New York City

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      The Places in New York City Where Republicans Still Stand a Chance

      by

      In some New York City Council races, supporting former President Donald Trump is seen as a positive by voters.For most Democratic candidates running in New York City, criticizing former President Donald J. Trump hardly requires making a studied campaign strategy decision — it’s already a given.But in one of the few competitive races in New York City this year, the Democratic candidate for City Council will not even say how he voted for president, insisting that at the local level, voters in his Brooklyn district still care more about municipal matters. That candidate, Steven Saperstein, is running in one of the few Trump-friendly districts in the city, and as he campaigned down a breezy stretch of boardwalk in Brighton Beach last Sunday, not far from the Trump Village housing complex where he grew up, he couldn’t seem to escape partisan politics.“I’m Republican,” one woman declared.“One hundred and twenty percent,” another proclaimed, before allowing that she would consider Mr. Saperstein anyway.“They’re trying to make it about the presidential election,” Mr. Saperstein said of his Republican opponent, Inna Vernikov, for whom Donald Trump Jr. has recorded a robocall. “People in this district understand and they know that national elections are one thing, but on the local level you have to vote for the person.”Steven Saperstein insists that voters in his district are more concerned about local matters than last year’s presidential election.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesIndeed, for years, New York City voters who favored Republicans for president often still elected Democrats in local races. But in the final days of the fall campaign, Republicans are working to change that in the 48th Council District of Brooklyn, which is home to many Orthodox Jews and Russian and Ukrainian immigrants.If they succeed, that victory will offer one more example of just how polarized, and nationalized, even ultra-local American politics has become.That seat is one of a smattering of City Council districts where there is evidence of Republican life in an otherwise overwhelmingly Democratic city — and it is not the only one attracting attention from major national figures. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, was slated to campaign on Sunday for a fellow Democrat, Felicia Singh, who is seeking to flip the last Republican-held Council seat in Queens (though the event was pulled following a security threat, Ms. Singh’s campaign manager said).The Republican candidates in New York’s competitive races differ from one another in tone, experience and the local issues that reflect their distinctive districts. But all of those contests, party officials and strategists say, are shaped by the continued salience of public safety in the minds of voters, discussion of education matters like the gifted and talented program that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to phase out, and intense feelings over vaccine mandates. Some Republicans even argue that the challenging national environment that Democrats appear to be facing may be evident in a handful of city races, too.“This has a lot of likenesses to 2009, when Obama came in on hope and change and then fell flat,” said Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York Republican State Committee. “In 2009 we had great gains at the local level, and then had a cataclysm in 2010. Are we facing that, or is there going to be flatness all the way around?”Whatever the turnout, Republicans are virtually certain to be shut out of citywide offices. Indeed, by nearly every metric, the Republican Party has been decimated in the nation’s largest city. They are vastly outnumbered in voter registration and have struggled to field credible candidates for major offices. At the City Council level, Republican hopes boil down to a matter of margins.The most optimistic Republican assessment, barring extraordinary developments, is that they could increase their presence to five from three on the 51-seat City Council, as they did in 2009. But even that would require a surprise outcome in a sleeper race — and it is possible they retain only one seat (setting aside the candidates who are running on multiple party lines).Officials on both sides of the aisle believe a more realistic target for the Republicans is three or four seats, a number that could still affect the brewing City Council speaker’s race and may indicate pockets of discontent with the direction of the city.The most high-profile of those contests is the last Republican-held seat in Queens.Ms. Singh, a teacher who is endorsed by the left-wing Working Families Party, is running against Joann Ariola, the chairwoman of the Queens Republican Party. The race has stirred considerable interest from the left and the right and attracted spending from outside groups.Democrats argue that Ms. Singh’s focus on education, the environment and resources for often-underserved communities best reflects working-class and immigrant families like her own who have changed the makeup of the district.Felicia Singh, center, who is running for City Council, canvasing in her hometown of Ozone Park, Queens.Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesMs. Singh has called Ms. Ariola a Trump Republican and noted her past ties to a district leader who was charged with participating in the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol. Ms. Ariola has said she condemns the insurrection and that no one “should be guilty by association.”Ms. Ariola is pressing a message of strong support for the police, protecting and improving the gifted and talented program, and emphasizing quality-of-life issues.She is casting Ms. Singh as too radical for a district that has been dotted in parts with Blue Lives Matter signage, and she has noted that some of the area’s moderate Democratic officials have stayed on the sidelines — which will surely be a source of tension among Democrats if Ms. Singh loses narrowly.“The strategy has to be to pull out every single Democrat, knowing there are some Democrats that will shift the other way as well, but I think she’s still in a good position,” said Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president and a Democrat.The other race widely seen as competitive is for a seat currently held by the Republican minority leader, Steven Matteo, on Staten Island.David Carr, Mr. Matteo’s chief of staff, is the Republican nominee; Sal F. Albanese, once a Brooklyn city councilman who has run unsuccessfully for mayor several times, is the Democratic nominee; George Wonica, a real estate agent, is running on the Conservative Party line.Unlike in Queens, where there is a clear ideological contrast, the candidates on Staten Island largely agree on several issues roiling New York, including city vaccine mandates, which they oppose. They have also competed vigorously over who is the true law-and-order candidate.Beyond those clearly competitive races, a number of Democrats are running aggressive campaigns even in presumably safe seats. Councilman Justin Brannan of Brooklyn, a candidate for City Council speaker who won his Bay Ridge-area district narrowly in 2017, has maintained an intense pace. Just this weekend he campaigned with Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor; Letitia James, the state attorney general, who is now running for governor; and Mr. Schumer.“Low-turnout elections are always where surprises happen, and we’ve had a bunch of those in the past few years,” said Kevin Elkins, the political director for the New York City District Council of Carpenters, which is largely supporting Democratic candidates, as well as Ms. Ariola. “Most of the elected officials and candidates who have run before have no interest in being next on that list.”A few districts away from Mr. Brannan’s, Ms. Vernikov was in a heavily Orthodox Jewish part of Midwood recently, meeting with volunteers.Inna Vernikov, a Republican, said voters were more receptive to her when she told them her party affiliation. Nate Palmer for The New York TimesShe has been a registered Democrat and a Republican, and the better-funded Mr. Saperstein has previously run for office as a Republican, further scrambling the political dynamics of the race.But in an interview, Ms. Vernikov said she sometimes found voters to be more receptive when she mentioned her current party affiliation.“When you tell people you’re a Republican in this district, it just changes the tone,” especially with the many voters in the district who fled the former Soviet Union, she said. “They see the Democratic Party moving this country in a very bad direction.”Back in Brighton Beach, Mr. Saperstein wanted to talk about parks, the relationships he has with the Police Department, and cleaning up the boardwalk.That last point was a compelling one for Lidiya Skverchak, a 64-year-old Trump voter. She was slated to receive her next dose of the Moderna vaccine on Election Day and was uncertain whether she would vote, she said. But if she does vote, she will still vote “Democrat, of course Democrat,” in the city elections. Asked about her biggest issue in the race, she, like Mr. Saperstein, kept her focus local.“For this area, there should be more trees,” she said. More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Curtis Sliwa Has New York’s Attention Again. Was That Always the Point?

