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      Major Moments From the Final Democratic Mayoral Debate

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      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Thursday. Weather: Sunny again, with a high close to 80. Alternate-side parking: In effect through tomorrow. Suspended on Saturday for Juneteenth. WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardFive days of campaigning left.With Tuesday’s primary fast approaching, Democratic candidates for mayor of New York City sparred over matters of public safety, schooling and homelessness last night as they shared their closing arguments in the final debate before the vote closes.The early voting period lasts through Sunday, and the ranked-choice system has injected a large degree of unpredictability into the race. Still, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, remains a consistent front-runner in the sparse available polling.[Read more about the debate and the candidates’ visions for New York.]Here are a few of the standout moments:Attacks flew over an endorsementThis week, Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, received the endorsement of the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents police captains. When asked at the debate to explain why he was the candidate best equipped to tackle a rise in shootings, Mr. Yang pointed to the endorsement.“The people you should ask about this are Eric’s former colleagues in the police captains’ union,” Mr. Yang said.Mr. Adams tried to dismiss the endorsement, suggesting that he had not even asked for it. Mr. Yang accused him of lying.The discussion about homelessness became heatedMr. Yang sounded alarms around matters of mental health and homelessness, saying that the issues were impeding the city’s recovery and that homeless people needed to be introduced to a “better environment.” He said he would rebuild “the stock of psych beds in our city.”Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, shot back: “That is the greatest non-answer I’ve ever heard,” he said, discussing a need to create tens of thousands of units of “truly affordable housing.”‘The worst idea you’ve heard from another candidate?’The question encouraged contenders to sling a little mud, and Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams again targeted each other. Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, ripped the “defund the police” movement. Maya Wiley challenged Mr. Adams on policing.“The worst idea I’ve ever heard is bringing back stop and frisk and the anti-crime unit from Eric Adams,” said Ms. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer. “Which, one, is racist; two, is unconstitutional; and, three, didn’t stop any crime; and, four, it will not happen in a Maya Wiley administration.”Mr. Adams responded that, if he was elected, the abuses of stop and frisk would not return.From The TimesMaya Wiley Takes Credit for Daniel Pantaleo’s Firing. Is That Justified?Barred From Her Own Home: How a Tool for Fighting Domestic Abuse FailsWhy New York Progressives Are Pinning Their Hopes on the City CouncilGoogle to Open Physical Store in New YorkNew York City Gets Another Major Marathon, in BrooklynSummer is here and New York City is reopening. Stay up to date on the best things to do, see and eat this season. Take a look at our latest newsletter on upcoming Juneteenth celebrations, and sign up here.Want more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingHow one after-school program in Brooklyn transformed into a neighborhood support system during the pandemic. [Chalkbeat New York]The mayor announced that a parade next month would be held in recognition of essential workers during the pandemic. But one group was disappointed not to be mentioned. [Gothamist]The annual Queens World Film Festival is returning to the borough next week. Here are more details on what it will look like. [QNS]And finally: Renaming 16 parks for Black historyA Black feminist writer from Harlem. The first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. An actress and singer who lived in Manhattan and broke ground for Black performers..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;}New York City officials announced on Wednesday that 16 parks across the five boroughs would be named for those figures and other Black leaders who made significant contributions in areas from education and entertainment to civil rights and community relations.“Our goal is to represent the culture and diversity of New York City,” the city’s parks commissioner, Mitchell J. Silver, said at a news conference at Mullaly Park in the Bronx. The roughly 15-acre park in the Concourse neighborhood of the borough was a focus of local activism as protests arose to push for officials to change its title, citing concerns about the record of its namesake, who published attacks on the Emancipation Proclamation.