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      Eric Adams Has $7.7 Million to Spend, As Donations From Wealthy Pour In

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      With victory nearly assured, Mr. Adams has amassed a substantial war chest ahead of the general election for New York City mayor. His opponent lags far behind.Eric Adams is heavily favored to become the next mayor of New York City, but that hasn’t stopped him from amassing an intimidatingly large war chest ahead of November’s general election.Mr. Adams, the Democratic nominee, has raised another $2.4 million since late August, leaving his campaign with roughly $7.7 million to promote his message and to signal strength. Over the course of five weeks, some 700 donors gave him the legal maximum donation of $2,000, according to the latest campaign finance reports released on Friday.His Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, raised roughly $200,000 during the latest filing period and has $1.2 million on hand. Only two people gave him the maximum donation of $2,000.There has been no public polling, but Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly seven to one in New York City, and many are predicting a landslide for Mr. Adams. Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, has been struggling to gain momentum and recently released his first campaign ads, which showed him scratching the chin of a rescue cat and riding the subway.Curtis Sliwa, the Republican mayoral candidate, has $1.2 million on hand.Stephanie Keith for The New York TimesMr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has spent much of his summer focused on fund-raising, traveling to the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard and courting wealthy donors who favor his brand of centrism. His travels appeared to have paid off: He raised more than $950,000 from donors outside New York City during the latest filing period — about 40 percent of his haul.His donors ran the gamut, from billionaires to a plumber from the Bronx.The billionaires included the Mediacom Communications chief executive, Rocco Commisso; the Estée Lauder heir William Lauder; Laurie Tisch, the Loews Corporation heiress, and her brother, Steve Tisch, the chairman of the New York Giants.Mr. Adams raked in handsome donations from the hedge fund industry, too, including from John Griffin, the founder of Blue Ridge Capital; Lee Ainslie, the founder of Maverick Ventures; and the New York Mets owner, Steven A. Cohen, the chief executive of Point72, who donated $1,800 to Mr. Adams, and whose employees donated an additional $26,500.Mr. Adams has said in recent weeks that he would swing open New York’s doors to businesses big and small and use incentives when necessary to lure them here. In his rhetoric, he is drawing a sharp contrast with the outgoing mayor, Bill de Blasio, who has openly quarreled with the city’s business elite.“The support for our campaign from every corner of the city continues to be overwhelming and humbling,” Mr. Adams said in a statement on Friday.Early voting in the general election begins on Oct. 23. Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa are expected to participate in two debates this month on WNBC and WABC. Mr. Sliwa, who is fighting for exposure, is pushing for more debates.Mr. Sliwa recently qualified for public matching funds and has sought to capture attention with dog-and-pony media events, like crossing the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey in a showy effort to find out where Mr. Adams lives. But Mr. Sliwa’s proclivity for drama backfired last week when his campaign claimed on Twitter that he had found a gun at a crime scene on the Upper West Side when, in fact, he had not.Mr. Sliwa’s campaign released a statement on Friday trumpeting his recent fund-raising and said it believes “this will be a very competitive and close race.”But even Mr. Sliwa has acknowledged that he is facing an uphill battle. As a sign of Mr. Adams’s broad appeal, both Mr. de Blasio, a self-described progressive, and Michael R. Bloomberg, a pro-business centrist, have embraced him.Mr. Adams’s most recent campaign finance filings indicate that special interests from a cross-section of New York labor and industry are eager to make his acquaintance. Many of his donations came from landlords and developers, including William Blodgett, the co-founder of Fairstead; the Durst Organization executive Alexander Durst; Anthony Malkin, chairman of the company that owns the Empire State Building; and Joseph Sitt, chairman of Thor Equities Group.Eric Adams’s campaign has raised more than $7.7 million heading into the general election.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThere were also donations from the philanthropists David Rockefeller Jr. and Susan Rockefeller; Jeffrey Gural, a major landlord and the owner of the Tioga Downs casino in the Southern Tier; and members of the Rudin family, who are prominent in commercial real estate.With New York gearing up to sell recreational marijuana, cannabis investors sought Mr. Adams’s good graces, too, including the LeafLink CEO, Ryan Smith, and Gregory Heyman, the managing partner of Beehouse.The Adams campaign has spent about $630,000 since late August — on consultants, polling and other expenses — and appears to saving the bulk of its money for advertising in the final weeks before Election Day. Mr. Sliwa spent $1.5 million during the latest filing period, including about $1 million on television and radio ads.Bruce Gyory, a veteran Democratic strategist, said Mr. Adams most likely plans to spend his campaign war chest “not just to promote interest in his candidacy, but to build a mandate for his approach to governing New York.”“At every turn in this mayoral race, Adams and his campaign have been strategic,” he said. “So my hunch is that Eric Adams will use this spending advantage purposefully.”Mr. Adams has already started to plan his transition ahead of Inauguration Day in January. In recent weeks, he has released a series of broad-based proposals about how he would address climate change and the affordable housing crisis.Now that Mr. Adams can devote less time to fund-raising, he is planning a trip that he hopes will benefit him as mayor: visiting the Netherlands to examine its solutions to flooding.A firm date for the trip has yet to be determined. More

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      ‘We’ve Become Too Complicated’: Where Eric Adams Thinks Democrats Went Wrong

