Personality
City & State Time Capsule: The best work of the current team
Award-winning staff members reflect on their favorite features for our 20th anniversary.
Sophie Krichevsky, Jeff Coltin & Annie McDonough Emily Assiran
City & State has evolved and grown as a media company over the past 20 years. From a spunky startup that began as two broadsheet newspapers that have now merged into a weekly glossy magazine, City & State has become one of the preeminent media outlets covering New York politics and policy. And the current team takes seriously the responsibility of continuing the legacy that has been built over two decades. To celebrate City & State’s 20th anniversary, every editorial staff member wrote about their favorite story or feature that they’ve written here. The features mentioned span the work that City & State is known for, including our political profiles, our breaking news chops and the fun personality features that appear in our print magazine each week.
Jon Lentz
Fourteen years ago, Frank Seddio was installed as chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. The 79-year-old Seddio, who got involved with the political machine as a teenager, is almost a caricature of a bygone era of backroom dealing. “A pot-bellied man with a gap-toothed grin and a thick Brooklynese, Seddio looks every bit the part of an old-time political boss,” I wrote in a 2015 profile of him.
At the time, Seddio had won over some critics by incrementally opening up the committee’s meetings and finances. Some reformers were cautiously optimistic about Seddio after the downfall of the autocratic and vindictive Vito Lopez.
A lot has changed since then. Seddio stepped down in 2020, anointing Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn as his successor. Frank Carone, a longtime Seddio associate and a minor character in that City & State profile, went on to become an influential aide in the Adams administration, but he now faces federal bribery charges. Meanwhile, the rise of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other progressives has alarmed establishment Democrats like Seddio.
Today, the Brooklyn machine may not be as powerful as it once was, but it’s still very much a political machine. This summer, Seddio and Bichotte Hermelyn convened a closed-door meeting to expand the executive committee – a move sold as boosting representation but it was widely panned as a naked bid to keep reformers from assuming power. During the meeting, held at Seddio’s political clubhouse, windows were papered over and journalists were kept out.
All along, Seddio hasn’t really tried to hide what he’s doing – and he hasn’t really changed.
Jeff Coltin
As soon as Ingrid Lewis-Martin said it, I knew I could hang a whole magazine profile around that single quote.
“I’m not Michelle Obama. When they go low? We drill for oil,” she said. “I’ll meet you down in the subbasement.”
It was just about the first thing out of the mouth of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ chief adviser, after I stepped into her plant-filled office in City Hall for the interview in November 2022. And the quote was unprompted – she seemed to have been planning to say it, and wanted to make sure it got into the profile.
That “drill for oil” quote took on a life of its own. When the feds and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office seized Lewis-Martin’s phones as she was stepping off the plane from an ill-timed Japan vacation, the quote was repeated in several other news stories, as a tight summary of her leadership style. And it happened again when she was charged in five separate indictments (she pleaded not guilty).
It’s an awesome responsibility to write a magazine profile about an individual. And even more so when you’re the first to do it. Before City & State, she had scarcely been covered, but everyone in city politics was talking about her, and I worked hard to convince her to open up.
Lewis-Martin is a complex and divisive figure. You love her, or you hate her. The piece ended up winning a New York Press Association award. And I’m proud of how I captured her fairly and accurately, as a power player and a self-confident New York character.
Eric Holmberg
Over my 10 years at City & State, I haven’t had many bylines. But that doesn’t mean I’m not writing. Each week, my work appears in headlines, photo captions and unique features. These small snippets of writing help create a more robust magazine. I love writing about the weird ephemera that make New York politics so fascinating, including the art of “I Voted” stickers, Eric Adams making heart hands, the wonderful world of government mascots and 30 years of MetroCard art history.
However, my favorite annual feature would be recapping the top tweets of the year in one of City & State’s final issues of the year. As a former data journalist, it’s satisfying to create structured data out of every top tweet from the year that was featured in City & State’s First Read Tonight newsletter.
Each year, we spotlight the reporters who were featured most frequently, which gives a little insight into who City & State staffers are following and who’s being creative on X. It’s also a hat tip to the fun moments throughout the year that make up the online experience of New York political posting. There was the lightsaber battle at the state Capitol; the mystery of who was behind the “Eric Adams Crime Family” X account that then suddenly disappeared; the hit tweet that is still one of City & State’s most liked posts; and the camaraderie we all share watching NY1. It’s all part of the tapestry of New York politics.
Annie McDonough
When my first cover story at City & State splashed the word “asshole” in bold type across the cover and inside spread, I got some mixed feedback. There was the angry call from a person close to a startup we wrote about – were we calling them an asshole?! (No, not directly.) And there was my mother, who questioned whether my first big story at this new job needed to use such a coarse word. (Yes, this is City & State!)
The story itself, showing how tech startups got wise to the crucial work of lobbying after Uber’s lawless, swaggering entrance into New York City, feels as relevant now as it did near the end of Bill de Blasio’s second term. Legislators still can’t get their heads around how to regulate fast-moving technology that threatens to upset the working order, whether that’s yesterday’s taxi industry or today’s Uber drivers worried about self-driving cars. The companies that build that tech have only grown larger and more willing to shell out millions to get lawmakers on their side.
