WNYC News

In 2023, Tammy Antunes and her husband turned to New Jersey’s affordable housing program in the hope of finding a home that is both big enough to raise children and that was within a manageable commute to their jobs in North Jersey. Antunes works as a nanny. Her husband is a truck driver, and their combined income of $80,000 wasn’t enough to buy or even rent at market rate in the state’s pricey housing market. But more than two years and nearly two dozen separate housing applications later, the couple is still searching.

“I feel very frustrated,” Antunes said. “We're trying to build a family.”

New Jersey has one of the country’s most comprehensive strategies for building affordable housing. Gov. Phil Murphy said the state has built 400,000 affordably priced housing units over the past 50 years and it’s currently embarking on an effort to add over 80,000 more new homes for low- and middle-income residents over the next decade. And yet, even the program’s most ardent supporters admit that the process for actually securing one of those homes is both long and confusing — a problem made worse by the fact that demand for affordable units is quickly outstripping supply. What the state lacks is a centralized platform where applicants can get all the information they need to secure an apartment, housing experts say. And many are calling on lawmakers to pass pending legislation that aims to streamline the process.

It has been 60 years since Mayor Robert Wagner signed New York City’s Landmarks Law and began an era of historic preservation in the city. 

What exactly is preserved by the landmark designations and how has that changed over the last few decades? 

New York City's chair of the landmarks preservation commission Sarah Carroll talked with WNYC's Sean Carlson more about it.

What do Carole King, Judge Judy and Chris Rock have in common?

They all went to James Madison High School in Midwood, Brooklyn.

James Madison opened in 1925 and is a typical-looking New York City public school with an astonishing number of famous alumni, including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stanley Kaplan (founder of test prep company Kaplan, Inc.), former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, baseball player Ted Schreiber, writer Irwin Shaw and six Nobel Prize winners, to name just a few of the faces on the school’s Wall of Distinction. (It’s actually multiple walls; there are so many stars to note.) From 2007 to 2009, three sitting U.S. senators were all Madison graduates (Sanders, Schumer and Coleman).

It’s a Friday night and people are lining the block of a bodega near Union Square at the corner of 14th Street and Seventh Avenue.

But the line isn’t for bacon-egg-and-cheeses or packs of cigarettes — it’s full of die-hard comedy fans.

Some regulars greet each other like old friends. Others, first-timers, nervously shuffle into the transformed space with bated breath, ready to partake in the madness.

Bodega Comedy has been hosting twice-monthly shows at bodegas in Brooklyn and Manhattan for nearly two years. Footage from its shows has routinely gone viral online, and on some nights, tickets are sold out days in advance.

A new podcast examines how we came to use sirens on all our emergency vehicles, and finds they might actually endanger more people than they help.  

Ben Naddaff-Hafrey is a senior producer, writer, and frequent co-host of the podcast "Revisionist History" with writer Malcolm Gladwell. He also lives across the street from a fire station in Brooklyn. He joined WNYC's Michael Hill to talk about why it might be time to rethink the frequency with which sirens are used. 

Eater New York recently released the 2025 edition of their best pizza slices in New York City list. Eater's Melissa McCart joins Weekend Edition host David Furst to hit the delicious highlights. 

We are just two months away from the primary in the New Jersey governor's race. Early voting starts on June 3, and old-fashioned primary day voting is June 10. 

Kristoffer Shields, head of Rutgers' Eagleton Center on the American Governor joins Weekend Edition host David Furst for an update. 

The National Transportation Safety Board is on the ground in New Jersey, trying to figure out why a tour helicopter fell apart in the sky and crashed into the Hudson River yesterday afternoon.  

The crash killed the pilot and a family of five who were visiting from Spain. The tragedy is renewing concerns over the number of helicopters in New York City airspace.  

Some elected officials, like Nicole Malliotakis who represents Staten Island in Congress, say that more regulations are needed. Malliotakis is also leaving the door open to ending tour chopper flights.  

Others, like the advocacy group Stop the Chop and New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal are saying just ban them now. Senator Hoylman-Sigal talks with WNYC's Tiffany Hanssen to talk more about helicopter regulations.

Mourners will gather in Inwood on Friday to remember the victims of a fatal roof collapse at a nightclub in the Dominican Republic. 

Congressmember Adriano Espaillat will be among them. He represents Washington Heights and other parts of northern Manhattan and the Bronx in Congress. Both neighborhoods have huge populations with Dominican roots, and the Representative himself is a native of the Dominican Republic.  

He joined WNYC's Michael Hill to talk about the implications of the tragedy. 

A jam-packed On The Way roundup of New York City transit news features breaking news on a deadly tourist helicopter crash in the Hudson River, the latest on congestion pricing, and the politics behind subway safety amid the mayoral campaign.