“For years, the community has expressed discontent and a desire to rename this beloved green space,” Mr. Silver said. A new name that honors the Rev. Wendell Foster, the first Black elected city official in the Bronx, will be adopted in September 2022, he said.The move comes amid a larger push to change some names of monuments and landmarks in New York and elsewhere, sometimes to leave behind references to figures with racist pasts and at other times to honor Black New Yorkers. Several top Democratic mayoral candidates have suggested they would support renaming sites including streets named for slaveholders.As for park spaces, those that will take on new names include the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn (changing to Lena Horne Bandshell); Hell’s Kitchen Park in Manhattan (to become Lorraine Hansberry Park); and St. Albans Oval in Queens (to be renamed Musicians Oval in honor of influential Black jazz musicians).It’s Thursday — get outside.Metropolitan Diary: Waiting for Denzel Dear Diary:My mother loves Denzel Washington. So it was only natural that we would go see him in the “The Iceman Cometh” when she visited a few years ago.My legs were stiff and my mouth was dry after the four-hour production ended, and I was ready to go home. But my mother loves Denzel Washington. So we waited outside the stage door for the cast to emerge.My mother was easily the oldest person there, but she was grinning like a teenager about to meet her hero.“Do you have a pen?” she asked me nervously.“These actors always carry pens,” I said with confidence. “Don’t worry.”Soon, though, I was frantically asking everyone around us for a pen while my mother continued to wait for the star to emerge.When I got back to where she was standing, I overheard her chatting with other members of the cast.Denzel Washington never came out that night, but my mother still proudly tells everyone back home how she invited half the cast of a Broadway show to visit her in Colorado.I’m glad I didn’t have a pen.— Sid GopinathNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com. More

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      Candidates Clash Over New York City’s Future in Final Mayoral Debate

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      The eight contenders jousted over their policies on public safety, homelessness, education and mental illness with less than a week left in the campaign.Clashing over public safety, education and crises of mental health and street homelessness in New York City, the leading Democratic candidates for mayor on Wednesday promoted radically different post-pandemic visions for the city as they made their closing arguments before the June 22 primary.It was the Democrats’ final major debate of the primary, and, like the first three, the event was a contentious affair that focused heavily on issues of policing and public safety, as well as on questions of the candidates’ personal and professional preparedness to lead the nation’s largest city.Much of the fire at the previous matchups was trained at Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and to some extent at Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate.Similar dynamics played out again on Wednesday, though the two-hour debate was one of the most substantive of the primary season, spanning issues from how the city can combat climate change to the best ways to manage affordable housing and homelessness.Indeed, the eight candidates constantly jostled for advantages, trying to position themselves as the most qualified to lead the city as it begins to recover from the ravages of the coronavirus and its effects on the economy, education, crime rates and inequality.Recent polls indicate that Mr. Adams is the front-runner, with Kathryn Garcia, a former city sanitation commissioner, and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, showing late momentum. But Mr. Adams took on the fiercest attacks, as Mr. Yang and Ms. Wiley sought to put him on the defensive over matters of both judgment and policy, in particular around public safety.Mr. Yang, who led the early public polls, has been among Mr. Adams’s sharpest critics and is airing television ads attacking him. He began the race as a celebrity candidate whose sunny optimism and pledges to be New York’s cheerleader appeared to resonate with a city on the cusp of reopening.Eric Adams, left, a front-runner in the race, was the focus of several attacks from his rivals, including Andrew Yang, right.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardBut as issues of public safety moved to the forefront of voters’ minds, and Mr. Yang faced scrutiny over his grasp of municipal government, he has stumbled in the sparse public polling available.At the debate, co-sponsored by WNBC-TV, he took aim at Mr. Adams’s public safety credentials, where polling suggests the borough president has a strong advantage. Mr. Yang was endorsed by the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents police captains, as well as a major firefighters’ union, and on Wednesday he sought to undermine Mr. Adams on that subject.“They think I’m a better choice than Eric to keep us and our families safe,” Mr. Yang said. “They want someone honest as a partner who will actually follow through.”Mr. Adams, a former police captain, declared that some of the captains recalled his efforts to change police conduct from within the system while he was serving, and suggested they held it against him. When the candidates were asked to name the worst idea promoted by a rival, Mr. Yang cited Mr. Adams’s past remarks about carrying a gun in church, while Mr. Adams ripped Mr. Yang’s cash relief proposal for the poorest 500,000 New Yorkers, likening it to “Monopoly money” and suggesting it was less serious than his own proposals.Ms. Wiley has also frequently clashed with Mr. Adams on the debate stage, but unlike Mr. Yang, she has often challenged him from the left over issues of policing, and she did so again on Wednesday.