      by

      When New Yorkers feared their subway and streets amid a crime wave in the late 1970s, Curtis Sliwa donned a red beret and seized the moment, pioneering a movement of citizen patrols — the Guardian Angels — that made him famous. He was 24.If ever he risked fading from public view in the years after, Mr. Sliwa found increasingly outlandish ways to hold onto the spotlight: faking his own kidnapping, wearing a red wig on television to impersonate a New York City Council speaker, even getting arrested while waving court papers at Mayor Bill de Blasio outside Gracie Mansion.Not surprisingly, perhaps, some people questioned whether it was just another publicity stunt when Mr. Sliwa, who registered as a Republican last year, announced that he was running in the party’s primary for mayor. Yet he won, riding his decades-old name recognition and casting his time patrolling the streets and his leadership of the Guardian Angels as his main qualifications for becoming mayor.With Election Day approaching on Tuesday, he is trying to ride that celebrity again in his campaign against a heavily favored Democrat, Eric Adams.“I’ve been shot, stabbed, beaten in the streets of New York City, locked up 76 times,” he said at a recent campaign stop. “I’ve been David versus Goliath from Day 1 in my entire life.”But an examination of Mr. Sliwa’s career reflects a record far messier and more complicated than the comic-book hero image he has worked to foster. Interviews with more than 40 current and former members of his group, critics and other associates portray a charismatic figure whose frequently clownish acts belie a sharp intellect and keen media savvy. They also reveal a string of missteps in his public and private lives that have harmed his credibility, and a comfort with physical aggression, machismo and racist and sexist rhetoric that has made even some who are close to him uneasy.What a Sliwa mayoralty would look like is anyone’s guess — an unpredictability he shares with his opponent, Mr. Adams. Would he dress up in costumes for news conferences? Tackle a purse snatcher on the street?His campaign platform calls for hiring thousands of police officers, placing homeless people in psychiatric beds at hospitals, expanding the gifted program in the city’s schools, overhauling the property tax system and eliminating the killing of animals at shelters. He has said less about creating jobs or reviving New York’s flagging economy, closing the city’s gaping budget shortfall or addressing the inequalities that the pandemic laid bare.Mr. Sliwa confronting his Democratic opponent, Eric Adams, at the second mayoral debate.Pool photo by Eduardo MunozBut for a Republican, the underpinnings of any policy decisions would spring from an unusual place. Mr. Sliwa said he grew up reading Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” an influential blueprint for liberal activism. And although he has named Rudolph W. Giuliani as the ideal New York mayor, he said in an interview that he identifies most closely with Huey P. Long of Louisiana, the Depression-era Democratic governor and senator known for his progressive politics, and for allegations of corruption and demagogy. Mr. Sliwa said he appreciated Long’s populism but added: “He was also a real scoundrel, you know, and pretty crooked.”After winning the primary, Mr. Sliwa brought the full force of his publicity-seeking skills to bear in the general election campaign. He showed up at a New Jersey apartment building to suggest that Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, lived there and not in New York. He also carried a milk carton bearing his opponent’s picture on to the B train in Brooklyn, asking passengers, “Have you seen this man?”Although he struggled at times to break through in the media, Mr. Sliwa made a splash at the final debate, seeming to put Mr. Adams on the defensive by accusing him of being too willing to meet with gang leaders in the past. (Mr. Adams said he had met with them to encourage them to leave gangs.)In the campaign’s final days, Mr. Sliwa has continued to court controversy, becoming a cheerleader for city workers who are resisting Mr. de Blasio’s vaccine mandate and appearing at protests.Few who have followed Mr. Sliwa’s career are surprised. “For the most part, the person you see in public making bad rhymes before the camera is now the actual person,” said Ronald Kuby, a lawyer who once co-hosted a radio show with Mr. Sliwa as his liberal foil and is now a pointed critic. “It’s just one long, desperate and reasonably entertaining cry for attention.”Making headlinesMr. Sliwa, left, with a group of Guardian Angels in 1984.Joe McNally/Getty ImagesMr. Sliwa, 67, loves to tell stories. He has not always been a reliable narrator.He can hold forth on the history of Brooklyn political bosses in one breath and in the next recount a showdown with an Oregon religious sect. He will describe the used car commercial he shot with the Times Square performer known as the Naked Cowboy. He can demonstrate a wrestling move called the Sicilian backbreaker that he says he used to subdue wrongdoers.There was the time on a trip to Washington when he was thrown into the Potomac River by parties hostile to the Guardian Angels. The time he assaulted an undercover police officer he mistakenly thought was attacking a mechanic. And the time he buried a kindergarten classmate in a sandbox for pulling on a girl’s pigtail once too often.Pinning down facts can be difficult, as intertwined as many tales told by Mr. Sliwa — and by others about him — have become with Guardian Angels lore.But he was born in Brooklyn in 1954. When he was growing up in Canarsie, his father, a sailor with the United States merchant marine and a liberal Democrat, and his mother, a churchgoing Catholic, encouraged him and his two sisters to embrace public service. His younger sister, Maria Sliwa, recalled him as a fiercely intelligent child. “He would inhale books,” said Ms. Sliwa, who works for his campaign. “He didn’t have to study, and he’d get an A.”Yet Mr. Sliwa dropped out of high school. He married briefly in his early 20s and moved to the South Bronx, where he worked as a night manager at a McDonald’s on East Fordham Road — regularly chasing robbers out of the restaurant, he said. With a stream of shockingly violent crimes playing on the evening news, an idea took hold. Soon, he had banded with a dozen other young men, and they began to patrol the subway in red berets. In 1979, the group became known as the Guardian Angels.City officials quickly branded them vigilantes.“He wanted to play cops and robbers with the so-called Guardian Angels, who were underage, untrained, and had no business trying to police the subways,” said Bill McKechnie, who led the transit officers’ union at the time and became Mr. Sliwa’s nemesis.The public took a different view. As the Guardian Angels’ exploits were recounted in the city’s newspapers, many New Yorkers cheered them on: The group’s members returned a wallet full of cash to its rightful owner. They tried to stop a mugging. They saved a token booth clerk. Mr. Sliwa kicked a shotgun from the clutches of a much larger man, while falling off a subway platform.Mr. Sliwa spent his days giving interviews, sometimes on national television. With his second wife Lisa, also a leader of the Guardian Angels, he was photographed for magazine stories. The group became the subject of a TV movie in 1980. Soon, he expanded to cities across the United States, and then to other countries.Mr. Sliwa and his second wife, Lisa Evers, on their wedding day, Christmas Eve, 1981. Bettmann Archive, via Getty ImagesIn later years, Mr. Sliwa would parlay his fame into lucrative radio and TV contracts. By the late 2000s, he was earning about $600,000 a year and had married his third wife, Mary. In 2006, they bought a $1.6 million apartment on the Upper East Side.Some who have patrolled with Mr. Sliwa say that he inspired them into activism and was a strong leader who always stayed at the front if they ran into danger.“People think Curtis is only there when the cameras are there,” said Keiji Oda, the group’s international director, who joined as a college student. “Curtis likes the camera, nobody denies that. But he is always there, even without the reporter.”But other former members became embittered by his tactics. Some accused him of faking heroics for headlines; he called them liars. Others grew angry about group members who had gotten hurt in the line of duty, with some saying training was inadequate.Six members of the Guardian Angels died. The first, Malcolm Brown, was 19 when he was fatally shot trying to stop a robbery in 1981. Malcolm’s mother, Ruthie Nelson, said in an interview that she believes her son might still be alive if he had not joined the organization. “He wanted to make a difference, but in hindsight I would have done anything I could to deter him from joining the group,” she said.In an interview, Mr. Sliwa said he was sorry for Ms. Nelson’s loss, but that all members joined the group voluntarily.Then came a revelation so damaging to Mr. Sliwa’s credibility that, by his own admission, he has never recovered. It followed a bout of conscience he said he had after nearly being fatally shot by a member of the Gambino crime family, whose leaders Mr. Sliwa had skewered on the radio.Upon seeing the outpouring of well wishes from New Yorkers in 1992, Mr. Sliwa confessed to The New York Post that he had made up stories to burnish the Guardian Angels’ image. The return of the wallet had been staged. There was no man with a shotgun on a subway platform.More recently, he said in an interview that he had invented the stories to gain traction against his critics and that he deeply regretted it. “If I could do it again, I would never do it,” he said. “It has followed me everywhere.”A second actBill McKechnie, a former leader of the transit officers’ union, has kept newspaper clippings about Mr. Sliwa’s fabrications. Saul Martinez for The New York TimesEventually things began to take a turn for Mr. Sliwa.His third wife, Mary, with whom he had a son, had become a formidable fund-raiser for the Guardian Angels, helping to organize golf games, poker tournaments and lavish galas that attracted prominent figures like Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The group was raising more than $1 million a year, tax filings show.Mr. Sliwa and his third wife, Mary, in 2010. Bobby Bank/WireImage, via Getty ImagesBut Mr. Sliwa was having an affair with another woman, Melinda Katz, who is now the Queens district attorney. They had two sons who they say were conceived through in vitro fertilization while he was married to Mary, leading to a messy breakup.Less than a year after they divorced, in 2012, the marital breakdown exploded in the tabloids. Mary Sliwa sued her former husband and Ms. Katz, accusing them of scheming to divert hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Ms. Katz and their two children and calling Mr. Sliwa “an inveterate, world-class liar.” The suit was later dismissed.Ms. Katz ended their relationship in 2014 and declined to discuss it beyond issuing a statement: “Curtis is the father of my children and obviously holds a very special place in their lives,” she said.Melinda Katz, who is now the Queens district attorney, with Mr. Sliwa in 2014. He is the father of her two sons. WENN Rights Ltd, via AlamyMr. Sliwa now pays about $15,000 in monthly child support for his three sons, a large share of the $400,000 annual income listed on a copy of the 2019 tax return that he provided to The New York Times. He also had judgments of nearly $250,000 recorded against him in 2016 for debts to his divorce lawyers, and he said he could not afford to pay $2,600 in taxes, penalties and interest owed to New York State by a company he used for paid speaking engagements. “I don’t have two nickels to rub together,” Mr. Sliwa said.As his romantic relationships were imploding, his career as a commentator was also heading in the wrong direction.A frequent guest on NY1 news segments, Mr. Sliwa had begun wearing costumes and incorporating props to ridicule elected officials. As time went on, the skits flirted with and sometimes crossed the line between satire and racism and sexism. In a 2010 NY1 appearance, bantering about the outgoing governor, David A. Paterson, who is Black, Mr. Sliwa broke into street slang and said, “My brother, my brother, give me some skin.”He mocked the New York City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, by wearing a bright red wig, which Ms. Quinn described as a sexist attack; he wore a sombrero and waved miniature Mexican flags while criticizing undocumented immigration; and he commented on the physical appearance of another female council speaker in sexually explicit terms.In 2018, NY1’s new owners let him go, but Mr. Sliwa continued doing talk radio on the conservative AM station WABC, where he takes phone calls and holds forth on culture, politics and relationships.Mr. Sliwa with the lawyer Ronald Kuby, his radio co-host, in 1998. “It’s just one long, desperate and reasonably entertaining cry for attention,” Mr. Kuby said of Mr. Sliwa’s career.Librado Romero/The New York TimesHe acknowledged mistakes but he also lamented what he called a “snowflake culture” that made his brand of political satire unacceptable. “I’m not a wallflower, OK?” he said. “I don’t know how you do satire and parody and do costumes and not offend people.”Mr. Sliwa said he had been sleeping on the floor at WABC when he met his fourth wife, Nancy. They live together in her small studio apartment with, by the latest count, 17 cats.Then, in March 2020, he said he would run for mayor, hoping to capitalize on his background at a time when New Yorkers were worried about crime. He took a leave from his radio show and went on to defeat his Republican opponent, Fernando Mateo, in June.Mr. Sliwa has waded into the culture wars during the campaign, lambasting Black Lives Matter protesters, and saying that looters had hit him in the jaw with a ball-peen hammer after the murder of George Floyd. His campaign hired a consultant who wrote a supportive opinion piece about the far-right Proud Boys group. And Mr. Sliwa falsely stated that subway crime had reached record highs and pledged to take “the handcuffs off the police.”At his second debate with Mr. Adams, Mr. Sliwa continued the provocations, falsely claiming that a City Council member who was born in the Dominican Republic was not a U.S. citizen.Mr. Sliwa has strolled the city’s neighborhoods in the final weeks of the campaign, sometimes receiving the sort of reception he might have gotten at the height of his fame 40 years ago.He was on a subway in Washington Heights on a recent Tuesday when a man in an army jacket called out to him. “I’ve got a lot of respect for you,” said the man, Frank R. Hooker Jr., a filmmaker who said he had followed Mr. Sliwa’s career since he was a child. Then he added: “I wish you were a Democrat, that’s the only thing.”Campaigning at a barbershop in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. “Most people don’t think of me as anything but Curtis Sliwa,” he said. James Estrin/The New York TimesMr. Sliwa didn’t miss a beat. He urged Mr. Hooker to vote for him on an independent line.“Most people,” he said, “don’t think of me as anything but Curtis Sliwa.”Susan C. Beachy contributed research. More

