Eric Adams, the city’s second Black mayor, faces difficult decisions over how to lead New York City through the next wave of the pandemic.Eric Leroy Adams was sworn in as the 110th mayor of New York City early Saturday in a festive but pared-down Times Square ceremony, a signal of the formidable task before him as he begins his term while coronavirus cases are surging anew.Mr. Adams, 61, the son of a house cleaner who was a New York City police captain before entering politics, has called himself “the future of the Democratic Party,” and pledged to address longstanding inequities as the city’s “first blue-collar mayor,” while simultaneously embracing the business community.Yet not since 2002, when Michael R. Bloomberg took office shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, has an incoming mayor confronted such daunting challenges in New York City. Even before the latest Omicron-fueled surge, the city’s economy was still struggling to recover, with the city’s 9.4 percent unemployment rate more than double the national average. Murders, shootings and some other categories of violent crimes rose early in the pandemic and have remained higher than before the virus began to spread.Mr. Adams ran for mayor on a public safety message, using his working-class and police background to convey empathy for the parts of New York still struggling with the effects of crime.But Mr. Adams’s first task as mayor will be to help New Yorkers navigate the Omicron variant and a troubling spike in cases. The city has recorded over 40,000 cases per day in recent days, and the number of hospitalizations is growing. The city’s testing system, once the envy of the nation, has struggled to meet demand and long lines form outside testing sites.Mr. Adams will keep on the current health commissioner, Dr. Dave Chokshi, until March to continue the city’s Covid response.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesConcerns over the virus caused Mr. Adams to cancel an inauguration ceremony indoors at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn — a tribute to the voters outside Manhattan who elected him. Instead, Mr. Adams chose the backdrop of the ball-drop crowd, which itself had been limited for distancing purposes to just a quarter of the usual size.Still, his swearing-in ceremony in Times Square, shortly after the ceremonial countdown, was jubilant, and Mr. Adams said he was hopeful about the city’s future.“Trust me, we’re ready for a major comeback because this is New York,” Mr. Adams said, standing among the revelers earlier in the night.Mr. Adams, the second Black mayor in the city’s history, was sworn in using a family Bible, held by his son, Jordan Coleman, and clasping a framed photograph of his mother, Dorothy, who died last spring.As Mr. Adams left the stage, he proclaimed, “New York is back.”Mayor Bill de Blasio also attended the Times Square celebration and danced with his wife onstage after leading the midnight countdown — his last official act as mayor after eight years in office.Mr. Adams, who grew up poor in Queens, represents a center-left brand of Democratic politics. He could offer a blend of the last two mayors — Mr. de Blasio, who was known to quote the socialist Karl Marx, and Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire and a former Republican like Mr. Adams.Mr. Adams narrowly won a competitive Democratic primary last summer when coronavirus cases were low and millions of New Yorkers were getting vaccinated. The city had started to rebound slowly after the virus devastated the economy and left more than 35,000 New Yorkers dead. Now that cases are spiking again, companies in Manhattan have abandoned return to office plans, and many Broadway shows and restaurants have closed.Mr. Adams captured the mayoralty by focusing on a public safety message, empathizing with working-class voters outside Manhattan.James Estrin/The New York TimesWith schools set to reopen on Monday, Mr. Adams must determine how to keep students and teachers safe while ensuring that schools remain open for in-person learning. Mr. Adams has insisted that the city cannot shut down again and must learn to live with the virus, and he has been supportive of Mr. de Blasio’s vaccine mandates.On Thursday, Mr. Adams announced that he would retain New York City’s vaccine requirement for private-sector employers. The mandate, which was implemented by Mayor de Blasio and is the first of its kind in the nation, went into effect on Monday.Even so, Mr. Adams made it clear that his focus is on compliance, not aggressive enforcement; it remains unclear whether he will require teachers, police officers and other city workers to receive a booster shot.Mr. Adams has also said that he wants to continue Mr. de Blasio’s focus on reducing inequality, even as he has sought to foster a better relationship with the city’s elites.“I genuinely don’t think he’s going to be in the box of being a conservative or a progressive,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “Adams is excited to keep people on their toes.”When Mr. de Blasio took office in 2014, he and his allies made it clear that his administration would offer a clean break from the Bloomberg era; he famously characterized New York as a “tale of two cities,” and vowed to narrow the inequity gap that he said had widened under Mr. Bloomberg.For the most part, Mr. Adams has signaled that his administration will not vary greatly from Mr. de Blasio’s. Several of his recent cabinet appointments worked in the de Blasio administration.Mr. Adams has signaled that his agenda will not differ greatly from that of his predecessor, Bill de Blasio.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesThere will be some differences: Mr. Adams said he does not plan to end the city’s gifted and talented program, as Mr. de Blasio had intended. Mr. Adams has also vowed to bring back a plainclothes police unit that was disbanded last year, in an effort to get more guns off the street.Mr. Adams will take the helm of the city during a period of racial reckoning, after the pandemic exposed profound economic and health disparities. At the same time, calls for police reform and measures to address the city’s segregated public schools are growing. During the mayoral campaign, Mr. Adams faced significant questions from his opponents and the news media over matters of transparency, residency and his own financial dealings. Mr. Adams said he was unfazed by the criticism and was focused on “getting stuff done.”Incoming N.Y.C. Mayor Eric Adams’s New AdministrationCard 1 of 7Schools Chancellor: David Banks. More