“The worst idea I’ve ever heard is bringing back stop and frisk and the anti-crime unit from Eric Adams,” Ms. Wiley said. “Which, one, is racist, two, is unconstitutional, and three, didn’t stop any crime, and four, it will not happen in a Maya Wiley administration.”Maya Wiley sought to contrast her stance on public safety with Mr. Adams, criticizing his idea to bring back an anti-crime unit.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardMr. Adams vowed that the abuse of stop and frisk would not return in an Adams administration and questioned Ms. Wiley’s authority on the subject, noting reports of private security in her neighborhood.Mr. Adams has come under growing scrutiny in recent weeks over matters from his fund-raising practices to questions about his residency, and his opponents have sought to cast doubt on his commitments to transparency and ethical leadership. On Wednesday, the nonprofit news outlet The City reported on issues of disclosure around Mr. Adams’s real estate holdings.But those issues were not a central focus of the debate on Wednesday, and with early voting already underway, it was not clear how much the barbs aimed at Mr. Adams would affect his standing.As in previous debates, questions of public safety were among the most divisive of the night. Ms. Garcia and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, blasted the “defund the police” movement, while Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, challenged Mr. McGuire over how that slogan is received among voters of color.“For Black and brown communities, neither defund the police nor stop and frisk,” Mr. McGuire said.“How dare you assume to speak for Black and Brown communities as a monolith,” Ms. Morales, who identifies as Afro-Latina, said. “You cannot do that.”“I just did,” Mr. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, shot back. “I’m going to do it again.”Issues of housing and mental illness also illuminated key contrasts among the candidates.Mr. Yang struck a note of outrage as he declared that “mentally ill homeless men are changing the character of our neighborhoods.”After some of his rivals sketched out affordable housing plans, Mr. Yang said he was “frustrated by the political nature of these responses.”“We’re not talking about housing affordability, we’re talking about the hundreds of mentally ill people we all see around us every day on the streets, in the subways,” he said. “We need to get them off of our streets and our subways, into a better environment.”.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;}“That is the greatest non-answer I’ve ever heard,” said Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, who had spoken of the need to build tens of thousands of units of “truly affordable housing,” as he pressed Mr. Yang on the costs of such a proposal. “This is a teaching moment.”Mr. Yang later returned to the subject, arguing vigorously that people with untreated mental illness should not be on the streets. He noted that people of Asian descent have increasingly been the targets of attacks that have often been linked to people struggling with mental illness.“Yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else has rights? We do: the people and families of the city,” Mr. Yang said. He proposed doubling the inventory of inpatient psychiatric beds in the city.Others took a starkly different tone, as candidates including Ms. Wiley argued for more outreach by “the right people,” instead of the police, and Ms. Morales warned against treating people with mental illness as criminals.The final debate arrived at a moment of significant uncertainty in the mayoral campaign.Ranked-choice voting, in which voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, has injected an extraordinary degree of unpredictability into the race. One recent poll found Mr. Adams garnering the most first-place votes, but ultimately finishing second to Ms. Garcia; others have shown him ahead, but surveys have been sparse.It is also unclear what a post-pandemic electorate in a June primary will look like, and some candidates could still cross-endorse each other in the final stretch, which could further scramble the contest.Throughout the debate, battle lines emerged between candidates who are casting themselves as proud political outsiders — a message Mr. McGuire hit repeatedly — and those, like Ms. Garcia and Mr. Stringer, who emphasize government experience at every turn.Some of the more substantive moments of the evening also unfolded around the best ways to account for educational losses during the pandemic, and many of the candidates argued that school quality and better integration go hand-in-hand.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, said she would attack climate change as a legacy-making initiative.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardMs. Garcia described plans for creating new high schools, promised to “stop screening 4-year-olds with a test — that’s insane,” and said she would ensure schools have robust art, music, theater and sports programs.Ms. Wiley promised to hire 2,500 teachers to reduce overcrowding in classrooms, while Mr. Stringer promoted the idea of placing two teachers in every classroom, kindergarten through fifth grade. Others reached for their own experiences — Mr. Yang as a public school parent, for example, or Ms. Morales as a former educator — to take on the issue.“This is a false choice,” Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, said, when asked whether he would prioritize desegregation or improving school quality. “After a year that’s hurt every one of our students and widened the inequalities that we see in our schools, we need to get our schools open safely and quickly, but we also have to make sure that everyone is recovering, particularly those who are furthest behind.”Kristen Bayrakdarian More

