OK, yes, perhaps the headline of this blog post is a little overblown. Counterpoint: Hell Gate and New York Focus (with a huge assist from the Public Theater) got three top mayoral candidates onstage so they could reach their hands into a traffic cone and answer hard-hitting, engaging, and fun questions in front of a packed audience of New Yorkers. Hell yeah, independent media!
You can watch the full event below. Cancel your Friday night plans: You're gonna want to stay in and watch Brad Lander, Zohran Mamdani, and Scott Stringer cut it up onstage. ("Stools," Lander grumbled jovially as soon as he stepped into the lights and saw our backless seating ensemble.)
To watch the candidates react to a set of nine different mayoral scenarios that they chose out of a traffic cone, click here.
To watch the candidates ask each other questions—about how awful Andrew Cuomo is—click here.
To watch the candidates kind-of-but-not-really co-endorse each other while staring at a framed photo of Andrew Cuomo, click here.
To watch the candidates answer lightning round questions like "Should Kathy Hochul be the 2026 nominee for governor?" and "What is your favorite NYC movie?" click here.
To hear Lander take some questions from the audience members (Mamdani and Stringer had to leave) click here.
To hear Katie blow the air horn and scare the hell out of everyone in the room, watch this:
If you go over time, you get blasted with the airhorn. 💥📣 Them’s the rules.
— Hell Gate *subscribe today!* (@HellGateNY) May 16, 2025
A taste of last night’s Dem mayoral forum with @ZohranKMamdani, @bradlander, and @scottmstringer that we put on with @nysfocus. pic.twitter.com/cFYTgFm4oG
Or watch Mamdani ask Lander about Cuomo, and hear the comptroller tick off his top-five beefs with the ex-governor in under 60 seconds.
We'll keep dropping more spicy video clips of the evening on our social accounts (all clips by the dynamic video duo Scott Heins and Nick Curran), and find below the forum in photos taken by the one and only Tod Seelie.
