Good morning. Eric Adams, who found a place in New York City’s political consciousness as a reform-minded police officer more than 20 years ago, was elected mayor. And scroll down to meet some deep-sea look-alikes that could scare you — unless you like sharks.
Adams claimed victory as New York City’s second Black mayor — he will take office 32 years after the first, David Dinkins — and immediately called for unity.
“Today we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey — team New York,” he declared during his victory celebration. He said his administration would focus on the communities of color and the poor and working-class New Yorkers who helped send him to City Hall.
Adams, the Brooklyn borough president since 2014, will face monumental tests as New York addresses the continuing consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. There are persistent problems, like homelessness and affordable housing, and new ones, like an economy redefined by remote work. Adams will also be under pressure to drive down the crime rate and build jails in each borough after closing the Rikers Island complex, a move he said that he supported during the campaign.
Adams acknowledged the challenges, referring to a “three-headed crisis” — “Covid, crime and economic devastation” — in his victory speech. But he also said it was neighborhoods like those in southeast Queens, where he grew up, that needed his attention as mayor.
“New York has chosen one of its own,” he said. “I am you.”
Adams’s victory will send a center-left administration to City Hall after eight years under Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tried to steer a more populist, leftward course — and the new political landscape will be complex. Brad Lander, elected New York City’s comptroller on Tuesday, appears to be to Adams’s left on several issues, among them policing.
But Albany, a perennial concern for mayors, looks less fraught than when de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo were sparring partners. Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who replaced Cuomo in August and joined his victory celebration on Tuesday, have promised to have a productive relationship.
The Associated Press called Adams’s victory minutes after polls closed. He defeated Curtis Sliwa, who ran as a Republican presenting his main qualifications as the decades he has spent patrolling the subways and leading the Guardian Angels, the beret-wearing vigilante group he founded.
Sliwa conceded the race, saying he pledged support to Adams “if we’re going to coalesce.”
How they voted
Adams, the son of a working-class single mother, carried a framed photograph of her under his arm when he voted in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn on Tuesday. Sliwa took one of his cats to his polling place on the Upper West Side.
But Gizmo — who lives with Sliwa, Sliwa’s wife, Nancy, and 16 other rescue cats — was denied entry. Sliwa, already angry about Gizmo, became angrier when election officials told him to take off a red jacket with his name on it, an apparent violation of electioneering regulations. “Arrest me,” Sliwa shouted.
Then his ballot jammed in the scanner, and the device had to be repaired. And then an election worker used an expletive while asking him to leave.
In other New York City races
Manhattan district attorney — The winner was Alvin Bragg, the Democratic nominee. A former federal prosecutor, he will inherit the high-profile investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business.
City comptroller — Brad Lander, a Democrat and a three-term City Councilman from the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, defeated Daby Carreras, who ran as a far-right Republican aligned with the Trump wing of the G.O.P.
City Council — Shahana Hanif, a Bangladeshi American, became the first Muslim woman elected to the City Council. She won a district that covers Park Slope, Kensington and parts of central Brooklyn.
New Jersey governor
The incumbent governor, Philip D. Murphy, was narrowly trailing a relatively obscure Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, and when the vote-counting ended for the night the race was too close to call. A mainstream liberal with ties to the White House, Mr. Murphy is now staking his hopes for victory on a strong performance in several solidly Democratic areas where votes were slow to report.
Mr. Ciattarelli appeared to benefit from robust turnout in rural and conservative-leaning areas of the state while making inroads in denser areas such as Bergen County, the populous suburb of New York City.
Weather
It’s going to be a sunny day with temps in the low 50s. In the evening, expect some clouds and temps in the high 30s.
alternate-side parking
In effect until tomorrow (Diwali).
Other New York news
Decades after his wife’s disappearance — and just weeks after he was convicted of murder in another woman’s death — Robert Durst was indicted in White Plains on a single count of second-degree murder.
Readying replica relatives of “Jaws”
A megalodon, a giant relative of the great white shark that ranks as the biggest predator fish of all time, has arrived on the Upper West Side. It is a fearsome fish so big it could eat a whale. It has lots of extremely sharp incisors that could do what extremely sharp incisors do.
This one is not real, and it has landed in a landlocked spot between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.
It is a fiberglass-and-epoxy replica in a workshop at the American Museum of Natural History. The last live megalodon was seen some 3.6 million years ago by whatever creatures avoided its giant jaws. If the heart-pounding theme from a certain Steven Spielberg movie is not already running through your head, this is when it might well start.
The replica has been built for an exhibition that is scheduled to open next month. It is 27 feet long, and it is just the head, the only part of the megalodon that visitors will see once the exhibition is installed. The whole megalodon would have been 50 feet long, too big for the gallery the curators have in mind for it.
Still, it is high on the fear factor. “When people come to an exhibition on sharks, they expect to be terrified, like on a roller coaster,” said Lauri Halderman, the museum’s vice president for exhibition. “Well, great whites are nothing compared to what we’ve got.”
The megalodon and other replicas are being finished in the museum’s workshop, a warren of dusty rooms that is more art studio than biology lab. Seeing great whites and hammerheads there is like seeing the Queen Mary II in dry dock. The sharks are up in the air, on pedestals, to be shaped, sanded and painted.
On a recent morning, Jason Brougham was playing shark periodontist, gluing in rows of replica teeth made on a 3-D printer. They will stay in the replica megalodon’s mouth longer the real ones did. Some megalodon teeth fell out and new ones grew in as often as twice a month.
The inevitable question for Halderman and John Sparks, a curator in the museum’s department of ichthyology, was: Have you seen “Jaws”?
Sparks said he saw it when it first came out. “That was terrifying,” he said.
Halderman said it was filmed when she was in high school. “I wasn’t into horror films,” she said. She finally saw it last year, a work assignment in preparation for the exhibition.
What we’re reading
Restaurants in New York, from the budget-friendly to the high end, are preparing for a Thanksgiving rush, New York Magazine reports.
The Radio City Music Hall Christmas show opens on Friday. Some of the people who put on the show are upset that the Covid protocols do not match those at Broadway theaters.
Intercollegiate golf was born in 1896 when Yale swept Columbia. Earlier this month, after 125 years, Columbia finally got its rematch.
METROPOLITAN diary
Afternoon break
Dear Diary:
I was on Riverside Drive between 89th and 88th Streets, heading home after shopping for groceries at the Food Emporium on Broadway. It was a quiet weekend afternoon and not many people were around, so I decided to take a break in the middle of the sidewalk.
I dropped the plastic shopping bags I was carrying on the ground, inhaled the cool fall air coming off the Hudson River and looked upward.
There, a brilliant blue sky was framed by shining golden leaves. As I looked around, I realized that the leaves on all of the trees on the drive and in Riverside Park had turned to gold.
I had just pulled out my phone to take a photo of the view and was punching in my mother’s email address to send her the picture when I heard a man’s voice behind me.
“It’s beautiful, huh?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said, turning to look at him.
He smiled and quickly walked off. I again owned the view.
— Aiko Setoguchi
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Melissa Guerrero, Emma Grillo, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