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      Garcia Rakes in Donations: 5 Takeaways From the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

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      Eric Adams takes heat for a comment on schools, while Curtis Sliwa gets Rudy Giuliani’s endorsement for the Republican nomination.Early voting in the mayoral primary began Saturday, but given how few New Yorkers have so far shown up at their polling sites, it looks like the candidates still have time to get their messages out before 9 p.m. on June 22.For all of those invested in a healthy turnout, the early numbers do not bode particularly well. Just 16,867 voters showed up on Saturday, according to the Board of Election’s unofficial tally.Every New Yorker who has yet to cast a vote is still theoretically persuadable. And the candidates are sparing no expense in trying to reach them.Garcia out-raises field, and Adams outspends itIn the final weeks of the mayor’s race, donations have poured in to the campaign of Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner who has risen from long shot to viable leading candidate.In the three weeks ending June 7, Ms. Garcia raised $703,000, more than in the prior two months combined. She narrowly edged out Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, who raised $618,000, and far surpassed the former presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s haul of $437,000. Her donors included the cookbook author Jessica Seinfeld and the real estate developer Hal Fetner, who worked with Ms. Garcia when she was the interim chair of the New York City Housing Authority.“It means that we will have the resources we need in this final push to the end to make sure we’re getting our message out,” said Ms. Garcia, when reached by phone on Sunday.She said much of the money would go toward ads on TV, a medium now saturated with political messaging.Since January, politicians and their affiliated super PACs have spent more than $49 million on TV, radio and digital advertising, according to Ad Impact, an advertising analytics firm.After the super PAC supporting the former federal housing secretary Shaun Donovan, which is largely funded by his father, the highest spenders on advertising have been the campaigns of Mr. Adams and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller. In the filing period that concluded last week, the biggest spender for all things, advertising included, was the Adams campaign, which spent $5.9 million over three weeks. Next was the Yang campaign, which spent $3.4 million.Evan Thies, a spokesman the Adams campaign, said that Mr. Adams had already raised as much as he could under city campaign finance limits, and there was no reason to hold back.“He no longer needs to keep raising money,” Mr. Thies said.Giuliani backs SliwaFormer Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani waded into the Republican mayoral primary last week, endorsing Curtis Sliwa in a race that has divided the party’s leaders and voters.In a robocall, the former mayor called Mr. Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, my “great friend” going back to the 1990s.“When I ran for mayor,” Mr. Giuliani said, “Curtis and the Guardian Angels were there to help me win, and then they were there to help me reduce crime and make our city livable again.”Curtis Sliwa was endorsed by Rudolph W. Giuliani.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesMr. Sliwa is running in a bitterly fought primary against Fernando Mateo, an entrepreneur who was recently endorsed by Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser to President Donald J. Trump.The race appears to be close. Mr. Sliwa had 33 percent support and Mr. Mateo had 27 percent, while 40 percent were undecided, according to a recent poll by Pix 11 and Emerson College.Party leaders are split as well. Republican leaders in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx endorsed Mr. Mateo. The Staten Island and Brooklyn parties backed Mr. Sliwa.There are 13 candidates on the Democratic ballot, but Republican voters only have two choices, and Mr. Sliwa jokingly offered a simple guide: He told voters to mark the dot next to the name Sliwa, not “Mr. Irrelevant.”Old Adams video causes kerfuffleIn February, Mr. Adams said something that would come back to haunt him four months later.During an interview with the Citizens Budget Commission, Mr. Adams was talking about some of his spending proposals, like year-around school, and how he might find efficiencies in government to help pay for them, when he turned to the potential of remote learning.“If you do a full-year school year by using the new technology of remote learning, you don’t need children to be in a school building with a number of teachers,” he said, echoing comments he also made to Bloomberg. “It’s just the opposite. You could have one great teacher that’s in one of our specialized high schools to teach three to four hundred students who are struggling in math, with the skillful way that they’re able to teach.”Eric Adams drew criticism for comments he made four months ago.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Adams appeared to be just spitballing. But on Friday, an ardent Yang supporter who goes by @ZachandMattShow on Twitter posted a cut of the video and a paraphrasing of Mr. Adam’s comments that did not mention elite high schools or particularly skillful teachers.The tweet went viral, sparking condemnation from the Yang campaign, as well as from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is backing Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, and suggested that Mr. Adams wanted to defund schools.Ms. Wiley chimed in, too.