Nicole Gelinas
About the Columnist
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focusing on urban economics. Her book on New York City transportation history is due to be released in late 2024.
The Archive
Adams needs to make NYC livable NOW — before complicating it with problematic new zoning
May 19, 2024 | 1:15pmMayor Adams' "City of Yes" rezoning push can have benefits, but the mayor must understand that without competent enforcement of existing laws and rules, different uses don’t so much mix...
Alvin Bragg can help end protest violence — by throwing the book at the perps
May 12, 2024 | 5:25pmManhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has never been shy about being an activist prosecutor who uses the discretion his office affords him to decide what behavior Manhattan will put up...
Even the 'peaceful' campus protests are actually violent bullying
May 5, 2024 | 2:45pmStudents and other campus protesters are free to engage in nonviolent protests. But that’s not what they’re doing: This isn’t free speech via peaceful protest, but threatening and menacing the rest of...
Mayor Adams' new budget sets NYC (and him) up for big trouble in Summer 2025
April 28, 2024 | 5:35pmBy using city tax receipts to fund education and migrant spending, Mayor Adams' new budget is increasing the hole he'll have to close in his next budget, even as he...
A Democrat's last-minute maneuvering shows just how dysfunctional Albany is
April 21, 2024 | 6:13pmNew York has a $237 billion state budget, three weeks late. Lawmakers added $4 billion in spending above the $233 billion Gov. Hochul proposed in January.
Mayor Adams' half-baked LockerNYC program gives for-profit companies taxpayer resources
April 14, 2024 | 4:32pmThe mayor Wednesday channeled a “universal concern” of New Yorkers: “When our packages are dropped off” at our houses, “they are taken. You got to love New York, man,” he...
As NY lawmakers bust the budget, cash-cow Wall Street is moving to greener pastures
April 7, 2024 | 7:28pmNobody is asking: Where does the money come from?
Adams' debit-cards-for-migrants scheme makes no sense
March 31, 2024 | 6:45pmThe Adams administration’s Roosevelt Hotel welcome center on Monday is finally handing out its first debit cards to migrants staying at hotels, to buy food and baby supplie
Enough talk, Mr. Mayor — you must act to stop shocking subway crime
March 26, 2024 | 6:44pmYet again, a commuter walks down the subway steps and is carried up in a body bag.
Mayor Adams' administration is gaslighting NYC on violent subway crime
March 24, 2024 | 7:07pmHow “rare” is subway crime? It’s so rare, the Times has to keep reminding us so.
Solution to subway mayhem is simple -- don't send in National Guard, enforce farebeating!
March 15, 2024 | 8:33pmThursday’s self-defense shooting upon a rush-hour Brooklyn A train is emblematic of everything Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams are doing wrong on subway violence.
Delays, violent crime: Report card on NYC subway reveals a system in crisis
March 9, 2024 | 7:30amFrom transit delays to violent crime in subway stations, a comprehensive look at how the MTA system.
NYC's dangerous transit system is harming kids by putting their rite of 'passage' at risk
March 7, 2024 | 10:56pmIn today's time in New York City, parents face another headache: How should my growing kid get around town, whether on the transit system, on foot or in a car,...
Viral TikTok highlights the insanity of NYC rent regulations
March 3, 2024 | 7:02pmTikToker Carla Badami just racked up 4 million views for explaining how a rent-stabilized New York City tenant can ask the state government for a rent record and ensure it...
Flaco's life and death another example of NYC progressivism gone awry
February 25, 2024 | 5:24pmSo Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl is dead — killed in a collision with an Upper West Side building Friday, a year after vandals cut the wires on his cage, just inside the...
Inside Adams' migrant debit card boondoggle — no-bid bank gets $50M, border crossers up to $10K each
February 19, 2024 | 6:11pmMayor Adams' debit-card program for migrants has the potential to become an open-ended, multi-billion-dollar Bermuda Triangle of disappearing, untraceable cash, used for any purpose.
Now it's free cash: Hochul and Adams' never-ending migrant-money spigot
February 11, 2024 | 6:47pmGov. Hochul and Mayor Adams have been quietly handing out cash to thousands of migrants for nine months.
Don't blame the left: 'Moderate' Democrats like Eric Adams are failing on the migrant crisis
February 4, 2024 | 5:46pmAdams turned premier properties on both sides of Midtown into anchors of disorder and, as the Times Square migrant attack on NYPD officers last weekend demonstrated.
Central Park Five member’s traffic stunt jeopardizes public safety
January 28, 2024 | 5:52pmWe’ll see if the City Council lets a perfectly proper police stop of onetime Central Park Five defendant Yusef Salaam, now a Harlem councilman, determine the future of policing.
State of the City shows Mayor Adams is big on ideas, short on action
January 24, 2024 | 7:33pmMayor Eric Adams' State of the City address was big on ideas but he couldn't hide his failure to produce big results since taking office.