I continue to cover technology policy today, and whether I’m writing about Waymo’s designs on New York or Anthropic’s election spending, I keep coming back to this story. Maybe because of the memorable headline, or the even more memorable experience of getting my first angry call as an early career reporter. But more likely because of a sneaking suspicion that the story is still being written. Tech companies’ lobbying playbooks are still evolving, and I’m eager to see how lawmakers and government officials wise up to them.
John Celock
I’ve been City & State’s special projects editor for more than three years, but I previously freelanced for City & State’s predecessors, City Hall and The Capitol. In between, my career took me to New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and back. But before I was compiling City & State power lists, there’s one story I did for The Capitol that always comes to mind.
I worked on a series profiling up-and-coming elected officials around New York state. This did not zero in on any age range, but rather a couple of elected officials per region who were going places – or at least at the time could be seen as going places. It involved a lot of research and reaching out to people about who to consider and why they were rising stars.
I talked to each of these elected officials, finding out their goals, and some were surprisingly candid, including then-Niagara County Legislator Kyle Andrews, who basically declared his future potential candidacy for Congress in our pages. (He has not run for Congress to date.)
It’s interesting to see where some of those interviewed ended up. Some are still in elected office and rose up the ladder, others joined the private sector and Marc Molinaro ended up in the Trump administration and now wants back in Albany.
For me that series actually took me to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a weekend. It won first place for state government magazine coverage from CapitolBeat, the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors.
Peter Sterne
It was July 11, 2024, and I was having a phone call with a source about the following year’s New York City mayoral race. Toward the end of the call, the source said a little-known democratic socialist state lawmaker named Zohran Mamdani was making moves to challenge Mayor Eric Adams. At first, I didn’t believe it, but the source was insistent: “Mamdani’s been calling around and meeting with consultants.”
I knew Mamdani. He was my age, and I lived in his Assembly district in Astoria, Queens. He was a loyal member of the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization I once belonged to and have covered extensively. I had interviewed Mamdani a few times, about his work with DSA and his pro-Palestinian activism, and we were on good terms. “Hey, do you have time to chat?” I texted him. “It’s about the mayoral race.” No answer. I called him. Straight to voicemail. Suspicious.
Eventually, I talked to enough people close to him that I was confident he really was planning to run. We published the story: “DSA Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani is considering a run for NYC mayor.” The scoop didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Hardly anyone outside DSA took Mamdani seriously as a candidate.
More than three months after City & State published that story, Mamdani formally launched his mayoral campaign – and eight months after that, he won the Democratic mayoral primary. I take great pride in being the journalist who broke the news about Mamdani’s interest in running for mayor.
Sophie Krichevsky
Long before my cover story on New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino was a first place New York Press Association-winning profile, it was an 8,000-word draft. And it’s not hard to see how it happened: I had gathered so many hilarious quotes and anecdotes that could only possibly describe Paladino, the folksy yet Trumpy firebrand from Whitestone, Queens. But the length was also a product of my being utterly consumed with: Who is the real Vickie Paladino? Is it the one you meet in person, or the one ranting on X? One section of that first draft shows me grappling with that in real time:
Throughout my interview with her (and in many in the past), there are moments when Paladino, sprinkled in among stories of her state Senate run and her family, went off on tangents more akin to the ones seen on her X account, be it a condemnation of drug legalization or of allowing trans women to participate in women’s sports. (“Do you want to play volleyball against a man?” she poses to me. I reply, “I don’t play volleyball.”)
Clearly, the editing process was a hard lesson in what we call “killing your darlings.” (Shout out to Holly Pretsky, who edited that story, for her immense patience in that process.) I still have that first draft, which Annie McDonough dubbed my “director’s cut.” Here’s another quote that didn’t make the cut:
“Vickie is Socrates in the agora asking the very tough questions.” – Stefano Forte, Paladino’s former campaign manager and current president of the New York Young Republican Club
Rebecca C. Lewis
City & State has been my professional home for essentially my entire career, and I’ve covered a lot since my early days as an editorial assistant. I still come back to one of my earlier stories, written ahead of the 2018 primaries, which still took place in September. I profiled three challengers to members of the then-recently dissolved Independent Democratic Conference: now-state Sens. Jessica Ramos, Zellnor Myrie and Robert Jackson. It was one of my first major projects I really advocated for, and it was the perfect gateway to where I am today covering state politics.
I canvassed in Washington Heights with Jackson, where he pointed out the highest point in Manhattan. I watched Myrie dance with seniors in Central Brooklyn, and door-knocked with Ramos in Woodside. She has since quipped that with the exception of Katie Honan, no reporter has covered her longer.