“All I can say is, Eric Adams, what did we not understand before Covid about our digital divide?” asked Ms. Wiley, during a campaign appearance. “We’ve been talking about it for decades.”Asked for comment, Mr. Thies, the Adams spokesman, said the Brooklyn borough president’s quotes were taken out of context and improperly transcribed on Twitter.“All of this is a massive distraction from the truth, which is that Eric has never supported requiring students to attend 100-plus person classes online, and would never require that as mayor,” Mr. Thies said. “Nor would he require teachers to teach large classes.”.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;}Rather, he added, “He has said that high school students could have the option to learn in larger online seminars taught by the city’s best teachers if they so choose, and, if those teachers are willing to teach those courses.”Second to someRepresentatives Hakeem Jeffries, Gregory W. Meeks and Ritchie Torres all chose people other than Mr. Adams as their top pick for mayor, but he gladly accepted second-choice rankings last week from the three important New York congressmen.For the first time, New York City voters can rank up to five choices for mayor in the June 22 primary. Mr. Torres picked Mr. Yang as his first choice, while Mr. Jeffries went with Ms. Wiley. Mr. Meeks backed Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive.“In a ranked-choice election, twos can be as valuable as ones,” Mr. Thies said.Other members of Congress who have ranked candidates for mayor include Adriano Espaillat, who chose Mr. Adams as his first choice and Ms. Wiley as his second; Grace Meng, who ranked Mr. Yang first and Ms. Garcia second; and Nydia M. Velázquez; who selected Ms. Wiley as her first choice and Ms. Garcia as her second.Last year, a group of Black elected officials filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to stop ranked-choice voting from being implemented in this election, citing what they called a lack of voter education and a fear that Black voters would be disenfranchised. Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire both voiced support for the suit.On Twitter, Mr. Torres said he wanted to send a “united message” about the importance of ranking more than one candidate, and Mr. Jeffries encouraged voters of color to rank more than one candidate.“If voters of color don’t rank multiple candidates then voters of color are effectively staying home,” Mr. Jeffries wrote.One member of Congress who has yet to announce a second choice for mayor is Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.“T.B.A.” — to be announced — said Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.A missing topic: ClimateAt least five mayoral candidates — Ms. Garcia, Mr. Stringer, Ms. Wiley, Mr. Donovan and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit director — have pitched plans to tackle the rising water levels, extreme temperatures and intensifying storms that the climate crisis is bringing to New York.It is an existential problem for the city, and an animating issue for many voters, especially younger ones. Yet in three debates, the candidates have not been asked a single question that would force them to compare and defend their positions on climate.Voters have taken to social media to complain.On Friday, Mr. Stringer — the first to unveil a comprehensive climate plan, one that echoes many demands of key climate groups — demanded a debate dedicated to the issue.Mr. Stringer is seeking to refocus the campaign on one of his strengths after losing several key progressive endorsements over allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies. Ms. Wiley has also said the issue needs more attention.Both candidates support versions of the Green New Deal concept, which calls for New Deal-level public spending to address the climate crisis, create jobs and redress economic and racial inequalities. More

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      Candidates’ Blueprints for Easing the Housing Crisis

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      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Monday. Weather: Watch out for showers and thunderstorms. High around 70. Alternate-side parking: In effect until Saturday (Juneteenth). Karsten Moran for The New York TimesWhen Bill de Blasio ran for mayor in 2013, he made addressing New York’s affordable-housing shortage a central part of his campaign.More than seven years later, despite significant investments under Mr. de Blasio, the Democratic candidates vying to succeed him confront a problem that may have worsened during the pandemic.“The housing crisis facing the next mayor is really one of unprecedented proportions,” said Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, a policy and advocacy nonprofit.She said the next mayor will be the “driver of housing policy in New York City, and whatever they are doing in this first housing plan is really going to set the course for the next decade at least.”