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      In July, Eric Adams narrowly won the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York, making him the odds-on favorite to win in November. And he won the nomination by running directly against the verities of today’s progressives: asserting that the police are the answer, not the problem; that “defund the police” misjudged what communities of color actually want; that Democrats had lost touch with the multiracial working-class voters they claim to represent.Adams won on that message. He won in deep-blue New York City. It’s made him a national figure, and he’s been emphatic on what that means. “I am the face of the new Democratic Party,” he said. And “if the Democratic Party fails to recognize what we did here in New York, they’re going to have a problem in the midterm elections and they’re going to have a problem in the presidential election.”[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]When politicians become national stories, they often release, or rerelease, a book. Adams is no exception. But instead of a campaign manifesto or an autobiography, “Healthy at Last” is a book about the health benefits of plant-based eating. “Outspoken vegan” isn’t a political identity I tend to associate with ambitious politicians at odds with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but that’s Adams for you. He doesn’t shy away from a fight.In this conversation, Adams and I talk about the fights he is picking, or will have to pick, in the coming years: with progressives who he thinks have lost their way, with police unions he wants to reform, with wealthy communities where he wants to build more housing, with critics who think plant-based eating is a hobby for foodie elites and with voters who may not be willing to wait for Adams’s “upstream” approach to social problems to pay off.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Tommy Thomas“The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin. More

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      Andrew Yang Is Back for a Third Round

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      Andrew Yang failed in his campaigns for president of the United States and mayor of New York City, but that has not stopped him from trying to disrupt the political status quo with a new party, which he has named “Forward.” This time, the candidate known for evangelizing universal basic income, or U.B.I., is championing ideas like open primaries and rank-choice voting (which, incidentally, was the voting system used in the mayoral race he lost). But critics are skeptical that he needs to work outside the two-party system to accomplish these goals.[You can listen to this episode of “Sway” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]In this conversation, Kara Swisher asks Yang whether the new party is a gimmick to sell books or a real solution to political polarization. She presses him for some self-reflection on his mayoral campaign, and they unpack whether lack of government experience is an asset or a liability. Also, we get an update on the Yang Gang.(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Andrew YangThoughts? Email us at sway@nytimes.com.“Sway” is produced by Nayeema Raza, Blakeney Schick, Matt Kwong, Daphne Chen and Caitlin O’Keefe, and edited by Nayeema Raza; fact-checking by Kate Sinclair; music and sound design by Isaac Jones; mixing by Carole Sabouraud and Sonia Herrero; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Liriel Higa. More

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      The Unofficial Start of the Governor’s Race