Many remember 2018 in Queens because of the astonishing victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But at the time, Ramos’ challenge to Jose Peralta was the hot ticket. I opened my story with a scene from a Jackson Heights community center that hosted forums for three elections. It was one of the only times then-Rep. Joe Crowley actually appeared with Ocasio-Cortez, but as strange as may seem now, that wasn’t the main draw of the evening. I, like many others, had come for what ultimately became a very tense state Senate debate. AOC and Crowley were an afterthought.
Sahalie Donaldson
The most memorable City & State story I’ve written was a profile of Damian Williams, then-U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York. This was early 2024, I was a baby reporter roughly a year into covering City Hall, and my sourcing within – or even around – this storied federal prosecutor’s office was nonexistent.
But we wanted Williams. He’d been on a rapid ascent since assuming the reins of SDNY, taking on crypto swindler Sam Bankman-Fried, Wall Street bullies, international terrorists, gun and fentanyl traffickers – and, of greatest interest to us, politicians. Just a few months earlier, Williams' office seized then-Mayor Eric Adams’ electronic devices, bringing the now-infamous federal probe of his 2021 mayoral campaign into the public eye.
Getting Williams to agree to an interview, let alone a lengthy sit-down and photoshoot, was an exercise in tenacity and creativity. All my attempts to get in touch were ignored.
With an assist from Errol Louis, soon enough, there I was, seated across from Williams in his office, gripping my notebook in a feeble attempt to quell my trembling.
Williams had made his career going head-to-head with people far craftier and seasoned than me. But I tried, asked good questions and came away with a better understanding of what drove him. Working on the profile helped me get out of my own head, forcing me to bulldoze through feelings of imposter syndrome. I’m grateful for the opportunity. And, of course, even more lessons came following the story’s publication with Adams’ indictment, its dismissal, and allegations from Adams and the Trump administration that Williams had brought the corruption charges for political reasons.
Kate Lisa
My first day at City & State was only eight months ago, but it just so happened to be one of the most pivotal moments for Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York Democrats preparing for this year’s gubernatorial race. And with it came one of my first stories and biggest scoops: the Brooklyn Democratic Party had rescinded its endorsement of Hochul two days before the party’s nominating convention in Syracuse.
First, I got lucky. Hochul held a press event in Albany the morning of my first day in early February four days before the convention. Rumors were buzzing about who she had asked to be her running mate. Officially at the magazine for under an hour, I asked the governor about reported rumors she’d asked multiple people to be her No. 2, and some had turned her down. Hochul was quick to correct me and said that wasn’t true: She’d asked one person, and one had accepted. A firestorm ensued, and within hours, it was revealed she selected former New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams to join the state’s first all-female ticket.
But several Brooklynites were in the running for the job, and Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Rodneyse Bichotte Hermleyn was furious that Hochul decided to snub them, and that no one had told her first. The outburst threatened to cause convention upheaval, but ultimately, only lasted fewer than 36 hours, and the Brooklyn Dems reendorsed the Hochul-Adams ticket on the morning of the vote.
Shenal Tissera
My first story happened to be my favorite City & State story I have written thus far, solely for the lessons I learned throughout reporting and writing it. It was a piece on the New York City Campaign Finance Board donor map for the 2025 election cycle, and my editor at the time, the amazing Holly Pretsky, told me it would be a good idea to talk to a member of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, who was then just an upstart mayoral candidate polling in the single digits. Pretsky gave me the number of Mamdani’s press secretary at the time, Andrew Epstein, and I contacted him. He suggested I talk to Mamdani himself for the piece. I obliged, and he gave me his contact information. I set up a call with the long-shot mayoral candidate, and we had a great conversation about campaign finance, transparency and the matching funds program. However, I got to my desk and quickly realized that the device I was recording from was connected to headphones that were picking up a whole bunch of nothing, and the notes I took were insufficient to pluck a quote from. The piece turned out OK, but I learned my organization and note-taking skills needed drastic improvement. Thankfully, I have improved as a journalist and I have not messed up a recording since that dreadful evening, but there are still some days when I kick myself after thinking about my first story.
Amanda Salazar
People have a lot to say about Gen Z in the workforce, but my favorite story I wrote for City & State came about because I was young and paying attention to generational shifts.
Before becoming editorial assistant in February 2025, working on the Power Lists team, I was an editorial intern during the summer of 2023. My last story to get published, one of my favorites for any publication, just happened to be the ideal story for an early 20s intern.
My co-intern, Sarah Torres, and I had been discussing how young the newer City Council members were, most obviously then-25-year-old Chi Ossé.
We began looking into the age demographics and generational breakdown of the City Council that year compared with previous years, and we found a notable change. As I phrased it in the story, “As older members leave the council, they are being replaced by younger and younger members.”
What was so fun about that story was just noticing something that it seemed others hadn’t yet. I couldn’t find other stories discussing this trend, so it felt pretty special to be the one to point it out, especially since it was defying national trends.
It also allowed me to get in contact with a ton of council members, both current and former, to figure out their ages and get their thoughts on the shift. Though, it didn’t get any less awkward to ask an elected official for their birth year on a cold call, despite the repetition.