[The plans and proposals from the Democratic candidates for mayor have a lot of overlap, but they differ in some of the solutions that they emphasize the most.]The contextEven before the pandemic, about half of the city’s households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent, according to an analysis by New York University’s Furman Center.The pandemic has made the situation even more dire. Renters’ arrears have risen to hundreds of millions of dollars, putting them at risk of losing their homes once a moratorium on evictions ends.Housing advocates and experts have pushed for the candidates to adopt robust plans to address the crisis.The plansThe candidates’ plans overlap in many ways: nearly every candidate expressed support for legalizing basement apartments, which the city has already begun to explore, and building housing on the remaining parcels of vacant city-owned land.But they also differ in some of the solutions they emphasize.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, have made the creation of tens of thousands of new homes for the poorest New Yorkers a top objective. Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer and former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, and Shaun Donovan, who was housing secretary under President Barack Obama and also has served as a city housing commissioner, say they would steer hundreds of millions of dollars to struggling renters.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, is calling for a hefty increase in the number of affordable units the city requires in big new residential buildings. Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, wants wealthy neighborhoods to make way for more affordable units. Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, have keyed in on converting hotels to housing.More on the mayor’s race:Early Voting Begins in Wide-Open Race for New York MayorGarcia Rakes in Donations: 5 Takeaways From the N.Y.C. Mayor’s RaceFrom The TimesWith Cuomo Weakened, N.Y. Lawmakers End Session With Flex of PowerWestminster Dog Show 2021: Wasabi the Pekingese Wins Best in ShowWhy The New Yorker’s Stars Didn’t Join Its UnionThey Fought to Make ‘In the Heights’ Both Dreamlike and AuthenticWant more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingAt least two people were killed and 19 others wounded in shootings across New York City this weekend, police said. [N.Y. Post]Fire marshals arrested four people and seized more than $8,000 worth of illegal fireworks, officials said. [ABC 7]Less than 1 percent of the independent venues, like clubs and theaters, that applied for a special federal pandemic aid program have received it. [Gothamist].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;}And finally: A march for Black trans youthThe Times’s Michael Gold writes:When thousands gathered in Brooklyn last summer to take part in a march for Black trans lives, Shéár Avory was at home, helping take care of her family in the middle of the pandemic. But Mx. Avory, who is transgender and nonbinary, was heartened by what she saw online: images and videos of thousands of people in a sea of white, rallying for their community.“I remember being so connected to community, even virtually,” Mx. Avory, 22, said. “And just feeling this overwhelming sense of ‘Well, we did that.’”On Sunday, a crowd gathered on the grounds of the Brooklyn Museum for the Brooklyn Liberation March. This time, Mx. Avory was speaking in front of them, at a rally meant specifically to center the concerns of Black trans and gender-nonconforming youth.The thousands who convened in white garb and marched en masse were drawn together to show support for transgender youth at a particularly tumultuous moment for them. In state legislatures across the United States, Republican lawmakers have introduced bills to limit the participation of transgender children in sports and hinder their access to gender-affirming or transition-related medical care.At the same time, the pandemic has exacerbated inequities that put people of color and trans people at severe economic disadvantages. And persistent violence against transgender people has not abated. At least 28 transgender or gender-nonconforming people have been fatally shot or killed this year.Organizers said they wanted to give this year’s spotlight to younger voices, those who would be the next generation of activists and leaders, and whose formative experiences were different from theirs. “We are ready for this new generation of youth who are coming up and defining themselves by things that are much more complex and much more deep,” said Ianne Fields Stewart, an activist and performer.It’s Monday — speak up.Metropolitan Diary: Small bouquet Dear Diary:I had a social work internship in Queens near the City Clerk’s office. Every morning, I would pass photographers and merchants loaded with flowers and balloons, waiting for a newly wed couple to come out after getting married there.One day, I was walking to the subway after work and I found myself alongside a middle-age man who was holding a small bouquet of roses. He had on a worn blue hoodie and jeans. I can only describe the expression on his face as a combination of wonder, disbelief and joy.He glanced at me. I smiled.“I bought her flowers,” he said, half to me and half to himself. “I’m about to meet up with her and I’ve never bought her flowers before, but today I bought her flowers!” He shook his head in amazement.“I’m sure she’ll love them,” I said.We took one more step together before he turned and went into a McDonald’s.— Audrey ChaoNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.What would you like to see more (or less) of? Email us: nytoday@nytimes.com. More

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      New York Has a Housing Crisis. How Would the Mayoral Candidates Fix It?