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      It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at Gov. Kathy Hochul’s moves to raise money and her potential opponents’ moves to run in the Democratic primary next year. We’ll also look at how rainy September really was.From left: Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times; Vincent Tullo for The New York Times; Dave Sanders for The New York TimesGov. Kathy Hochul has been in office for only 36 days. But there are signs that the peripatetic successor to Andrew Cuomo is preparing for something that will happen on her 308th day in office, eight months 30 days from now — the Democratic primary in New York.As my colleagues Nicholas Fandos and Katie Glueck explain, Hochul is revving up an aggressive fund-raising apparatus to build a formidable financial advantage — as much as $25 million. Her goal is to fend off potential rivals in what could become a battle for the direction of the state Democratic Party.The moves she has made, including hiring a campaign manager and other senior political advisers, have not gone unnoticed. Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, made his first public move toward running for governor on Tuesday, forming an exploratory committee and framing a progressive agenda. He also outlined contrasts with Hochul, suggesting that she had not pushed back against Cuomo when she was his lieutenant governor.His announcement amounted to an unofficial start of the 2022 campaign for governor. Mayor Bill de Blasio — prevented from running this November for re-election by term limits — has discussed the governor’s race with allies. On Tuesday, he told reporters, “I intend to stay in public service” after his term ends, adding, “There is a lot that needs to be fixed in this city and this state.” His longtime pollster recently conducted a survey to gauge the mayor’s appeal beyond New York City.Representative Thomas Suozzi, who represents parts of Long Island and Queens, has maintained an active fund-raising schedule.Will Letitia James run?But the biggest question is whether the state attorney general, Letitia James, will enter the field. Some of her allies sound increasingly confident that she will, although she dodged a question about her political future during an appearance in New York City on Wednesday. (She defended her investigation of Cuomo, which led to his resignation — and which he repeatedly assailed as politically motivated.)James is seeking donations for her re-election as attorney general. But she could transfer that money to another statewide account. She reported that she had $1.6 million in cash on hand in her most recent campaign filing in July, slightly less than Hochul reported in August. People close to James maintain that she could draw national interest, much as Stacey Abrams’s campaign for governor of Georgia did in 2018. James, if she ran and were elected, would be the nation’s first Black woman governor.For now, some donors are taking a wait-and-see approach or are hedging their bets with smaller contributions, in part because Hochul has only just begun to wield decision-making power in Albany. “Kathy Hochul has made promises that she is a true-blue supporter of workers, but we will see if that’s true,” said John Samuelsen, the international president of the Transport Workers Union, which gave close to half a million dollars to Cuomo’s campaigns, according to public election records, before a bitter falling out.Cuomo was an extraordinarily fund-raiser — he took in more than $135 million in his three campaigns for governor and left office with $18 million in contributions. Hochul appears to be copying at least part of Cuomo’s approach, relying mainly on big-money donors rather than grass-roots contributors who chip in as little as $5.But her campaign has recently hired Authentic Campaigns, a consulting firm specializing in small-donor online donations that has worked for President Biden and other prominent Democrats, to change that.WeatherThe chilly (for fall) weather continues with a mostly sunny day in the low 60s. Expect a mostly clear evening, with temps dropping to the low 50s.alternate-side parkingIn effect until Oct. 11 (Columbus Day).The latest New York newsMary Bassett, who won acclaim for leading New York City through a series of health crises, was named as the state’s new health commissioner.Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, who has led the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn for 18 years, is retiring weeks after a Vatican investigation cleared him of accusations of child sexual abuse. Bishop Robert Brennan, a Bronx native, will succeed him.On Tuesday, “Aladdin” held its first performance since Broadway closed for the pandemic. On Wednesday, the show was canceled because of several positive coronavirus tests.A rainy summer for the booksAlexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty ImagesA day of sunshine and patchy clouds like today is the perfect day to think about rain — specifically, a three-month data point that seemed to confirm what many New Yorkers sensed as summer dissolved into a memory and autumn seemed so inviting.For the first time, New York has had three consecutive months with more than 10 inches of umbrella weather. It didn’t just seem as if July, August and September were that wet — they were, as measured by the National Weather Service in Central Park, where it has tracked the weather since 1869.July, with 11.09 inches, was the third-wettest July on record. (Only July 1975 and July 1889 had more rain.) Last month, with 10.32 inches, was the fourth-wettest August. It trails the 19 inches of August 2011, the record-holder for precipitation in a single month, and the Augusts of 1990 and 1955. But thanks to Tropical Storm Henri, August 2021 is in the record books for the rainiest hour on record in the city — the 60 minutes between 10 and 11 p.m. on Aug. 21 — and two record-breaking days, Aug. 21 and Aug. 22.Unless there is an unexpected cloudburst today, September will end with 10.03 inches, making this the sixth-wettest September.There has been only one other time with even two consecutive 10-inch-plus months. That was in spring 1983, when a 10.54-inch March was followed by a 14.01-inch April.What carried this month past the 10-inch mark was a torrential rain that swept across the city like a storm on a tropic island on Tuesday — sudden, intense and then gone. It added 0.27 inch to the month’s total.Of course, September was rainy from the beginning. The remnants of Ida — no longer even a tropical depression by the time it swirled across New York — flooded an already-saturated city with 7.13 inches of precipitation. That fell short of the rainiest single day in the city’s history, Sept. 23, 1882, when 8.28 inches fell. (The Times credited — or blamed — “the heaviest and most drenching rainstorm which has visited this city and neighborhood within the memory of man.”)Since then, September has been relatively dry, with only 2.9 inches of rain from Sept. 2 through yesterday. The average monthly rainfall in September is 4.31 inches.Is the three-month record related to climate change?“Potentially yes and no,” said Brian Ciemnecki, a meteorologist with the Weather Service. “When we’re talking about climate change, you don’t look at any one specific event and say, ‘That was caused by climate change.’”“When we had Ida, people said, ‘This is all climate change.’ Weather is what we get day in and day out,” Ciemnecki continued. “The issue with climate change is we’re seeing more frequent weather events where we have heavier rainfall.”What we’re readingThere’s the Met Gala, and then there’s the Metro Gala. It’s at Union Square, amNewYork reports.Jon Stewart is again behind a faux anchor’s desk in a Manhattan television studio.Gothamist reported on a group of musicians in Harlem who found an unlikely stage for public performances: their fire escapes.METROPOLITAN diaryFinding ‘Fischer’Dear Diary:I recently retired with a yen to play chess again. I love the game but hadn’t played it in years.I remembered that Central Park has a lovely chess area perched on a shady hilltop where there is usually someone looking for a game — more often than not either a very strong player or what’s called a “patzer” (someone much weaker).I went there and was delighted to find it much the same as I recalled. I overheard a man giving an introductory lesson to a young boy. His instructions were clear and concise and peppered with interesting historical tidbits.When the boy left with his father, I asked the man if he’d like to play.“Sure,” he said.I introduced myself, and he said he was “Fischer.”“As in Bobby?”“Yes,” he said. “He was my favorite player.”Expecting to be routed, I was pleasantly surprised to find that our skills were about even. Plus, if one of us blundered in the middle of a close game, the other would offer a mulligan to take the move back.“Why let one small mistake spoil a good game for both of us?” he said when I thanked him for that courtesy.We meet regularly now. I still don’t know his real name.— John JaegerIllustrated by Agnes Lee. 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, Jeffrey Furticella, Rick Martinez, Andy Newman 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

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      As Adams Plots City’s Future, He Leans on a Past Mayor: Bloomberg

