hochul plan for a new nuclear plant upstate.

David Brand, housing reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, reports on Monday's meeting of the Rent Guidelines Board, which resulted in a vote to approve rent increases for stabilized apartments.

Justin Brannan, New York City Councilmember (District 43 - Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach) and chair of the Council Finance Committee, explains what's in the city budget for the next fiscal year, including a pilot program for free child care for children under 2 for low-income families, an extension of library hours at ten branches, and more.