    • 75 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      New York's Five Ballot Measures: Explained

      by

      Breaking down the five proposals New York voters will see on their ballots, all involving potential amendments to the state constitution.If you’re reading this, you are probably well aware of New York City’s mayoral election and the other city races being contested this year. But you may be less familiar with the five potential amendments to the State Constitution that are also on the ballot.The ballot questions include measures involving legislative redistricting, changes to voting laws, environmental policy and New York City’s civil courts. Any that are approved would take effect on Jan. 1, 2022.According to the political website Ballotpedia, New Yorkers approved 74 percent of state ballot measures from 1985 to 2020.Registered voters can weigh in on the proposals by casting ballots during early voting, which runs through Sunday, or on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 2. The Board of Elections’ poll site locator has information on where and when to cast your ballot.Here is a rundown of the five ballot measures and what they entail. The full text of each can be found on the Board of Elections’ website.1. Changes to the state’s redistricting processThis measure involves the drawing of legislative maps, which occurs every 10 years. Among other things, it would cap the number of state senators at 63, require that all New York residents be counted in the U.S. census regardless of their citizenship status, and count incarcerated people at their last place of residence rather than where they are detained.Michael Li, a senior counsel at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said that maintaining the existing number of state senators was necessary to prevent gerrymandering, the practice of manipulating congressional district lines for political gain. Freezing the number, Mr. Li said, would prevent the creation of new districts that could be exploited for partisan purposes.The measure would also scrap the current requirement that two-thirds of state lawmakers must agree to pass redistricting plans, in favor of simple majorities in both the Assembly and Senate.The proposal’s opponents, including The League of Women Voters of New York State, have focused on this point, saying that allowing a simple majority to make such decisions could diminish a minority party’s voting power.“It’s not giving other parties a fair shot at having any sort of say in this process,” said Jennifer Wilson, the group’s deputy director.Mr. Li argued that it was difficult to say with any certainty whether the new district maps would be better or worse for minority parties because the process is complicated.“We’ll see how this new system works,” he said. “It may be that New York needs more reform after we see what the maps look like.”2. An environmental rights amendmentThis measure would give New Yorkers a constitutional right to clean air, water and a “healthful environment.” The proposal language is vague on what a “healthful environment” is or how the standard would be legally enforced.Eddie Bautista, the executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, said the measure was especially important for Black and brown communities because they experience disproportionate rates of pollution..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“We can’t exercise our right to free speech if we’re having trouble breathing,” Mr. Bautista said. “If you want to have a right to speak, you have a right to breathe. This is a long overdue and welcome addition to the Constitution.”Critics of the measure have cited its broad language as a concern, arguing that the lack of specificity could lead to unnecessary lawsuits. State Senator Dan Stec, a Republican who represents the North Country region, said in a statement that the proposal would place the burden of enforcement on the courts.New Yorkers approved 74 percent of statewide ballot measures between 1985 and 2020, according to Ballotpedia.Amir Hamja for The New York Times“Businesses, including farms, are very concerned what this will mean if adopted, especially at a time of tremendous challenges and uncertainty because of Covid-19,” Mr. Stec said. “We owe it to the voters to at least offer them something more clearly defined.”But environmental advocates said the proposal’s language only poses a risk to those who know they may be polluting the environment.3. A push to allow same-day voter registrationThe measure, one of two ballot related to voting rights, would eliminate a rule that requires voters to register at least 10 days before an election.If passed, the measure would make it possible for state lawmakers to adopt same-day voter registration, something that 20 states already have.The measure would be particularly beneficial to voters who do not start paying attention to local politics until late in the election cycle, said Jan Combopiano, the senior policy director for the Brooklyn Voters Alliance.“It really hurts people who get activated and interested in an election late in the game, and there’s no reason to punish those people,” she said. “They haven’t been paying attention until maybe the last month — that’s like human nature.”4. Making it easier to cast absentee ballotsThe second proposed change to the voting process would erase the requirement that those who request absentee ballots explain why they are doing so.Under current law, mail-in ballots are only allowed for voters who expect to be away on Election Day, or who have an illness or disability that would prevent them from voting in person.There was an increase in absentee ballots cast last year because of the coronavirus pandemic; Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order automatically providing all New Yorkers with absentee ballot applications.Ms. Combopiano said that, if approved, both of the measures related to voting would increase participation in elections by making it easier to cast ballots. Expanding access to absentee voting specifically would make it easier for New Yorkers to take their time and make more informed decisions, she said.5. Changes to New York City’s civil courtsThis measure would double the monetary limit for claims filed in New York City’s civil courts to $50,000 from $25,000. This would enable the courts to consider more small claims, reducing the burden of such actions on the state’s Supreme Court.In theory, the measure is meant to make it faster, easier and less expensive for people to resolve disputes legally.Although the change would be likely to increase the efficiency with which lawsuits are resolved, it might also increase the workload for the city’s civil courts, which are already understaffed, said Sidney Cherubin, the director of legal services at the Brooklyn Volunteer Lawyers Project.If the measure passes, he said, the state would to have to help the civil courts handle the probable surge in cases, perhaps by hiring more judges or increasing the funding for the system.“What we anticipate is quicker resolution for litigants,” Mr. Cherubin said. He added: “It’s not going to cure all the issues, but it takes us a step in the right direction.” More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Adams vs. Sliwa: A Guide to New York's Mayoral Race