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      The relationship between Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee in New York City, and Mike Bloomberg has benefits for both men.In the lead-up to and aftermath of the New York City mayoral primary, Eric Adams and his team sought guidance from current and past city leaders — first, to help craft his successful bid for the Democratic nomination, and then to prepare for a likely transition to the mayoralty.But Mr. Adams has recently come to lean on one person in particular: Michael R. Bloomberg.In mid-September, Mr. Bloomberg released a video endorsement of Mr. Adams for mayor. The next day, at a business conference featuring various of Mr. Bloomberg’s fellow billionaires, Mr. Adams declared, “New York will no longer be anti-business.”Two days later, Mr. Bloomberg hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Adams on the roof of the East 78th Street headquarters of Bloomberg Philanthropies, featuring dozens of guests, several of them financial sector executives.Last Wednesday, one of Mr. Bloomberg’s closest advisers, Howard Wolfson, met with David C. Banks, who is thought be among Mr. Adams’s top choices for schools chancellor.The meeting between Mr. Wolfson, Mr. Bloomberg’s former deputy mayor, and Mr. Banks, the founder of a network of all-boys public schools, was not happenstance. It was a product of a burgeoning relationship between the once and likely future mayors and has played out in proclamations of mutual regard.“The best New York City mayor in my lifetime is a combination of Mayor David Dinkins and Michael Bloomberg,” Mr. Adams said during the primary, hailing Mr. Bloomberg’s “practical approach.”Mr. Adams’s overtures to Mr. Bloomberg reinforce the notion that Mr. Adams has himself perpetuated on the campaign trail: that he is a pragmatic, centrist Democrat eager to make New York safe, prosperous and functional.Tying himself to Mr. Bloomberg may yield other benefits for Mr. Adams, too. It gives him access to a particularly well-heeled corner of New York’s donor class and the opportunity to wrap himself in the aura of Mr. Bloomberg’s reputed managerial skill, especially as questions arise about Mr. Adams’s ability to manage his own affairs.In recent days, Mr. Adams has been battered by headlines about his tax returns, which he has promised to revise, for the second time, after reporters found irregularities in them. Mr. Adams blames those errors on his accountant, whom Mr. Adams said he kept in his employ, even though the tax preparer was homeless. The news outlet The City reported that the tax preparer’s neighbors had accused him of embezzling money and had evicted him.Mr. Adams and his campaign have spoken to a number of former officials in the Bloomberg administration and former and current officials in the de Blasio administration, said Evan Thies, a spokesman for Mr. Adams.“It’s not like he’s embracing one mayor over the other mayor,” Mr. Thies said. “That’s just what you do, check in with people who have been there.”Mr. Adams plans to have a group of deputy mayors with whom he can consult, including current and former officials from past administrations. In some ways, he has approached the mayoralty like a research project — seeking out the advice of deputy mayors going as far back as the Giuliani administration.“He was trying to pick my brain and think out of the box,” said Phil Thompson, the deputy mayor for strategic policy initiatives for Mr. de Blasio and a former staffer in the Dinkins administration. “He is trying to figure out how a mayor can do something for low-income communities of color to make a difference.”Mr. Adams, center, has said recently that New York City is “out of control,” but is wary of alienating Mayor Bill de Blasio, a supporter.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMr. Bloomberg, who has extended an open-door policy to Mr. Adams and his team, may also derive some benefit from the relationship with Mr. Adams. It allows him to involve himself again in New York City municipal matters — following eight years of disengagement while his successor, Bill de Blasio, held office — and to burnish his reputation here.One former Bloomberg aide, who requested anonymity to speak freely, noted that while the former mayor had little standing in the de Blasio administration, he is far more likely to act as a respected source of advice for Mr. Adams.Mr. de Blasio ran for mayor by decrying Mr. Bloomberg’s legacy, arguing that New York had become a “tale of two cities,” one for the rich, the other for the poor. At Mr. de Blasio’s inauguration in 2014, Mr. Bloomberg was forced to sit poker-faced as speakers derided his tenure, with one comparing the city under his rule to a “plantation.”Mr. Adams, in contrast, campaigned on a platform of restoring public safety and prosperity, the frequently voiced concerns of the business class. He has recently decried the city’s state of “disorder,” and has cited a laundry list of ills such as graffiti, ATVs, homelessness and shootings.Like Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Adams is a former Republican. And during Mr. Bloomberg’s ill-fated presidential campaign, Mr. Adams served as a surrogate, saying publicly that he believed the former mayor was remorseful for his Police Department’s abusive use of stop-and-frisk, after the two men met for 45 minutes at Mr. Adams’s table at Brooklyn’s Park Plaza Restaurant.Dennis M. Walcott, the former city schools chancellor and deputy mayor under Mr. Bloomberg, said Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Adams have similar styles.“Adams’s style is such that he works with people from both sides of the aisle,” Mr. Walcott said. “One of the interesting things about Mayor Bloomberg is he recruited people who didn’t necessarily support him and then surrounded himself with solid talent.”In mid-September, Mr. Adams appeared on two Bloomberg Media programs, one on the radio, the other on TV, during which he promised to crack down on disorder and open New York City to business, including by offering incentives. Job No. 1, he said, was public safety.Mr. Wolfson, Mr. Bloomberg’s longtime adviser, is spearheading the Bloomberg-Adams engagement effort, by several accounts. He spoke regularly with Sheena Wright, the United Way of New York City chief executive who is running Mr. Adams’s transition, in the run-up to the fund-raiser. Representatives of Mr. Adams have also connected with Robert Steel, another former deputy mayor under Mr. Bloomberg. And Daniel Doctoroff, Mr. Bloomberg’s former deputy mayor for economic development and the former head of Bloomberg L.P., has independently spoken with Mr. Adams.Mr. Bloomberg has also met personally with Mr. Adams, according to one person familiar with the meeting, and has spoken with him privately throughout the course of the campaign, according to Mr. Adams’s aide. And Mr. Bloomberg hosted last Wednesday’s fund-raiser, during which Mr. Adams is said to have extolled Mr. Bloomberg’s expertise, and Mr. Bloomberg is said to have expressed confidence in Mr. Adams.Several dozen Bloomberg associates attended the 8 a.m. fund-raiser, where the price of admittance was $2,000 a head.The guests included at least five former Bloomberg deputy mayors: Mr. Steel and Robert C. Lieber, both bankers; Edward Skyler, an executive vice president at Citi; Kevin Sheekey, a close adviser to Mr. Bloomberg; and Patricia E. Harris, the head of Bloomberg Philanthropies, according to fellow attendees.Mr. Adams said at the fund-raiser that he wants the city to work on behalf of both the person in the front of the limousine and the person in the back, according to two attendees. And he said that New York City squandered the last eight years by failing to learn any lessons from the Bloomberg administration.Ken Lipper, a friend of Mr. Bloomberg’s from their days at Salomon Brothers, was also there, and he said he was impressed with Mr. Adams’s practical approach to governance, with its emphasis on making the actual levers of government work.There was something “old-fashioned” about him, according to Mr. Lipper, an investment banker and former deputy mayor under Ed Koch.He said he also appreciated Mr. Adams’s understanding of the tax structure.“Sixty-five thousand people in the entire city pay 51 percent of the taxes,” Mr. Lipper said, referring to the wealthiest personal income tax filers. “Those people don’t use the hospital system, generally, they don’t use the subways in many cases, they’re not using the public schools. So their focus is on having a safe city. You’ve got to give them those minimal services, even though it might seem disproportionate to other areas, and I think Adams kind of gets that.” More

