So if I’m to believe the screaming headlines both local and national that dominated my news feeds yesterday today’s gonna be a pretty monumental day in the history of my home city and state. No less than four NEW YORK POST reporters–pretty impressive considering the overall size of its staff–contributed to this breaking news story which dropped last night:
Gov. Kathy Hochul has assembled “key leaders” for a series of meetings Tuesday at her Manhattan office to discuss Mayor Eric Adams’ future after half of his deputy mayors stepped down Monday. Hochul announced the dramatic move in a Monday night statement and cited the “troubling” allegations swirling around Adams and the shocking resignations of his four crucial aides, including First Deputy mayor Maria Torres-Springer, earlier in the day.
“If they feel unable to serve in City Hall at this time, that raises serious questions about the long-term future of this Mayoral administration,” the Democratic governor said.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards are among the leaders expected to meet with the governor, sources told The Post. Speaker Adams, Lander, who is running for mayor, and Richards would all potentially sit on an “inability committee” that could lead to Adams’ ouster or at least temporary removal from office. Rev. Al Sharpton will also be in attendance, a source said.
Hochul acknowledged the gravity of the situation in her Monday statement, noting a governor has never in the history of the state removed a Big Apple mayor. “That said, the alleged conduct at City Hall that has been reported over the past two weeks is troubling and cannot be ignored,” she said.
To which I would offer this sage advice to the Western New York native who backed into this role after her predescessor couldn’t control his libido: Welcome to downstate politics, ma’am.
The charges against Adams that have been pending trial are months old, as ABC News recapped yesterday:
Adams previously pleaded not guilty to a five-count indictment that accused him of accepting years of luxury travel gifts in exchange for, among other things, allegedly persuading the New York City Fire Department to approve the opening of the new Turkish consulate in Manhattan despite the lingering safety concerns of inspectors.
No, that’s not a good look for a New York City mayor. But as several historical websites will confirm, it’s hardly the first nor the most egregious offenses (alleged, of course) that someone in Adams’ position has ever committed.
As THE NEW YORK TIMES’ Dan Barry wrote when those counts were announced last fall:
As federal agents conducted an early-morning search of Gracie Mansion on Thursday, the name “Elegant Oakey” was probably not foremost in their minds. It sounds like a hot tip running the third race at Aqueduct Racetrack, or a retro speakeasy feigning authenticity on the Lower East Side.
But that search of the New York City mayor’s official residence, part of a large-scale corruption investigation, has resurrected the curious name of A. Oakey Hall from Gotham’s distant past. For the last 150 years, Hall, a mayor from the Boss Tweed era whose style earned him the sobriquet of Elegant Oakey, held distinction as the only New York City mayor to face criminal charges while in office.
The mayor and his administration join Mayor James. J. Walker, who, like Mr. Adams, enjoyed the nightlife. And Mayor William O’Dwyer, who, like Mr. Adams, was a former police officer. And Mayor Edward I. Koch, who, like Mr. Adams, was said to have placed too much trust in others. And of course, A. Oakey Hall, who, like Mr. Adams, was known for his fashion sense.
“There’s barely a mayor in history who didn’t have a scandal at one time or another,” said Chris McNickle, the author of several books about New York City mayors. “Sometimes the scandals overwhelm and swallow the mayors. And sometimes they’re able to skate around it successfully.”
And even those that were more well-liked than Adams during their tenures had their own warts. TIME’s archives reveal this nugget about the one who actually campaigned in my neighborhood for votes–something their current congressional representative, known by the initials AOC, has yet to do:
Mayor John Lindsay has managed to sidestep direct blame for not responding quickly to widespread police corruption in New York City. But last week he was bloodied politically when one of his aides appeared to be covering up for him before the Knapp Commission, which has been investigating police conduct. In earlier testimony in closed sessions, Mayoral Assistant Jay Kriegel, 31, whom Lindsay has called the “best staff man in America,” had admitted going to the mayor in 1967 with the sordid details of police crime that Detective Frank Serpico and Sergeant David Durk had given him. By the testimony of Durk and Serpico, Kriegel came back to them to report that the Lindsay administration was concerned about possible ghetto rioting and did not want to upset the police.
And you don’t even need to go back to the previous century to find examples of others who have long since surrendered to the siren’s song of Fat Orange Jesus and company, as BUZZFEED’s Clyde Haberman penned in late 2019:
The (Rudy) Giuliani modus operandi of 2019, on display so clearly in his starring role in the Ukraine scandal, is the same as it has been for decades: Smear the other side when you can, cast opponents as corrupt, or dismiss them as intellectually dishonest — if not out-and-out evil.