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      New York City’s affordability problems were laid bare by the pandemic. Mayoral candidates offer solutions, but steep political and logistical obstacles remain.New York City’s leaders have been vexed for decades by a problem that has helped turn the city into a worldwide symbol of inequality: As years of prosperity gave rise to soaring luxury apartment towers, public housing crumbled and affordable neighborhoods vanished.The current mayor, Bill de Blasio, had made addressing the city’s housing crisis an imperative during his tenure. But now, the Democratic candidates vying to succeed him next year are confronting a crisis that may be even more severe as a result of the pandemic.All the leading candidates agree that housing is a top issue with huge implications for New York’s future, and each has offered a sweeping plan to tackle the problem. While their proposals overlap in many ways — every contender wants to spend more on public housing, for example — the candidates differ in the solutions and strategies they emphasize most.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, have made the creation of tens of thousands of new homes for the poorest New Yorkers a top objective. Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer and former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, and Shaun Donovan, a former housing secretary under President Barack Obama and a onetime city housing commissioner, say they would steer hundreds of millions of dollars to struggling renters to help keep them in their homes.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, is taking aim at private developers by calling for a hefty increase in the number of affordable units the city requires in big new residential buildings. Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, wants wealthy neighborhoods to make way for more affordable units. Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, have keyed in on converting hotels to housing.Many of the plans face steep political and financial hurdles. But experts and housing advocates say that a failure by the next mayor to address the crisis in a meaningful way could jeopardize New York’s cultural fabric and stunt its economic comeback by making the city even more unaffordable for low-wage workers and residents of color.“If we want to see New York City actually recover, start with housing,” said Annetta Seecharran, the executive director of the Chhaya Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit group based in Jackson Heights, Queens, that advocates the creation of affordable housing. “If we don’t do housing, we’ll be spinning our wheels for decades.”By several measures, the situation is dire. Even before the pandemic, about half of the city’s households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent, according to an analysis by New York University’s Furman Center. The New York City Housing Authority — the largest public housing entity in the United States, with more than 400,000 tenants — estimates that it needs $40 billion to fix leaky roofs, dilapidated heating systems and other problems.The pandemic has added a troubling layer of uncertainty. Federal aid is on the way, and a moratorium on evictions is in place. But renters’ arrears have risen to hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite the moratorium, landlords have been allowed to file new cases that could lead to the eviction of tens of thousands of residents — particularly in Black and Latino neighborhoods — once the moratorium ends. A spike in homelessness could follow.The winner of the Democratic primary is almost certain to become the city’s next mayor. And while the leading candidates have indicated with their plans that they would build on Mr. de Blasio’s strategies, they have also criticized the mayor, implicitly and explicitly, for not providing enough financial support to the poorest New Yorkers.In a report released this year, the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty group, said Mr. de Blasio’s administration had significantly expanded investment in affordable housing. But most of the efforts, the group found, were directed toward those who earned at least $53,700 for a family of three, equivalent to half of the area’s median income — when the need was greatest among those who earned less.Ms. Garcia said that she would borrow and use state incentives and federal money to help build or preserve 50,000 rent-stabilized housing units that would be affordable to people making less than half the area’s median income, as well as 10,000 housing units that incorporated social services for homeless people. She did not offer a price for her plan, but the money would be used to build new apartments, buy existing buildings, or offer subsidies and incentives to nonprofit or private developers.Mr. McGuire said he would borrow $2.5 billion a year over eight years, which would help finance the construction of more than 350,000 housing units. Most of that money would be earmarked for subsidies and incentives for developers to include rent-stabilized units in mixed-income developments that are affordable to those making less than half the median income. He said he would spend up to $500 million to create about 3,000 affordable units for older people with little income.