      by

      With the New York City election just days away, we cut through the personal attacks to show where the main candidates, Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa, stand on the issues.Eric Adams, left, and Curtis Sliwa will face off in New York’s mayoral election on Tuesday.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesThe final weeks of the New York City mayor’s race have been dominated by personal attacks between the two leading candidates. Eric Adams, the Democratic front-runner, called his Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, racist and a “Mini-Me of Donald Trump.” Mr. Sliwa has criticized Mr. Adams as an elitist and “Bill de Blasio 2.0.”It should be no surprise that the two candidates also have very different visions for the city as it emerges from the pandemic.Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, wants to trim the police budget by cutting back on overtime pay; Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels subway patrol group, wants to hire 3,000 more officers. Mr. Adams is a cyclist who wants to build 300 miles of new protected bike lanes; Mr. Sliwa wants to remove bike lanes. Mr. Adams wants to keep vaccine mandates for city workers and indoor dining; Mr. Sliwa would reverse both.There are some areas of common ground: Both want to expand the gifted and talented program for elementary schools instead of ending it. Both have called for hundreds more “psychiatric beds” at hospitals to be used for people with mental health problems who are living on the streets. Both want to bring back the Police Department’s plainclothes anti-crime unit, which was disbanded under Mayor de Blasio.The candidates have also proposed somewhat overlapping economic recovery initiatives focused on getting New Yorkers back to work and removing regulations for small businesses.Whoever wins on Tuesday will face enormous challenges when he takes office in January. Here are the candidates’ plans for the city.— Emma G. FitzsimmonsEric AdamsAge: 61.Born: New York.Professional experience: Brooklyn borough president; former state senator and police captain.Mr. Adams has long had his eye on becoming mayor. He first ran for office in 1994 and was briefly a Republican during the Giuliani administration.Salient quotation: “The city betrayed Mommy,” Mr. Adams said as he voted for himself during the primary in June, explaining that the city has failed poor Black families like his.Personal detail: Mr. Adams is vegan and has eaten a plant-based diet since discovering he had diabetes at age 56.Curtis SliwaAge: 67.Born: New York.Professional experience: Founded the Guardian Angels subway patrol group; has been a conservative radio host.Mr. Sliwa has never run for office before. He became a Republican last year, once led the Reform Party of New York State and was a Democrat earlier in his life.Salient quotation: “Who at the age of 67 is running around wearing a red beret and a red satin jacket and going out there like a crime fighter and a superhero from our days reading comic books?” he told The Times earlier this year.Personal detail: Mr. Sliwa lives in a studio apartment on the Upper West Side with his wife — his fourth — and 16 cats.TransportationSubway ridership has not rebounded to prepandemic levels, a problem for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesNew York City’s recovery from the pandemic will depend heavily on mass transit and other transportation. But the subway is facing a looming financial emergency, with ridership significantly below prepandemic numbers.Like his predecessors, the next mayor’s influence over the subway system will be limited: The subway and its daily operations are overseen by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is largely controlled by the governor.Still, both Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa say that it is crucial to restore confidence in the subway system and bring back riders. To do so, they are both targeting public safety underground. Though subway crime was down for the first nine months of the year relative to the same period in 2020, felony assaults there are up not just compared to last year, when ridership was very low, but also compared with 2019. A string of high-profile attacks has pushed the issue to the forefront.Both candidates want to deploy more police officers in the subways and direct homeless and mentally ill people off the trains and toward services. Mr. Sliwa, who has falsely stated that subway crime has reached all-time highs, wants to add 5,000 city police officers to patrol the system, some of them redirected from other duties. He also proposes relocating mentally ill and homeless people from the trains to psychiatric facilities or homeless shelters, though he has not explained how he would do so.Mr. Adams, a former transit police officer, wants the Police Department to shift officers from other roles to subway patrol, though he has not stated a specific figure. He also seeks to restore the department’s homeless outreach unit, which was defunded by Mr. de Blasio, and have mental health professionals team up with police officers. He also seeks to invest in better cell service, Wi-Fi and surveillance cameras in stations to help deter crime.The mayor’s largest sway over transportation in the city is in control over its streets, where there have been severe congestion and a surge in traffic deaths. Here, the candidates have markedly different approaches.Mr. Adams has thrown his support behind the state’s plan to enact congestion pricing in parts of Manhattan, which would charge a fee on vehicles in the area and aim to both reduce traffic and provide new funding for the transit system. Mr. Sliwa opposes it.Mr. Adams says he favors redesigning streets to address safety issues, including by encouraging alternatives to car travel. Over four years, he wants to build 300 new miles of protected bike lanes and 150 miles of new bus lanes and busways with a particular focus on transit deserts and busy corridors like Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn.Mr. Sliwa has accused the city of a war on vehicles and has proposed removing underutilized bike lanes that he says could better serve as parking spots. He has called for eliminating speed cameras but wants the Police Department to enforce traffic laws more actively and would provide funding to help it do so.— Michael GoldEducationThe first day of the academic year at P.S. 25 Bilingual School in the South Bronx.Anna Watts for The New York TimesMr. Adams’s most concrete education proposal may also be one of his least-discussed plans: blow up the school calendar and introduce year-round schooling. A 12-month academic year would be logistically complex and likely to be unpopular with some families and teachers. It would also require an overhaul of the teachers’ union contract, and significant funding to pay for many more educators to work outside of the traditional year.Mr. Adams has also made screening young students for dyslexia and other learning disabilities a priority. Asked how he would approach the task of desegregating schools, Mr. Adams said he would focus on making sure that children with disabilities and other challenges were not separated from their peers unnecessarily. He also said he would dedicate more funding to struggling school districts, a strategy used by Mr. de Blasio that produced disappointing results under his $773 million Renewal program for low-performing schools.The Democratic nominee has said he would keep the city’s gifted-and-talented program, despite Mr. Blasio’s announcement that he would seek to eliminate the current system. Mr. Sliwa has also said he would keep gifted classes.Mr. Adams also reiterated his support for keeping the admissions exam that dictates entry into the so-called specialized high schools, and said again that he would add five more specialized schools. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tried a similar strategy in an effort to diversify the schools in the early 2000s, but the schools have enrolled fewer Black and Latino students in recent years. Mr. Adams also said he would “replace” the current admissions process for competitive middle and high schools, without offering more details.Mr. Sliwa said he would transform struggling schools by bringing vocational training programs into more high schools and add financial literacy courses to high school curriculums.Asked how he would combat racial segregation in schools, Mr. Sliwa said he would focus on reducing class sizes, an expensive project that several mayors have struggled to implement, and increase teacher bonuses, particularly for educators willing to teach in low-performing schools. Mr. de Blasio has already tried the latter proposal, with mixed results. And the powerful United Federation of Teachers has viewed bonuses based on performance with skepticism for many years, frustrating Mr. Bloomberg and, to some extent, Mr. de Blasio.— Eliza ShapiroHealth CareA vaccination site in August in the South Bronx. The mayoral candidates differ on their approaches to vaccine mandates. James Estrin/The New York TimesBoth Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa say they share a goal of making health care more accessible and affordable for average New Yorkers. But many of the details of their ideas — and how they want to go about making them happen — differ.Mr. Adams said his top priority would be to focus on ending the racial inequities that made Covid-19 “a tale of two pandemics, where Black and brown New Yorkers died at twice the rate of white New Yorkers.” He wants to enroll all New Yorkers who lack health insurance in low-cost plans run by the city’s public hospitals. He also wants to create more community health centers, put housing assistance and social services in hospitals and introduce a citywide network that would better distribute care for indigent patients between private and public hospitals, particularly in emergencies.Healthy eating is a particular passion of Mr. Adams. He is motivated by his own experience of waking up almost blind, with full-blown diabetes, at age 56 and says he reversed his illness by switching to a vegan, unprocessed-food diet. He has written a book, “Healthy at Last,” about his journey, and wants to scale up a clinic at Bellevue Hospital that he helped spearhead which focuses on treating disease by changing lifestyles.