Welcome back to the Journal podcast.

I'm your host, Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and senior editor of City Journal.

Joining me today on our panel are Jesse Arm,

director of All Things Politics at the Manhattan Institute in polling.

I got that right this time, Jesse.

I didn't slip up.

John Ketchum, who directs all things cities at the Manhattan Institute.

And our special guest today is Rob Henderson, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute,

prolific substacker, author of Troubled, a memoir. He's just all over the place. Thanks, thanks, Rob, for joining us on the panel. Yeah, thanks, Charles. Great to be here. I want to jump right into our news of the day. We're going to tell a little bit of a, you know, it's a digital podcast. We're going to do a little bit of a New you know, a Cidgena podcast. We're going to do a little bit of a New York City focus story.

A friend of the show, Zaron Mondani, the self-professed socialist candidate for mayor,

who looks likely to take second place in the Democratic primary in a few months,

said in an interview recently that he wants to rehab unused retail space in New York City

Subways to serve as linking hubs, provide services to the homeless.

This provoked, I think, more than a little surprise.

It's sort of a typical Zordamadani story.

I could sort of ask an illustrative

question, but in my notes, I just have the word, what? So I'm going to ask that to John. John,

what? Well, Zoran Mangani is this inexhaustible well of bad ideas. And this is just the latest one.

About 30% of New York City subway systems retail stalls are vacant right now. But it's not something the city controls. This is the MTA.

And the MTA is constantly in need of money. Which is separate from the city, right?

It's separate from the city. The MTA is a state-controlled entity.

Now, it's constantly in need of funding, both for its operations and for its capital needs.

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