Ever since New York City built one of the world’s great subway systems, no promise has been more tantalizing than the proposal to build a new subway line under Second Avenue in Manhattan. Yet the Second Avenue subway--although first envisioned in the 1920s, did not open until 2017—and even then in a truncated form. In the story of this long-awaited subway li ... Show More
Nov 23
Tom White, "Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster" (Repeater, 2025)
Once used extensively in schools, hospitals, and housing, asbestos has taken the lives of millions. Bad Dust: A History of the Asbestos Disaster (Repeater, 2025) by Tom White traces the international history of the asbestos disaster — from mining operations in apartheid South Afr ... Show More
39m 40s
Nov 23
Heather Davis, "Plastic Matter" (Duke UP, 2022)
Plastic is ubiquitous. It is in the Arctic, in the depths of the Mariana Trench, and in the high mountaintops of the Pyrenees. It is in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Nanoplastics penetrate our cell walls. Plastic is not just any material—it is emblematic of life in t ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 22
Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy, "Videotape" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Over the span of a single decade, VHS technology changed the relationship between privacy and entertainment, pried open the closed societies behind the Iron Curtain, and then sank back into oblivion. Its meteoric rise and fall encapsulated the dynamics of the '80s and foreshadowe ... Show More
44m 53s
Mar 2022
New York Goes Underground
March 12, 1888. There’s been a blizzard in New York. Wind, ice, and snow have brought the city to a halt. Stagecoaches are stuck, elevated trains are frozen. By the time the storm is over, 400 New Yorkers will die. The public outrage is severe, and many blame New York City’s faul ... Show More
31m 11s
Jul 2023
Two Indicators: After Affirmative Action & why America overpays for subways
Two stories today.
First, as we start to understand post-affirmative action America, we look to a natural experiment 25 years ago, when California ended the practice in public universities. It reshaped the makeup of the universities almost instantly. We find out what happened in ... Show More
19m 46s
Jul 2022
When Paris Went Underground
The Paris Metro, engineered by Fulgence Bienvenüe and inaugurated on 19th July, 1900, was far from a world first: London, Budapest and Vienna had all beaten France in the race to create the next generation of subterranean trains.
However, this didn’t stop Parisian anxiety about ... Show More
11m 53s
Dec 2019
Evan Friss, "On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City" (Columbia UP, 2019)
Evan Friss, an associate professor of history at James Madison University, historicizes the bicycle’s place in New York City’s social, economic, infrastructural and cultural politics.
On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City (Columbia UP, 2019) curates a histor ... Show More
49m 26s
Sep 2021
A Broadway Show Comes Back to Life
<p><i>This episode contains strong language. </i></p><p>“Six,” a revisionist feminist British pop musical about the wives of King Henry VIII, was shaping up to be a substantial hit on Broadway after finding success in London.</p><p>On its opening night, however, in March 2020, Go ... Show More
31m 38s