Ben Nadeff-Haffrey
speaker
1,009 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 6 Aug
Ben Nadeff-Haffrey’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.
Appearances
Our executive producer is Jacob Smith.
Fact-checking by Sam Russick.
Sound design and mastering by Jake Gorski.
Original music by Stellwagen Symphonette, Luis Guerra, and Jake Gorski.
Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his track, The Solution, from the album Outer Borough.
And to the College of Staten Island and the New York City Municipal Archives for all of the amazing tape.
And to Daniel Imarwar for his book, How to Hide an Empire, which is where I learned about the logo map.
And thanks, of course, to Malcolm Gladwell.
I'm Ben Atta-Faffrey.
Pushkin.
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Five miles off the shore of Manhattan, there is a place called Staten Island.
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And 30 years ago, Staten Island decided it didn't want to be part of New York City anymore.
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Staten Island was trying to secede from New York City, but not without a fight.
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What unfolded over the span of the next four years was a battle for the soul of the city, which I as a person living in the city had never heard about.
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And the more I researched, the more I realized this is exactly what's happening in the country right now.
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This is what happens when a group who feels like they've been ignored and forgotten for decades decides that they've had enough.
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This is a story about a democracy falling apart.
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It's about neighbors turning on each other and a very specific strain of resentment that started in the outer boroughs of New York City and then went national with people like Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
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I'm Ben Natafafri, and I have done a deep, deep dive into this overlooked and misunderstood moment from 30 years ago when New York City almost tore itself apart.
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Because I think it anticipated everything about how our country is tearing itself apart right now.
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Showing 981–1000 of 1,009 · page 50 of 51
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