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5 days ago | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon |Donny Moss
Over the past two decades, major cities around the world – including Beijing, New Delhi, Paris and London – have taken horse-drawn carriages off of their chaotic urban streets. Motivated by concerns about public safety and animal cruelty, many U.S. cities – including right-leaning Palm Beach, Florida, and Biloxi, Mississippi – have done the same.
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1 week ago | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
Running into my building neighbor Tom Robbins was always a treat for me. Even in those brief, impromptu encounters, he’d educate me with a searingly insightful take on the latest City Hall shenanigans or entertain me with his sardonic – but never cynical – view of our crazy political world both locally and nationally. Tom Robbins was a journalist’s journalist. He was skeptical, probing and highly principled.
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2 weeks ago | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon |Raj Goyle
We are now in an era where government leaders both nationally and locally are struggling to meet the needs of the people they serve. In New York City, we are in the midst of a heated mayoral race, and the candidates have – in most cases – articulated detailed ideas on how to improve our city. Nonetheless, an infinitesimal number of voters will take the time to actually read their policy prescriptions.
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2 months ago | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
It’s often said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time. By that definition, New York City and New York state’s approaches to solving our systemic mental health and related homeless crises have been insane for more than four decades.
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2 months ago | 
cityandstateny.com | Erik J. Blutinger |Tom Allon
It was a Sunday morning in early February 2020, and the governor of New York had just sent a text message: “When you’ve finished your second coffee, please give me a call.” Gov. Andrew Cuomo, then New York state’s strong and commanding leader, was sending a cryptic message to a media publisher. “Hi Tom, I know we were planning to meet in Albany tomorrow but something big has come up,” Cuomo said on the phone, speaking in hushed tones.
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Mar 6, 2025 | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
When Ed Koch was mayor in the early 1980s, he once famously said: “When a bird dies in Queens, they blame me.” The man whose middle initial (I) was also his favorite pronoun was humorously exposing a truism about New York mayors – and elected leaders in general. We invest a lot of our faith and hopes in the people we elect to lead our government. Some are better than others. And on rare occasions, we are rewarded with a stupendous leader who is the right person at the right time.
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Feb 19, 2025 | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
A wise professor in college once said to me: “Life is a series of choices.”New York state’s governor has to make a choice in the coming days that has tremendous consequences, and whatever she does is likely to upset a subset of New York City voters. Embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams is in a vise – the wheel is turning slowly and squeezing him.
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Feb 6, 2025 | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
The new president is trying to upend the world order and the federal government at lightning speed. Tariff threats against our allies? Check. Dismantling long-standing agencies like USAID? Check. Instilling fear in Canadians and Greenlanders (and Gazans) of America’s new manifest destiny? Check. But there’s a big city just over 200 miles north of Washington, D.C. that could eventually become the Queens native’s focus.
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Jan 30, 2025 | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
The laws of justice and politics have been swirling like a tornado the past ten days in Washington, D.C., and the winds from this brave new world have now blown into New York City and City Hall. It all started 10 days ago with a last-minute Inauguration invitation to our embattled Mayor Eric Adams late on the eve of MLK Day, which also happened to be the day of the installation of the 47th president of the United States.
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Jan 24, 2025 | 
cityandstateny.com | Tom Allon
The upcoming Democratic primary for mayor is still very unsettled and fluid. Polls show that someone who’s not even in the race yet is way ahead. The incumbent mayor is usually a shoo-in for reelection. Even Bill de Blasio easily won in 2017, despite his low favorables. But Mayor Eric Adams is near the bottom of the pack in this eight candidate race (if you believe early polls). Although petitioning is a mere month away, there are those who think the next mayor is not even in the race yet. Ex-Gov.
