
A religion graduate became a banker, a pharmacy builder and then the operator behind Lumata Health. His career keeps returning to the same unglamorous question: what happens after the plan meets real life?
Nicole Gelinas is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, contributing editor of City Journal, and a New York Post columnist who has become one of the most-cited voices on how New York moves, pays its bills, and keeps itself safe. A Chartered Financial Analyst turned urban-policy writer, she translates municipal bonds, subway capital plans, and congestion-pricing math into prose ordinary readers can follow. Her 2024 book Movement: New York's Long War to Take Back Its Streets from the Car won the 2025 Gotham Book Prize and reframed the century-long fight over the city's streets as a story with many heroes, not just one Robert Moses villain.