“One of the most important things we can do to prevent chronic diseases is to provide better access to quality, healthy food for underserved New Yorkers,” he said.Mr. Sliwa has not published a health care platform. But in a statement, he said his focus would be bringing down costs for working-class New Yorkers “across all demographics, from our young to elderly.” To do this, he focused on involving the private sector, with “public-private partnerships to increase access to medicine, treatment and other remedies” Like Mr. Adams, he also wants to encourage healthy eating and exercise in public schools.The plight of mentally ill homeless New Yorkers is a particular concern of Mr. Sliwa’s as the founder of the Guardian Angels, which has spent decades patrolling the city’s subways. “Increased access to psychiatric resources will ensure that no New Yorker is left behind in our road to emotional and physical recovery,” he said.The candidates are at odds on coronavirus vaccine mandates. Mr. Adams said he wanted to “double down” on the city’s vaccine mandates and its “Key to NYC” policy, which requires vaccination for indoor dining and entertainment. Mr. Sliwa has railed against such mandates at political rallies, though he is vaccinated and says he wants others to be. “Vaccine mandates only serve to hamper down our revitalization efforts for small businesses and restaurants,” he said in a statement.— Sharon OttermanLaw EnforcementMr. Adams seeks to cut back the Police Department’s budget while Mr. Sliwa wants to expand the force.Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesNew York’s next mayor will inherit a police department — the largest police force in the country — at what is perhaps its most critical juncture in recent memory. Following a national reckoning over police brutality spurred by mass protests over the murder of George Floyd, public pressure has mounted to trim back police department budgets and shrink forces, even as violent crime rates have reached historical highs in big cities across the country.In New York, the crisis has been particularly acute: 2020 was the bloodiest year for the city since the notorious 1990s, and while gun violence rates have leveled, they remain well above prepandemic levels. Transit crime has risen, in part because of emptier subways.Much of the department’s future depends on whether the budget shrinks. The City Council voted last year to shift $1 billion from the N.Y.P.D.’s annual budget, a decision that incensed police unions and advocates of criminal-justice reform alike. On this, the two candidates could not be more opposed: Mr. Adams advocates strategically cutting back the Police Department’s budget and footprint; Mr. Sliwa wants to reverse budget cuts and expand the force.“I believe we can save at least $500 million annually through strategic civilianization of N.Y.P.D. units,” Mr. Adams told The Times, referring to officers spending significant parts of their day doing civilian jobs or clerical work, like moving trucks and barricades, or doing crowd control.Mr. Adams called the increase in gun violence “the most pressing challenge facing the New York City Police Department.” He said that the Police Department was bloated and that he would pare back its overtime, but he also endorsed reinstating gang and gun task forces, the latest iteration of which were disbanded last year amid mounting public complaints that the units were abusive.Mr. Adams also supports creating a requirement that new officers live in the five boroughs and an incentive for current officers — who are allowed to live in surrounding counties — to move back into the areas they police.Mr. Sliwa, meanwhile, wants to fully reinstate $1 billion to the budget and hire more police officers, who he says should be diverted to high-crime areas. He also advocated reinstating the N.Y.P.D.’s anti-crime unit.“We need to put $1 billion back into the police budget and hire more cops,” he said. “Under current city leadership, our police force has become reactive to crime, not proactive in crime prevention.”— Ali WatkinsEconomyInitiatives to spur economic recovery in New York City are foremost in many people’s minds.James Estrin/The New York TimesThe next mayor of New York will take over an economy still struggling to mount a robust and sustained recovery 19 months into the pandemic. More than in any other large American city, New York’s extreme income inequalities were brutally exposed.The city’s unemployment rate is 9.8 percent, down slightly from early summer but still stubbornly high and nearly double the national rate. Two major drivers of the economy in the city — office workers and tourists — remain at home, cutting off significant sources of spending.And if office workers continue to work remotely after the pandemic, even if it is just a few days a week, it would most likely reshape the city’s economy for years to come.Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa have proposed somewhat overlapping recovery initiatives, both pledging to use the city government to help get New Yorkers back to work and to eliminate regulations they claim hurt small companies and deter the creation of new businesses.Mr. Sliwa has sought to cast his major campaign proposal of a property tax overhaul as potential fuel to jump-start the economy. His plan would provide tax deductions to some homeowners, place a 2-percent cap on annual property tax increases and eliminate tax breaks for wealthy institutions like hospitals, universities and Madison Square Garden.The plan would require approval from the State Legislature. It also mirrors an initiative announced by Mr. de Blasio in early 2020 to overhaul the property tax system, which ultimately lost political momentum when the pandemic emerged.Another top initiative by Mr. Sliwa would to test the feasibility of establishing universal basic income; he aims to set up a pilot program that would provide $1,100 a month to 500 New Yorkers.To help small businesses, Mr. Sliwa said the city would offer up to $45,000 in low-interest loans and extend tax incentives to companies with fewer than 50 employees that operate in the city outside Manhattan.Under Mr. Adams, the city would create a jobs program driven by real-time data from private businesses about their current openings and the skills they require, connecting applicants with employment opportunities that best match their skills. The city would also streamline its own hiring system with an online portal that would simplify the process of applying for municipal jobs.The ultimate goal, Mr. Adams said, would be to position New York City as a leader in the jobs of the future, especially in scientific research and cybersecurity, two industries that were growing before the pandemic. He also wants New Yorkers to work in renewable energy, part of his effort to make the city a major hub of wind power.— Matthew HaagHousingThe pandemic has left hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers struggling to pay rent. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesThe next mayor will take the reins of a city with a chronic shortage of affordable housing, which is in turn a main driver of homelessness. More than a quarter of city residents spend more than half their income on housing, and the number of single adults in the city’s main shelter system has risen 60 percent during Mr. de Blasio’s tenure.On housing, Mr. Adams says he will focus on adding more lower- and middle-income homes in wealthier neighborhoods with good transit access and good schools — what he calls a reversal of gentrification. He would push to legalize unpermitted basement and cellar apartments, an idea that has proved difficult to execute in the past. Mr. Sliwa favors building more housing in manufacturing zones.The pandemic has left hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers struggling to pay rent. A state moratorium on evictions has kept many in their homes, but it is set to expire in January, threatening some renters with homelessness. Mr. Adams says he will let the State Legislature reassess the need to extend the moratorium, while Mr. Sliwa would press the state to better distribute millions of dollars in rent relief to landlords to address residents’ rent debt.The city’s public housing system, NYCHA, is also in dire trouble: It faces a backlog of over $40 billion in capital needs. Mr. Adams says he will push to let developers build on existing NYCHA land — a plan that he said could address less than a quarter of those needs. Mr. Sliwa says he will make sure repairs are done faster, and train and employ NYCHA residents to make repairs themselves.While both candidates emphasized the need for more permanent housing, Mr. Sliwa also wants to increase the capacity of the city’s shelters, which many homeless people avoid because they say they are dangerous and unpleasant. Mr. Sliwa says he would add police officers and social workers to make shelters safer. Mr. Adams opposes expanding shelters.The homelessness crisis is also a mental- health crisis. People with serious mental illnesses who live on the streets and in the subways have committed violent assaults and hate crimes that have grabbed headlines and raised alarms in recent months.Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa stress the importance of reversing a decline in hospital psychiatric beds and accelerating the creation of so-called supportive housing that includes on-site social services for mentally ill people. Mr. Adams touts a plan to convert thousands of empty hotel rooms into supportive-housing apartments.— Andy Newman and Mihir ZaveriIllustrations by Eden Weingart

