The night before the winners of the 2026 David Prize were announced, they all got together for a dinner at an intimate West Village wine bar to enjoy their last evening of relative anonymity.
Every year, the David Prize awards $200,000 each to five New Yorkers, out of thousands of applicants, who have pitched their ideas for extraordinary change in the city. The money, which comes from the Walentas family and is named after billionaire real estate developer David Walentas—is given no-strings-attached, seen as an "investment in the person." By Monday night, the winners had been keeping it a secret from everyone but family since mid-summer—some finding out while at work at their day jobs. Hell Gate went along to meet them and get a sense of what life is like on the eve of a massive windfall.
"I remember being like, 'Holy shit!'" winner Regina Carter told Hell Gate, recalling how she'd found out at work. "And it's a pretty quiet office, so everyone kind of looked up. I was like, 'Nothing to see here.'" By day, Carter works for the City Human Resources Administration. But in her spare time, she rescues discarded furniture and repurposes it for needy New Yorkers.
After dinner, the group walked to check out the (David Prize adjacent) pop-up newsstand at the West 4th Street Station. As we jostled through the tunnel to the Brooklyn-bound platform, Carter said she'd known she could help others since she was a child: "It's so corny. I remember watching Mister Rogers as a little kid, the episode where he talks about finding the helpers. And I've always wanted to be a helper."
