9 homegrown Brooklyn podcasts that rule

When Downtown Brooklyn’s Gimlet Media unloaded an entire fall season of podcasts recently, it got us thinking about how many of the weekly lil radio hours are made here in our own backyard. After a bit of digging, it turns out: a lot of them! So if you’re in the market for a new podcast and want to check out some homegrown talent, do consider:

Alice Isn’t Dead

From the writer of sublimely bizarre cult classic Welcome to Night Vale comes Alice Isn’t Dead. Explains writer and Brooklynite Joseph Fink, “A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.”
It was recently included in the New York Times’ Best New Podcasts of 2016.

Reply All

The standard bearer for Downtown Brooklyn-based Gimlet Media, the ‘cast is 83 episodes deep and shows no signs of slowing down. Hosted by Alex Goldmund and P.J. Vogt, Reply All explores life on the internet with a bit of humor.

Hello. We gave out our phone number and talked to whoever called it for 48 hours straight. https://t.co/M1pnraFsV7

— PJ Vogt (@PJVogt) November 17, 2016

There Goes the Neighborhood

From The Nation and WNYC comes a podcast about the changes in the borough. “An in-depth look at the gentrification of Brooklyn, from the developers to the mayor’s plan for affordable housing, to the integral role that race plays in the process,” WNYC says. Changes brought about by the influx of money, some of which is tech money, is something that remains below the surface in all kinds of things that happen here.

Longform Podcast

Each episode focuses on one writer and their work. It’s like “Fresh Air” but for the people you see on Twitter. Recent episodes have featured the New York Times’ Carl Zimmer, Brooklyn’s own Kyle Chayka, and deposed Gawker head A. J. Daulerio.

Horizon Line

In the world of nihilistic post-truth media, Greenpoint’s Atlas Obscura might be the best site on the web to rest your eyeballs. And as of last month you don’t even need eyeballs to engage in their adventurous content. Horizon Line is “a podcast series about the truly intrepid. In each episode, Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras and associate editor Ella Morton will take turns spotlighting a person who pushed the limits of what was believed to be possible.”

Origins

With the tagline, “A podcast about limited partners” this ‘cast is a surefire attention-grabber, no? Well if not, it should be! Origins takes you inside the sometimes secretive world of venture capital. Run by the partners at Brooklyn’s Notation Capital, the podcast has an array of experts and people in the biz talking about their take on investing and what it takes to be successful. Hint: moolah in the coolah.

Crimetown

Okay, here come the Gimlet ‘casts. In the spirit of Welcome to Night Vale and Serial, Gimlet is taking podcasting to new heights by eschewing the ‘two hosts talk about the news in their industry’ formula in favor of well-produced narrative and fictional stories. Crimetown is produced by the creators of HBO’s “The Jinx,” and (this season) is about the crime underworld of Providence, R.I., where it can be hard to tell the mobsters from the cops, according to the show.

Homecoming

Another new one from Gimlet is Homecoming. Labeled as a psychological thriller, it stars some familiar names including Amy Sedaris, David Cross and Michael Schwimmer. The story centers on “a caseworker at an experimental facility, her ambitious supervisor and a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life — presented in an enigmatic collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions and overheard conversations.”

DTR

The new podcast, one episode old, is a joint venture between person-swiping startup Tinder and Gimlet Media. Short for “Define the Relationship,” DTR aims to explore the uncertain world of online dating. Episode 1 is titled “Dick Picks: the phallus — in focus and unfiltered.”