      .img-sz-small{
      width:35px;
      margin:0 auto 10px auto!important;
      }

      .img-sz-small > div{
      margin-left:0!important;
      margin-right:0!important;
      max-width:100%!important;
      }

      .img-sz-small img{
      width:35px;
      max-width:none!important;
      }

      .StoryBodyCompanionColumn h2{
      margin-top:15px!important;
      }

      /* TWO SIZES
      .img-sz-small{
      width:25px;
      margin:0 auto 10px auto!important;
      }

      .img-sz-small img{
      width:25px;
      max-width:none!important;
      }

      .StoryBodyCompanionColumn h2{

      }

      @media screen and (min-width: 600px){

      .img-sz-small{

      width:35px;
      }

      .img-sz-small img{
      width:35px;
      max-width:none!important;
      }

      .StoryBodyCompanionColumn h2{

      margin-top:0px!important;

      }

      } */ More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Jumaane Williams Runs for Public Advocate With Eye on Governor's Job

      by

      Mr. Williams is exploring a run for governor even as he is poised to win his first full term as public advocate after five elections.When New Yorkers show up to vote on Nov. 2, they will see a familiar name listed on the ballot for public advocate: Jumaane D. Williams, the Democratic incumbent.Because of a quirk in political and electoral timing, this is the third time that Mr. Williams has had to run for public advocate in less than three years.“I’m so honored to be your public advocate,” Mr. Williams told a crowd at a get-out-the-vote rally on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Sunday. “I’d be honored if you re-elect me one more time.”But Mr. Williams, 45, left another political goal unmentioned that day: He is also a potential candidate for governor.Just a few weeks earlier, Mr. Williams had traveled around the state, meeting with elected officials and potential constituents in Rochester, Syracuse and Hudson, pitching his economic and social vision for the state.Mr. Williams has formed an exploratory committee to run for governor next year in what is expected to be a crowded, competitive Democratic primary field. He would have to unseat the incumbent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and also might have to beat other candidates who are likely to include the state attorney general, Letitia James.Ms. Hochul, who leads early polls, has been busy fund-raising and collecting endorsements. Ms. James is expected to soon announce her candidacy for governor, while other potential candidates like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Representative Thomas Suozzi also loom.Mr. Williams enjoys some statewide voter recognition: In 2018, he lost to Ms. Hochul in a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor by almost seven percentage points, but did better than expected; he outpaced Ms. Hochul in New York City by 60,000 votes, racking up big totals in Manhattan and Brooklyn, the county with the most registered Democrats in the state.He also would be the clearest left-leaning alternative to Ms. Hochul, a moderate Democrat from Buffalo; Mr. Williams is a self-identified “activist elected official” who says he is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.Mr. Williams said he was considering running for governor because the power to make groundbreaking changes to affordable housing and criminal justice, the two issues he has focused on most during his political career, resides in the governor’s office.“It might be a dereliction to not even consider running for governor,” Mr. Williams said.“It might be a dereliction not to even consider running for governor,” Mr. Williams said.Anna Watts for The New York TimesYet running for one office while publicly eyeing a higher one can be precarious. Just as the race for governor is heating up. Mr. Williams has had to navigate criticism from his opponents that he is not focused on his job as an ombudsman for the public.“New Yorkers deserve someone who is focused on crime, the economy, the issues that are specific to New York City,” Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, the Republican nominee for public advocate, said in a debate with Mr. Williams earlier this month. “If you are running for governor, there’s also the fact that you would be distracted campaigning for governor.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The office of public advocate was created to help diversify the city’s leadership and potentially serve as a launching pad to higher office. Both Ms. James, who became the first Black woman elected to citywide office when she became public advocate in 2014, and Mayor Bill de Blasio held the post.Antonio Reynoso, a Democratic councilman from Brooklyn who is likely to win election as the borough president of Brooklyn, is on Mr. Williams’s exploratory committee along with Mr. Lander, also a councilman from Brooklyn and the Democratic nominee for city comptroller.The committee hasn’t met in person, and most of their phone conversations have been focused on Mr. Williams’s re-election effort. “We are doing our best to make sure he does well in the public advocate race,” Mr. Reynoso said. “It’s about timing. He didn’t ask the governor to do what he did and resign.”He challenged Kathy Hochul in a Democratic primary for the lieutenant governor nomination, but she prevailed.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMr. Williams endorsed and campaigned for India Walton, the socialist who won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Buffalo over the longtime mayor Byron Brown. He is expected to return to Buffalo to campaign for Ms. Walton this weekend; Mr. Brown is still running as a write-in candidate.Mr. Lander said he sees many similarities between Ms. Walton’s race and a potential primary run for governor by Mr. Williams.“That’s an example of someone who has a background as a courageous, progressive organizer who challenged a moderate incumbent in a race where most of the pundits didn’t give her any chance to win,” Mr. Lander said.Even if Mr. Williams were to run and lose in a Democratic primary for governor, a good showing could position him to be a leading far-left voice for New York, a local complement to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also a democratic socialist, said Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University.“There is a progressive wind blowing through the state that Jumaane can capitalize on,” Professor Greer said. “He represents a type of progressive politics that is going to push the conversation to the left.”Brad Lander, a city councilman and the Democratic nominee for comptroller, is on Mr. Williams’s exploratory committee.Chery Dieu-Nalio for The New York TimesA recent Marist poll had Mr. Williams in third place with 15 percent of the vote in a theoretical contest against Ms. Hochul and Ms. James. The governor had 44 percent of the vote and Ms. James had 28 percent among registered New York Democrats. Ms. Hochul also had the highest favorability rating among the three.In his unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, Mr. Williams positioned himself as a check on Mr. Cuomo’s leadership. He has continued that message in his potential bid for governor, suggesting that Ms. Hochul was ineffectual as Mr. Cuomo’s No. 2.Mr. Williams said that became apparent when New York was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. “That might not have happened if we had a lieutenant governor who was more willing to push,” Mr. Williams said.Ms. Hochul has tackled “low-hanging fruit” since becoming governor, he said, criticizing her for not visiting Rikers Island during a spate of inmate deaths, or seeking more federal resources for the crisis at the jail.“The bar from Cuomo is pretty low,” said Mr. Williams who declined to offer criticisms of Ms. James. (Mr. Williams also refused to comment about the prospect of Mr. de Blasio running for governor.)Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul, declined to comment.Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said Mr. Williams would have an uphill battle against Ms. Hochul and Ms. James because he would struggle to match their fund-raising and name recognition.“He probably kicks himself periodically when he sees Hochul on television,” said Mr. Miringoff. “He almost became governor because he was close to becoming lieutenant governor.” More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      You Can’t Fight City Hall. But You Can Pick Who Runs It.

      by

      Guess I’m going for the vegan.Next week we’ll be voting in local elections all around the country. In New York the big contest is for mayor, and it pits Democrat Eric Adams against Republican Curtis Sliwa.Challenged to say something nice about Adams during the final mayoral debate on Tuesday night, Sliwa praised the Democrat’s vegan diet, adopted during a struggle against diabetes. Adams commended Sliwa on his kindness to animals.Sliwa and his wife are into sheltering abandoned cats, and they currently have 16 in their 320-square-foot studio apartment. I’ve got to admit this is the election factoid that has me most fascinated. The idea of vegan meals being served at Gracie Mansion is sort of interesting — bet we’d get more discussions of the menus than we ever got during Bill de Blasio’s long tenure. But how many cats could you fit in there? Dozens? Hundreds?OK, people — your turn. If you’ve got a mayoral election coming up in your town, tell me one interesting thing about a major candidate.Hey, there’s got to be something. If you’re still mulling, maybe you’re failing to focus. Keep thinking. We’ve still got … days.Do I see a hand over there in Connecticut? Yes, Stamford? You’ve got the former manager of the Mets running? And he called the Democratic candidate “a 35-year-old girl?” Wow, is he promising to make Stamford a municipal version of the Mets?Like residents of many cities, New Yorkers frequently feel as if their November vote is a tad anticlimactic. The real drama came in the Democratic primary — as the winner, Adams now enjoys a certain advantage that comes with being standard-bearer for a party with 3.7 million voters, compared with the Republicans’ 566,000.But we political junkies are hanging on until the bitter end. Still lots to gnaw over. Does everybody know that Sliwa’s been married four times and has two children from a long-running entanglement with the Queens district attorney? Meanwhile, where does Adams, a former police officer running on his promise to reform the city’s law enforcement culture, actually live? Brooklyn? New Jersey? His office? If we’re confused, Adams says it may be the fault of his having employed a homeless man to fill out his tax forms.OK, your turn to complain about your options.Yes, Minneapolis, I see your hand. You’re right: People who live in cities where the choice is basically between two names on the ballot should not be whining near folks who are going to have to pick from — my gosh, did you say 17?Indeed. Minneapolis has 17 candidates for mayor. The poor voters are supposed to go through the whole pile and pick a favorite, a runner-up and a third selection. This is called ranked-choice voting and it’s gotten very popular around the country. As the votes are counted, the biggest losers are tossed off and the people who picked them get their next choice put in the mix. The system has many advantages, but it does add one more responsibility to your good-citizen agenda. I remember being stuck at my Manhattan polling place, trying to imagine who my third-favorite candidate for comptroller might be …The Minneapolis election is theoretically nonpartisan but the candidates are allowed to give themselves a tag. Seven say they’re Democratic Farmer-Labor, which is going to give the voters quite a bit to scramble through, when they aren’t being distracted by the difference between the Independent, Independence Alliance and For the People parties. Or the self-declared nicknames, like Nate “Honey Badger” Atkins and Kevin “No Body” Ward. Another candidate calls himself Bob “Again” Carney Jr. and that’s a great reminder of how many times you’ve gone to vote, looked at the ballot and moaned, “Not again …”So, bottom line: big election doings coming on Tuesday. For your town, for your city and for all those candidates. Winning a job like mayor is certainly an opportunity to serve the community. And maybe it’s a political steppingstone to — what?A. Being elected presidentB. Being elected mayor againC. Being indictedWell, only three American mayors have ever gone on to the White House, and the last of those was Calvin Coolidge. As far as lengthy tenure goes, lots of towns now have term limits, but for those that don’t, the sky’s the limit. (By the way, feel free to congratulate Robert Blais of Lake George, N.Y., on his 50th anniversary as village mayor. Blais, 85, recently told a local paper that he was leaning heavily toward retirement a couple of years down the line.)On the indictment front, I noticed that a leading candidate for mayor in the upcoming Cincinnati election had his campaign sidetracked when he was charged with accepting bribes last November. Certainly sounds like time for a change, but observers are noting that the Cincinnati electorate seems a little, um, detached. “Does anyone care, including the candidates themselves?” demanded a local columnist.Well, you can understand why the voters might be a tad depressed, given that a third of the City Council has been arrested on charges like bribery and extortion. But really, citizens, this is exactly the time you have to put on your boots and march over to the polling places, demonstrating that you’re paying attention and want to turn things around.Really, it’ll perk up your day. Even if it’s raining.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