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      Eric Adams Vows to ‘Welcome Business,’ Calling New York ‘Dysfunctional’

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      Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee, said that New York will “no longer be anti-business,” drawing a contrast with the current mayor, Bill de Blasio.After nearly eight years of a strained and periodically hostile relationship between the mayor of New York City and its business community, the city’s likely next mayor on Monday delivered a clear message: He wants a reset.“New York will no longer be anti-business,” declared Eric Adams, the Democratic mayoral nominee who is almost certain to win November’s election, in a speech at a business conference in Manhattan. “This is going to be a place where we welcome business and not turn into the dysfunctional city that we have been for so many years.”In many ways, Mr. Adams and Mayor Bill de Blasio have found political common ground, and Mr. de Blasio was thought to favor Mr. Adams during this year’s primary. But Mr. Adams’s brief remarks on Monday underscored what may be one of the most consequential differences between the de Blasio administration and an Adams mayoralty: a significant shift, in tone and approach, when it comes to dealing with the city’s big-business community.Mr. de Blasio has, at times, fostered close ties to the real estate sector, but he based his first mayoral campaign on addressing the city’s widening inequity, saying that New York had become a “tale of two cities.” He has also downplayed the need to bring back wealthy New Yorkers who fled during the pandemic.Mr. Adams also ran on a message of combating inequality and was embraced by key labor unions. But his main focus was on combating crime, which also happened to be a primary concern of the city’s business elite. He quickly adopted a far warmer approach to engaging the business community than Mr. de Blasio did, becoming a favorite of New York’s donor class — with whom he has spent much of the summer — while earning skepticism from the left. Publicly and privately, he has pledged to travel to Florida to bring erstwhile New Yorkers home. Mr. Adams’s advisers and allies see a shift in tone as a matter of policy at some levels: If he builds stronger relationships with business leaders, it might pave the way for more public-private partnerships. If he engages wary business leaders in discussions about what is needed to make the environment more hospitable to growth, they may then be more inclined to stay in the city, or to expand. In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Adams ticked through a list of priorities around improving quality of life, public safety and innovation in the city, while asking business leaders to be partners as New York pursues economic recovery amid the pandemic. Mr. Adams, who appears especially interested in boosting the life sciences, green jobs and start-ups, may mix more easily with business leaders than Mr. de Blasio has, in part because he shares a number of their key priorities. He has been more supportive of charter schools than several of his Democratic mayoral rivals, and more so than Mr. de Blasio; he also has close ties to real estate. And Mr. Adams has said that public safety must be at the center of the economic recovery efforts — echoing a theme that more than 150 business leaders underscored in a letter to Mr. de Blasio last fall, when they demanded that he take more decisive action to address crime and other quality-of-life issues that they said were jeopardizing the city’s economic recovery.Mr. Adams’s remarks came at the SALT Conference, held at the Javits Center and overseen by Anthony Scaramucci, the onetime Trump White House communications director. The schedule promised appearances from two hedge fund billionaires who were principal backers of a super PAC supporting Mr. Adams’s candidacy: Daniel S. Loeb, a prominent charter school supporter, and Steven A. Cohen, the owner of the Mets.Mr. Scaramucci, a Wall Street veteran, donated $2,000 to Mr. Adams’s mayoral campaign. Over the weekend, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who got on poorly with Mr. de Blasio, released a direct-to-camera video noting his support of Mr. Adams, who is facing off against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, in the general election.“As a candidate, Eric Adams has shown ambition and political courage,” Mr. Bloomberg said in the video.In his speech, Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, urged employers to collaborate with the city on a common job application, part of a suite of proposals aimed at boosting the city’s economy and combating unemployment and underemployment. Both the public and private sectors would be encouraged to participate.“I’m proposing an unprecedented partnership between city employers and the city itself to make those connections and create one common application, one job application, to field all of the jobs you have available in this city,” he said. “New York wants your jobs and we want to build them.”Mr. Adams, a former police captain, also reached for a slogan that powered his primary win — “the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety and justice” — as he argued that priorities like reducing gun violence are vital aspects of reviving the city’s economy.And he ticked through a list of other goals, from bolstering community health centers in underserved neighborhoods and efforts to be “the center of cybersecurity” and self-driving cars, to investments in green jobs, to improving childhood nutrition and offering more affordable child care.“Today, you choose New York,” Mr. Adams told the crowd. “And we want to choose you.”On Monday, Mr. de Blasio was asked about Mr. Adams’s contention that New York would no longer be anti-business and “dysfunctional.”“I’m not going to take a couple of lines out of context,” the mayor replied. “Obviously, this is a city that has done so much to work with our business community.”Later that day, at an appearance at a Brooklyn street corner where a 3-month-old baby was killed on Saturday after a wrong-way collision sent two vehicles onto the sidewalk, Mr. Adams contended that partnerships between the private sector and government could improve safety on New York City streets.He said New York City should accelerate the implementation of legislation that requires drivers with bad records — like the driver suspected of causing the 3-month-old’s death — to take a safety course or lose their vehicles. Funding for the bill was delayed a year by the Covid crisis.Mr. Adams, who was joined by the mother of another child killed by a driver in the same neighborhood, vowed to make city streets safer. His comments were not that dissimilar from those made by Mr. de Blasio at a news conference eight years ago, when he vowed to end all such fatalities by 2024, via his Vision Zero program.This year, however, the city is on track to have its highest number of traffic deaths since 2014, according to Transportation Alternatives, a group that advocates for safer streets.But even as Mr. Adams spoke of making streets safer, a parked Police Department cruiser was blocking a bike lane at the corner where the infant was killed, and a blue car zoomed past the news conference and made an illegal turn. Mr. Adams seemed reluctant to draw as clear a distinction between himself and Mr. de Blasio as he had earlier that day.“I’m going to be committed to resolving this issue, just as I believe when the mayor stood with those families, he was committed to do so at the same time,” Mr. Adams said, referring to Mr. de Blasio’s 2014 rollout of Vision Zero. “And that is my level of commitment.” More