Consider just one moment during the eight years he ran New York City. Patrick Dorismond was shot and killed by a police officer on a Manhattan sidewalk in March 2000, in an incident that began when he said no to drugs. The cop, part of an undercover team intent on making arrests, approached Dorismond outside a bar and asked where he and his pals could buy marijuana. Dorismond, a security guard and father of two, took offense and angrily said he was no drug dealer. Heated words were exchanged. The men scuffled. Next thing anyone knew, the officer’s gun was out and Dorismond lay on the pavement, mortally wounded. That’s when then-mayor Giuliani went to work, throwing as much mud on the dead man as he could. Giuliani took the unusual, and ethically suspect, step of unsealing Dorismond’s juvenile delinquency record. This man was “no altar boy,” he sneered. In fact, Dorismond really had been an altar boy. He’d even attended the same Roman Catholic school that Giuliani had.
Kinda puts the outburst from Adams which Chris Sommerfeld Roni Jacobson wrote about last night into some perspective:
Mayor Eric Adams contended Monday that renewed calls for his resignation over President Donald Trump’s Justice Department bid to drop his corruption indictment amounts to “a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf,’ ” a comment that his critics quickly blasted as offensive.
Adams delivered the heated remark while speaking at an event at Brooklyn’s Rehoboth Cathedral — a gathering billed as a rally for his reelection in June’s Democratic mayoral primary — and he was introduced by a handful of clergy members who sang his praises.
Once he took the stage, Adams addressed the controversies swirling over his mayoralty, saying he has recently turned to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s teachings as a growing number of local elected leaders have demanded he resign or be removed from office.
“I was listening to some of Dr. King’s teachings, and he talked about the book ‘Mein Kampf.’ He said if you repeat a lie long enough, loud enough people will believe it is true, and that’s what you’re seeing right now. This is a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf,’ ” Adams told a group of about 30 supporters, referring to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s genocidal manifesto.
Apparently merely invoking the name of a resource which MLK cited was enough to trigger overreaction from some of his high-minded cabinet members. All of the appointed politicians that have opted to now draw a line in their particular sands could have easily reacted then with perhaps even more justification than they are now. But with the spectre of the current adminsitration’s quid-pro-quo (alleged, of course) looming over all of this now seems to be the time for these high-minded officials to appear to take action. Take a couple that Sommerfeld and Jacobson referenced:
“To invoke Hitler here is shande,” Lander said, using a Yiddish phrase that means disgrace or shame. “As the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in New York City government, I condemn the mayor’s language in the strongest terms.” Ex-Comptroller Scott Stringer, who’s also Jewish and challenging Adams in June, also blasted his comments as “unacceptable” and “offensive,” but suggested they were “nonsensical,” too. “The mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population should not be comparing the situation that his own unethical conduct put him in to anything to do with Hitler or the Holocaust,” Stringer said.
But at least give Lander and Stringer enough credit for actually wanting to defeat Adams through a free and fair election and the process of democracy their party purports to endorse. I don’t see any of these names which ABC NEWS rattled off following their lead:
First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chauncey Parker all submitted their resignations. Former U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said the Justice Department agreed to drop the charges against Adams in exchange for the mayor’s cooperation with President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. She and six other federal prosecutors resigned in protest last week.
Sassoon at least saw her street cred rise a few notches after being specifically called out on John Oliver’s first original 2025 show Sunday night as a shining example of how to fight back against Trump. Yippee for her integrity. But committing political hari-kari isn’t going to help mitigate the behavior that Hochul is now motivated to commission the braintrust she will include on her Zooms (what, the weather was so awful they couldn’t take Amtrak?) today.
It’s difficult to consider the timing and motivation of any of this as anything but outsized examples of TDS–which if one actually looks at voter data from 2024 is not exactly a path to victory these days. Frankly, if Hochul really wanted to get a pulse on the city she might want to talk directly to a few actual residents on some other Zooms. Or at least study how their ancestors lived and endured far worse than anything Eric Adams has or hasn’t done.
My old neighborhood looks no better now than it did in the decrepit 70s. It is now largely populated by immigrants from Asia and Central America, save for a few Orthodox Jewish slivers which the likes of Brad Lander are looking for traction with. My family employed undocumented aliens for years to take care of my dad’s significant needs at times when our lives simply didn’t allow for us to do so. The folks who took over my dad’s apartment and relegated him to my old bedroom were at least capable at the job we required them to do in exchange for free room and board. We met plenty of their friends and acquaitances who were far less upstanding. No, they weren’t eating pets or importing fentanyl, but they weren’t contributing to the community in any tangible way. If Eric Adams has now decided that it’s good political business for him to embrace seeking their likes out, I personally have no problem with that.
But if enough current residents feel differently, they can always choose not to reelect him, or at least send sufficient signals that they won’t. Ultimately, that’s what got Lindsay, Koch, O’Dwyer and Giuliani out of Gracie Mansion. Let alone their Tammany Hall ancestors.
Madame Governor, you might want to at least have that in the back of your mind today.
Until next time…