    • 50 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      First, Rain. Now, Wind.

      by

      It’s Wednesday. We’ll track the still-blustery nor’easter that has been swirling over the New York area for more than 36 hours. We’ll also catch up on the second mayoral debate. And we’ll hear from our restaurant critic, Pete Wells, who has rediscovered Midtown.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesNor’easter, Day 2It’s almost done with New York, but not quite. The nor’easter that charted a relentless course up the I-95 corridor packed a one-two punch. After clobbering the region with rain Monday night and yesterday, it switched to high winds that could knock down trees and power lines. That would create fresh havoc on roads that on Tuesday looked more like choppy waterways.[Heavy Rain Soaks New York as Nor’easter Pounds the Region]But the nor’easter did not deliver a knockout. The worst fears, a repeat of the devastation brought on by the unexpectedly deadly dregs of Hurricane Ida last month, seemed not to materialize. As the rain subsided and the wind surged, officials warned of potential power failures, particularly in coastal areas.We can expect a blustering morning and a brisk autumn day with temps around 56. “It’s going to be breezy, but the wind should be coming down,” David Stark, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told me at 4 a.m. today. As the storm system churns its way into the Atlantic, eastern Long Island and Connecticut will feel the strongest gusts.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Monday (All Saints Day).CAMPAIGN COUNTDOWNThe candidates’ second face-offThe second and last debate of the mayoral campaign was more aggressive, more adversarial and more acrimonious than the first.The two candidates covered many of the same topics. But Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, repeatedly talked past time limits as he attacked Eric Adams, his Democratic opponent, who tried to keep a stoic, above-the-fray smile.That lasted for about 15 tense minutes. “You are acting like my son when he was 4 years old,” Adams declared. “Show some discipline so we can get to all of these issues. You’re interrupting, you’re being disrespectful. Show a level of discipline. You want to be the mayor of New York, start with discipline.”As my colleague Emma Fitzsimmons writes, the debate, hosted by ​​WABC-TV, gave Sliwa one last chance to try to tackle Adams. But Sliwa’s fiery performance, a week before Election Day, might have come too late to change the dynamics of the race, even as he repeatedly slammed Mayor Bill de Blasio’s record and referred to the mayor as Adams’s “friend and teammate.”“Is there a grade below D-minus?” Sliwa responded when asked to assign a letter grade to the mayor. “F!”Adams gave de Blasio a B-plus. Both candidates agreed that de Blasio’s universal pre-K program was his principal achievement. Adams, who has tried to distance himself from de Blasio’s vaccine mandate for municipal workers, said he did not oppose them but would have communicated with union officials before announcing them. Sliwa called the mandates “madness” and said unvaccinated workers could have been tested weekly. Under de Blasio’s policy, they will go on unpaid leave.“When I’m mayor, I’m hiring them all back,” Sliwa said, “and I’m giving them back pay.”CHILD WELFAREPromising to repair gaps in the safety netAfter several children were beaten to death at home as summer waned, New York City is making changes to improve coordination between the police and the city’s child welfare agency.This came as three of my colleagues — Andy Newman, Ashley Southall and Chelsia Rose Marcius — focused on four children who had been the subject of prior reports about possible or suspected abuse.[These Children Were Beaten to Death. Could They Have Been Saved?]The number of homicides of children in the city this year is close to that of recent years, but the four deaths exposed gaps in the multiagency safety net. In recent weeks, city officials have examined how investigators skipped steps, were slow to follow up on warnings about suspected abuse or might have closed cases too soon.In response to questions from The New York Times about possible missteps, the city said it would keep closer watch over families that have been subjects of reports of suspected abuse..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Changes include appointing a captain to oversee child abuse cases in the police Special Victims Division, effectively reinstituting a position that was eliminated a year ago; requiring home visits by the police in suspected abuse cases when someone in the family has a history of domestic violence; and restarting a cross-training program between the Police Department and the city’s child welfare agency, the Administration for Children’s Services. That program was dropped last year when the pandemic closed in.The latest New York newsDavid Gilbert, a participant in the infamous 1981 Brink’s robbery whose 75-year prison sentence was commuted by Andrew Cuomo, will be released.A busway on Fifth Avenue is now uncertain after a major real estate developer expressed opposition to the plans.Midtown is back on the menuAdam Friedlander for The New York TimesOur restaurant critic, Pete Wells, has rediscovered Midtown.For us locals who once complained that Midtown was clogged with tourists, he says it’s rebounded to where it’s half-clogged. He felt relieved to see taxis again after months when Midtown was unnaturally quiet. A few landmarks, like the “21” Club and Shun Lee Palace, are still dark. The Grand Central Oyster Bar didn’t reopen for good until last month.And now? Midtown is once again the place where the main dish is New York, New York — no matter what restaurant you go to. Here’s one of the many choice parts in his critic’s notebook piece:Just as there are many New Yorks, there are many Midtowns, too, all on top of one another, each with its own restaurant scene. The one I knew best was the king-of-the-hill, top-of-the-heap Midtown, where chefs perform on grand stages that will never be mistaken for neighborhood joints. This is the realm of Le Bernardin, Aquavit, Gabriel Kreuther and Empellón.But I knew what those places can do. Instead, I explored Japanese Midtown, an extensive network that stretches almost from river to river. I checked in on Steakhouse Midtown, flourishing, or at least surviving. I looked for the Midtown where workers on hourly wages stand in line at Margon for Cuban ropa vieja stewed so long it practically turns into marmalade, and the one where on any given night three or four billionaires will spend thousands of dollars on wine and pasta without looking at the menu.Before showing up for dinner at Patsy’s, the Neapolitan restaurant that gave Frank Sinatra not just his own table but his own entrance, I asked somebody who has eaten there all his life what to get. He had no idea; his father, who goes once a week, always does the ordering. So he asked his father, who named two dishes that aren’t on the menu. It’s that kind of place.Even without an inside tip, you can put together a meal at Patsy’s — rigatoni fra diavolo, say, or fennel sausages in marinara with a heap of sweet peppers — that reminds you just how good Southern Italian food refracted through a New York lens can be. Decades of shortcuts, cheap-outs, infidelities and distortions gave red-sauce cuisine a reputation as a debased, degraded creature. None of that happened at Patsy’s.I wouldn’t say this if Sinatra were around, but Patsy’s does not make my favorite veal Parm in Midtown. For that, I go to Pietro’s on East 43rd Street.[17 Restaurants to Bookmark for Your Next Visit to Midtown]What we’re readingHalloween weekend is coming. Learn a thing or two about how to scare someone from performers at some of New York’s hallowed haunted attractions.Some homeless New Yorkers were moved from shelters to hotels and to the streets. They spoke to The City about their experiences.METROPOLITAN diaryAt the moviesDear Diary:Some years ago, my daughter rented her first apartment in Manhattan. She asked me to come in from Queens to wait for a furniture delivery so that she wouldn’t have to take time off from her new job.The delivery came very early, leaving me with the rest of the day to myself. I walked down Third Avenue, window-shopping and people-watching.After a few blocks, I came to a movie theater that was showing a Swedish film I had planned to see when it came to my neighborhood. Perfect!I bought a ticket, went inside and chose a seat in the middle of the theater.As the lights went down, a woman came in and took the aisle seat of the row I was in. After the movie ended, she approached me.“Can we talk about the movie a little?” she asked.We did for several minutes. Then she thanked me and left.— Louise DukeIllustrated 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, Rick Martinez and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      5 Takeaways From the Last N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate