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      Michael Bloomberg: Cómo la ciudad de Nueva York puede recuperarse de nuevo

      by

      El futuro de la ciudad de Nueva York está en duda. Los barrios perdieron habitantes que se han mudado a los suburbios. Se han cerrado negocios. La gente está preocupada por la seguridad pública. Las familias lloran la pérdida de sus seres queridos.Ese era el panorama en el otoño de 2001, después de que los terroristas destruyeron el World Trade Center y pusieron a la ciudad de rodillas. Y es el mismo panorama actual, con una pandemia que ha causado estragos y millones de personas que se preguntan una vez más si los días de gloria de esta ciudad son cosa del pasado.El desempleo sigue siendo de dos dígitos, la desocupación de comercios y oficinas se ha disparado y el sector turístico está en una situación desesperada, pero las adversidades económicas son más agudas para las familias de bajos ingresos. Sin embargo, tenemos buenas razones para albergar esperanza, porque lo que se hizo una vez puede volver a hacerse, y mejor, si se tienen en cuenta las lecciones del pasado.Durante los últimos ocho años, he tratado de cumplir mi promesa de no hacer comentarios sobre la gestión de mi sucesor. Los alcaldes no necesitan que sus predecesores intervengan desde la barrera y no tengo intención de empezar ahora. Pero creo que el éxito de la ciudad de Nueva York en la reconstrucción del Bajo Manhattan tras el 11 de septiembre y en la revitalización de los cinco distritos puede ayudar al próximo alcalde cuando tome posesión de su cargo en enero y se enfrente a los dos de los mismos retos generales a los que nos enfrentamos hace 20 años.El primero es urgente: mejorar los servicios vitales de los que dependen los neoyorquinos todos los días, como la vigilancia policial, el transporte, la salubridad y la educación. En los meses posteriores al 11 de septiembre, éramos muy conscientes de que los ciudadanos necesitaban tener confianza en que no permitiríamos que la ciudad entrara en una espiral descendente, como ocurrió en la década de 1970, por lo que nos concentramos de inmediato en mejorar la calidad de vida haciendo que los vecindarios fueran más seguros y limpios, recuperando las escuelas públicas y reduciendo la cantidad de indigentes.Para mantener a los residentes y a las empresas en la ciudad, el próximo gobierno debe implementar programas y políticas que refuercen esos mismos servicios básicos desde el inicio. Los fondos serán escasos, pero manejables; el déficit de ingresos al que nos enfrentamos era más de tres veces mayor, en términos de porcentaje del presupuesto, que el que se prevé que herede el próximo alcalde.El segundo gran reto es más difícil y de manera inevitable está en conflicto con el primero: centrarse en el futuro no inmediato de la ciudad. En última instancia, el alcalde será juzgado no por las noticias del día siguiente, sino por la próxima generación. Su trabajo consiste en mirar más allá de la luz al final del túnel y empezar a construir más vías, aun cuando sea impopular hacerlo.Me vienen a la mente dos ejemplos del Bajo Manhattan.Poco después de haber tomado pposesión como alcalde, cancelé un subsidio planeado para la nueva sede de la Bolsa de Nueva York a pesar de que ésta amenazaba con abandonar la ciudad. No me pareció que ese fuera un uso inteligente de los escasos recursos, pero la perspectiva de que la Bolsa abandonara Wall Street hizo temer que otras grandes instituciones financieras también se marcharan, más aún con gran parte del Bajo Manhattan en ruinas.Lo más fácil y políticamente seguro era no tocar el subsidio. Pero durante décadas, la ciudad había dependido en exceso de la industria bancaria y de servicios financieros. Se decía que cuando Wall Street se estornudaba, la ciudad se resfriaba. Así que en lugar de sobornar a las grandes empresas para que se quedaran en Manhattan, invertimos en proyectos en todos los distritos que atrajeran a nuevas compañías de diferentes sectores, como la biociencia, la tecnología y el cine y la televisión. Años después, estas y otras industrias —y los trabajos e ingresos que generaron— nos ayudaron a sortear la Gran Recesión mucho mejor que la mayoría de las ciudades.El próximo gobierno tal vez se enfrente a exigencias similares de subsidios de empresas que amenacen con abandonar la ciudad. Pero hay mejores formas de retener y crear puestos de trabajo que las dádivas, sobre todo si se invierte en infraestructura fundamental, empezando por el metro..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-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;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-w739ur{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-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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;}En colaboración con el estado, el alcalde puede trabajar para que los trenes vuelvan a tener horarios completos, lo que ayudaría a los empresarios de todos los sectores a recuperar a sus trabajadores y a miles de pequeñas empresas y sus empleados a recuperar a sus clientes. Además, daría confianza a quienes estén pensando en abrir un negocio propio.Sea cual sea la política que adopte el próximo alcalde, la idea fundamental es que para que una ciudad se recupere económicamente es necesario algo más que ayudar a las empresas existentes. Es necesario crear las condiciones para que otros negocios abran y se expandan, a fin de diversificar aún más la economía.El segundo ejemplo del Bajo Manhattan tiene que ver con la vivienda. Tras los atentados, muchos querían convertir todo el World Trade Center en un monumento conmemorativo o simplemente reconstruir lo que había antes. Me pareció que ambas cosas serían un error y recibí fuertes críticas por sugerir que se construyeran viviendas en el lugar. Sin embargo, nuestro gobierno quería que el Bajo Manhattan dejara de ser un distrito comercial con movimiento solo de 9 a 5 y se convirtiera en un barrio diverso y abierto las 24 horas del día.Los líderes de la ciudad llevaban intentando hacerlo desde la década de 1950, pero habían centrado su atención en el desarrollo de edificios, incluido el World Trade Center original, en lugar de atraer a la gente. Nosotros le dimos la vuelta al guion al fomentar el desarrollo de nuevas viviendas y generar aquello que todos los residentes quieren: parques, escuelas y oportunidades culturales, incluido un centro de artes escénicas en el World Trade Center, cuya construcción está a punto de finalizar.A medida que nuestra visión tomaba forma, más familias y jóvenes se mudaron al centro, abrieron más negocios, se crearon más empleos y llegaron más visitantes. El último lugar de desarrollo del World Trade Center será una torre que tendrá más de mil unidades de vivienda.El próximo gobierno tendrá sus propias oportunidades no solo para recuperarse de la pandemia, sino para reimaginar zonas de la ciudad. Por supuesto, nunca es fácil enfrentarse a grupos ruidosos y poderosos que claman: “No en mi patio trasero”. Pero a lo largo y ancho de Nueva York hay estacionamientos, almacenes, playas de maniobras y otras propiedades que ofrecen al próximo alcalde oportunidades de crear viviendas para todos los ingresos y empleos para todos tipo de habilidades.Estos proyectos requieren ambición y valor político. Como candidato, Eric Adams ha demostrado ambas cosas. Por eso lo apoyo en las elecciones a la alcaldía de este otoño. Su pragmatismo y disposición a enfrentar asuntos difíciles, al igual que la comprensión de la importancia de la seguridad pública que le dio su experiencia como policía, le serán de gran utilidad en el Ayuntamiento. Y espero que Bloomberg Philanthropies tenga la oportunidad de apoyar su gobierno, porque este es un momento en el que todos tenemos que poner manos a la obra.En el gobierno, la colaboración es tan importante como la competencia, y la reconstrucción del World Trade Center, que incluyó la creación de un monumento nacional y museo en memoria del 11 de septiembre, demostró lo crucial que son las asociaciones sólidas para volver realidad una visión. El trabajo conjunto con nueve gobernadores de Nueva York y Nueva Jersey nos permitió construir el monumento y el museo para que fueran un poderoso tributo a los que perdimos y para enseñar a las generaciones futuras el extraordinario heroísmo y los sacrificios que inspiraron y unieron al mundo.Hubo tensiones y obstáculos, por supuesto. Pero es fundamental que haya una buena relación de trabajo entre el alcalde y el gobernador para que los grandes proyectos tengan éxito.Ahora, incluso antes de tomar posesión del cargo, Adams tiene la oportunidad de empezar a establecer una estrecha relación con la nueva gobernadora del estado, Kathy Hochul. No siempre estarán de acuerdo, pero necesitamos que trabajen juntos.Al caer la noche del 11 de septiembre de 2001, era difícil imaginar que la ciudad pudiera recuperarse con la rapidez y la fuerza con que lo hizo. Pero al unirnos, pensar con creatividad, planear con ambición y trabajar enfocados en una visión clara del futuro —fiel a los valores de nuestra ciudad, entre ellos acoger a los inmigrantes y refugiados—, dimos inicio a un periodo de renacimiento y renovación nunca antes visto en la historia.Ahora, podemos volver a hacerlo. Si tenemos en cuenta las lecciones del pasado, sé que lo lograremos.Michael R. Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) fue alcalde de la ciudad de Nueva York de 2002 a 2013. Es presidente del Museo y Monumento Nacional del 11 de septiembre desde 2006. More