      by

      The final debate in the New York City mayor’s race devolved into a chaotic contest Tuesday night marked by name-calling, lecturing, personal remarks and even profanity as the long-shot Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, sought to knock Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee, off-kilter at every turn.Mr. Sliwa faces extraordinarily difficult odds against Mr. Adams, and for much of the campaign, Mr. Adams has cast himself as a mayor-in-waiting who is already preparing to govern the nation’s largest city, ignoring Mr. Sliwa’s efforts to coax him into confrontation.But on Tuesday, the candidates did clash at times, and Mr. Sliwa spent much of the debate hectoring and interrupting Mr. Adams, and occasionally jolting him out of the rise-above-it-all demeanor that he deployed during their first debate last week. Mr. Adams lashed Mr. Sliwa for faking crimes and even over his record on child support.“That is scurrilous,” Mr. Sliwa protested.The two candidates staked out starkly different positions on matters from vaccine mandates to congestion pricing to outdoor dining, while finding common ground on some education and public safety issues.Still, the personal and political divide between the nominees was repeatedly thrown into sharp relief for viewers who tuned in one week before Election Day.Here are five takeaways from the debate:Mr. Sliwa needed an election-altering moment. He didn’t get one.Given New York City’s overwhelmingly Democratic tilt, any Republican nominee would face a steep climb in a mayoral contest. But Mr. Sliwa, whom Mr. Adams has referred to as a “clown,” may face an especially hard challenge.He has admitted, as Mr. Adams noted repeatedly, to faking crimes for publicity when he was younger. He is perhaps as well-known these days for owning more than a dozen cats as he is for any sweeping vision for the city. And while Mr. Sliwa has tried to make public safety a signature issue that galvanizes voters, that effort is complicated by Mr. Adams’s background as a former police officer.Taken together, Mr. Sliwa needed something of a miracle to change the seeming trajectory of the race — and he did not appear to get one. He did seem to catch Mr. Adams off guard at times, opening the debate by forcefully questioning Mr. Adams about interactions with gang members, which sent Mr. Adams veering into attack mode himself.But if Mr. Sliwa sought to produce any damaging new information about Mr. Adams that would make many voters seriously reconsider their choices, it was not immediately clear what that would be, since he pushed many familiar lines of attack.And as the debate wore on, Mr. Adams returned to his posture of ignoring Mr. Sliwa, looking at the camera instead of at his opponent, skipping opportunities to question or engage Mr. Sliwa, and insisting that his focus was on the voters of New York City.The two men clashed over one of the city’s biggest crises: homelessness.Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio’s social services commissioner, while his Democratic challenger, Eric Adams, called for building more housing and converting empty hotel rooms to address the crisis.Pool photo by Eduardo MunozHomelessness is one of the most pressing issues that the next mayor will face.There were nearly 48,000 homeless people, including almost 15,000 children, sleeping in the city’s shelter system every night in August, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.The overall figure for August also included 18,357 single adults, close to a record.Asked how they would tackle the homeless issue, Mr. Sliwa skirted the question and instead attacked Mr. Adams and his relationship with Mayor Bill de Blasio.The single adult population in homeless shelters has increased 60 percent since Mr. de Blasio took office in 2014. The mayor has cited homelessness as one of the issues he has struggled with the most during his two terms.“We’ve been out in the streets tending to their needs, getting them food and clothing, these lost souls,” Mr. Sliwa said before quickly pivoting to criticizing Mr. de Blasio and his social services commissioner, whom Mr. Adams has praised.“I would like you, Eric Adams, to condemn your partner and your teammate Bill de Blasio,” Mr. Sliwa said.Mr. Adams ignored Mr. Sliwa’s remark, calling homelessness a “real issue” before laying out a more detailed proposal..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Adams talked about his plan to turn 25,000 underused hotels rooms in the boroughs outside of Manhattan into permanent single-room occupancy housing for the homeless. Many hotels outside the main tourist and business districts in Manhattan were “built to be shelters,” Mr. Adams said.“We have to get out of the shelter business and get into the business of getting people permanent housing,” he said.Mr. Adams also said he would increase housing subsidies for families at risk of losing their homes, use a state law to get homeless people who can’t take care of themselves off the street, and partner with the police and mental health professionals to move homeless people out of the subways.“These are our neighbors. These are our former residents that lived next to us,” Mr. Adams said. “There’s a level of compassion that comes with it.”The debate turned nasty quickly.Eric Adams chastised Curtis Sliwa, saying he was acting immaturely, and Mr. Sliwa accused Mr. Adams of actually living in New Jersey.Pool photo by Eduardo MunozMr. Sliwa suggested that Mr. Adams consorted with murderers. Mr. Adams noted that Mr. Sliwa had admitted to faking crimes.And the debate had barely begun.On substantive issues, this debate proved similar to last week’s contest. But tonally, it proved far nastier.After Mr. Adams argued that he would have engaged more energetically with union leaders on vaccine mandates, Mr. Sliwa suggested that Mr. Adams talk to his “friend and teammate” Mr. de Blasio, who will soon be leaving office.“You are acting like my son when he was 4 years old,” Mr. Adams shot back. “Show some discipline so we can get to all of these issues. You’re interrupting, you’re being disrespectful.”Mr. Sliwa countered that Mr. Adams should stop being a “robot” and show compassion for city workers who risk losing their salaries for failing to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.Soon enough, the conversation got even more personal.Mr. Sliwa accused Mr. Adams of actually living in New Jersey, an allusion to questions that have been raised about Mr. Adams’s residency, and he mocked Mr. Adams’s decision to blame his tax-filing errors on his purportedly homeless accountant.“You fake where you live, Eric Adams,” Mr. Sliwa said.Mr. Adams said that Mr. Sliwa was demonstrating “clown-like actions,” and then accused him of hiding money so he would not have to pay child support.“That is scurrilous that you would say that,” Mr. Sliwa said. “How dare you bring my family into this?”The tenor of the debate did not go unnoticed.“I assume you’re not going to send each other holiday cards come December,” said Bill Ritter, who moderated the debate.On some hot-button issues, the candidates agreed — a reminder that the next mayor will not come from the city’s left wing.Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee, and his Republican challenger, Curtis Sliwa, both advocated increased policing in New York City to combat a rise in crime.Pool photo by Eduardo MunozMr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa may disagree on many of the specifics, but both fundamentally believe in expanding the role of the police in promoting public safety.Mr. Adams, who has said he was a victim of police brutality and spent much of his police career advocating for changes from within the system, also described his plan for bringing back an overhauled plainclothes unit to target gangs, “target those who are using guns.” His proposal has discomfited some New Yorkers who want to see the power of the police scaled back.And Mr. Sliwa indicated, in his typical forceful language, that he wants to empower the police to the greatest extent possible.Issues of education — and the best way to make public schools more integrated and equitable — do not necessarily break down along neat ideological lines. Both Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa have expressed concerns over Mr. de Blasio’s decision to end the gifted and talented program for elementary school children. They have said, instead, that they want to expand the program, positions that they revisited on Tuesday night.A moment of levity over pets and diet.When asked near the end of their debate to say something nice about each other, Eric Adams admired Curtis Sliwa’s dedication to saving cats and Mr. Sliwa praised Mr. Adams for choosing not to eat animals.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersFor a brief moment, the candidates did not fight with each other. They communed over animals. More precisely, Mr. Sliwa praised Mr. Adams’s decision to forgo eating animals, while Mr. Adams praised Mr. Sliwa’s work in rescuing them.The moment of bonhomie did not happen without some prodding.Toward the end of the debate, Mr. Ritter asked the candidates to say something “nice” about their opponent.“I take my hat off to Curtis, what he is doing with cats,” said Mr. Adams, perhaps referring to Mr. Sliwa’s advocacy for no-kill shelters, or perhaps to the more than a dozen cats that share a 320-square-foot studio apartment with Mr. Sliwa and his wife. “I think we need to be humane to all living beings.”Mr. Sliwa was even more effusive in his praise for Mr. Adams’s decision to become a vegan.“His promotion of a vegan way of life to avoid serious medical issues has probably already helped dozens, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of people,” Mr. Sliwa said. “As someone who has been in the hospital many, many times, I hope one day to be a vegan.”Right now, Mr. Sliwa added, he is “at the vegetarian stage.” More