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      in Elections

      Mike Bloomberg: New York City Can Recover

      by

      The future of New York City is being called into question. Neighborhoods have lost residents to the suburbs. Businesses have closed. People are on edge about public safety. And families are mourning the loss of loved ones.This was the situation in the fall of 2001, after hijackers destroyed the World Trade Center and brought the city to its knees. And it’s the same situation today, with a pandemic raging and millions of people once again wondering if this city’s best days are behind it.Unemployment remains in double digits, retail and office vacancies have soared, and the tourism industry is in dire straits, with the economic pain falling hardest on low-income families. Yet we have good reason to be hopeful, because what was done once can be done again — and better, by heeding the lessons of the past.Over the past eight years, I have been careful to stick to my pledge not to comment on my successor’s administration. Mayors don’t need their predecessors chiming in from the sidelines, and I don’t intend to start now. But I do believe New York City’s success in rebuilding Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11 and revitalizing all five boroughs can help the next mayor as he takes office in January and confronts the same two overarching challenges we faced 20 years ago.The first is urgent: improving vital services New Yorkers rely on every day, including policing, transportation, sanitation and education. In the months after Sept. 11, we were acutely aware the public needed confidence that we would not allow the city to enter a downward spiral, as it did in the 1970s, so we immediately focused on improving quality of life by making neighborhoods safer and cleaner, turning around public schools, and reducing street homelessness.To keep residents and businesses in the city, the next administration must come out of the gate with programs and policies to bolster those same essential services. Funding will be tight, but manageable; the revenue shortfall we faced was more than three times as large, as a percentage of the budget, as the one the next mayor is projected to inherit.The second broad challenge is more difficult, and inevitably in tension with the first: focusing on the city’s future years from now. Ultimately, the mayor will be judged not by the next day’s newspapers, but by the next generation. It’s his job to look beyond the light at the end of the tunnel and start building more tracks, even when it’s unpopular to do so.Two examples from Lower Manhattan come to mind.Not long after being sworn in, I canceled a planned subsidy for a new headquarters for the New York Stock Exchange, even though it was threatening to move out of the city. I didn’t think it was a smart use of scarce resources, but the prospect of the exchange leaving Wall Street raised fears that other large financial institutions might go, too, especially with much of Lower Manhattan in ruins.The easy and politically safe thing to do would have been to leave the subsidy in place. But for decades, the city had been overly reliant on the banking and financial services industry. When Wall Street caught a cold, the saying went, the city got sick. So instead of bribing large firms to stay in Manhattan, we invested in projects in all the boroughs that would attract new businesses in different industries, including bioscience, tech, and film and television. Years later, those and other industries — and the jobs and revenue they created — helped us weather the Great Recession far better than most cities did.The next administration may face similar demands for subsidies from companies that threaten to leave the city. But there are better ways to retain and create jobs than giveaways, especially by investing in critical infrastructure, starting with the subway.In partnership with the state, the mayor can work to get trains on a full schedule again, which would help employers in every industry bring back their workers. It would help thousands of small businesses and their employees reclaim their customers. And it would provide confidence to those who may be thinking about opening a business of their own.Whatever policies the next mayor pursues, the crucial idea is that putting a city back on its feet economically requires more than aiding existing businesses. It requires creating the conditions for new ones to open and expand, further diversifying the economy.The second example from Lower Manhattan concerns housing. In the wake of the attacks, many people wanted to turn the entire World Trade Center into a memorial — or simply to rebuild what was there. I thought both would be a mistake, and I was pilloried for suggesting that housing be constructed at the site. But our administration wanted to transform Lower Manhattan from a 9-to-5 business district into a diverse, 24/7 neighborhood.City leaders had been trying to do that since the 1950s, but their focus had been primarily on developing buildings, including the original World Trade Center, rather than attracting people. We flipped the script by encouraging new housing development and creating the things all residents want: parks, schools and cultural opportunities, including a performing arts center at the World Trade Center that is now nearing completion.As our vision took shape, more families and young people moved downtown, more businesses opened, more jobs were created, and more visitors arrived. The last development site of the World Trade Center will be a tower that includes more than a thousand units of housing.The next administration will have its own opportunities not only to recover from the pandemic, but to reimagine areas of the city. Of course, it’s never easy to take on vocal and powerful groups that say, “Not in my backyard.” But across New York, there are parking lots, warehouses, rail yards and other properties that offer the next mayor opportunities to create housing for all incomes and jobs for all skill levels.Such projects require ambition and political courage. As a candidate, Eric Adams has shown both. That’s why I’m supporting him in the mayoral election this fall. His pragmatism and willingness to take on tough issues — and his experience as a police officer who understands the importance of public safety — will serve him well in City Hall. And I hope that Bloomberg Philanthropies will have a chance to support his administration, because this is an all-hands-on-deck moment.In government, collaboration is as important as competence, and the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site — including the construction of the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum — showed how crucial strong partnerships are to achieving a vision. Working with nine different governors of New York and New Jersey, we built the memorial and museum to serve as a powerful tribute to those we lost, and to teach future generations about the extraordinary heroism and sacrifices that inspired and united the world.There were tensions and obstacles, of course. But a healthy working relationship between the mayor and governor is crucial to the success of major projects.Now, even before he takes office, Mr. Adams has a chance to begin building a close relationship with the state’s new governor, Kathy Hochul. They will not always see eye-to-eye, but we need them to work hand-in-hand.As the sun set on Sept. 11, 2001, it was hard to imagine the city could rebound as quickly and strongly as it did. But by pulling together, thinking creatively, planning ambitiously, and working toward a clear vision of the future — one that is true to the values of our city, including our welcoming embrace of immigrants and refugees — we began a period of rebirth and renewal unlike any in history.Now, we can do it again. If we heed the lessons of the past, I know we will.Michael R. Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. He has been chair of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum since 2006.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