“It is a departure from what we have built for the past few years,” he said.Mr. Yang and Mr. Donovan said they would spend billions of dollars a year to build or preserve 30,000 units meant for families in a range of incomes.Ms. Wiley is focused on distributing more than $1.5 billion in subsidies to New Yorkers who make less than half the median income to ensure they do not pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. Initially, she said, federal coronavirus aid would cover the subsidies.She said the program would help keep people from becoming homeless, freeing up money that would have gone to shelters to finance the subsidies instead.Mr. Donovan has proposed something similar, a rental-assistance program that he said could be paid for partly with $330 million that would otherwise be spent on shelters.“Although building allows you to provide affordable housing, solving the affordability crisis has more to do with income and rent subsidy than development,” he said.For many candidates, investing in the housing authority, or NYCHA, is crucial to helping the poorest New Yorkers. Ms. Wiley and Mr. Donovan said they would borrow and spend $2 billion a year in city money to improve public housing; Mr. McGuire and Mr. Stringer said they would borrow and spend up to $1.5 billion..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;}Mr. Adams said he planned to raise $8 billion for NYCHA by selling the so-called air rights for some of its properties to private developers, something the authority has already begun to explore.Ms. Garcia said she would push state officials for approval of a complex authority plan that could raise $18 billion to $25 billion, in part by letting a new public benefit corporation manage some buildings. Mr. Yang said he also supported the creation of the new corporation, which could potentially tap into federal funding.Some residents and activists have argued against the plan, asserting that it could open public housing to the influence of private investors at the expense of tenants.Ms. Morales said she would reject the plan, which she characterized as the “privatization of NYCHA,” and would seek state and federal aid instead.Several Democratic candidates said the rules governing development in the city should be overhauled.Mr. Stringer has proposed that every new development with more than 10 units permanently set aside 25 percent of those units for low-income tenants. The proposal would expand the requirements placed on private developers substantially. But the real estate lobby would most likely fight it aggressively, arguing that without significant subsidies from the government, such buildings could reduce profits and thus any incentive to build.“The big real estate developers hate this plan,” Mr. Stringer said. “For me, that’s a badge of honor.”Ms. Garcia, Mr. Yang, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan have said they would move to rezone wealthier neighborhoods and those with more public transit options to accommodate additional affordable housing units. Such a strategy could touch off the kind of fierce local opposition that has torpedoed similar initiatives in the past. Mr. Adams said he would push for wide swaths of Midtown Manhattan, from 42nd Street to 14th Street and from Ninth Avenue to Park Avenue, to be rezoned for more affordable housing.“It is the job of the next mayor to break through the bureaucracy and cynicism to deliver the affordable housing needed to sustain our city,” Mr. Adams said.A core piece of Mr. Yang’s plan involves converting closed hotels and office buildings left unused because of the pandemic into 25,000 units of affordable housing by 2025, with building owners getting grants whose size is tied to how affordable the rents are.“The system is broken, and we need a new way of delivering affordable housing to New Yorkers,” he said.Mr. Adams and Ms. Wiley have also proposed converting hotels and unused offices, and Ms. Morales said she would specifically seek to convert the hotels into housing for 100,000 homeless youth and their families. She did not say how she would pay for it. More

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      Early Voting Begins in Wide-Open Race for New York Mayor

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      Voters seem most concerned about quality of life issues and public safety. They are also trying to figure out ranked-choice voting.On the first day of early voting in New York City, Michael and Eunice Collins voted together in Harlem. Both are worried about the city, but they are divided over who is the best person to fix it.Mr. Collins, a transit worker, voted for Eric Adams for mayor. “I think he has a greater sensitivity to some of these hot issues — racial injustice and that kind of thing,” he said.His wife, Ms. Collins, a nurse, wanted a change: “Andrew Yang will bring a fresh perspective to the city.” The couple, both 66, ranked Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, second on their ballots.This is the first time that New Yorkers can vote early in a mayoral election. Voters were sparse on Saturday and Sunday, and lines at polling stations were much shorter than during the presidential election last year. Early voting will last from June 12 to June 20. The primary election is on June 22.But it is also the first time the city will be using ranked-choice voting — a factor that has added a significant measure of unpredictability into the mayor’s race.Interviews with dozens of voters across the city over the weekend, from the Grand Concourse in the Bronx to Flushing in Queens, revealed that the Democratic primary for mayor was still very much up for grabs, and that most voters were taking advantage of being able to rank up to five candidates out of the field of 13.Michael and Eunice Collins after voting in Harlem on Saturday.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesMany voters named quality of life concerns and public safety as their top issues. Kevin Mancuso, a creative director for a hair care company, said he voted for Mr. Yang, the 2020 presidential candidate, calling him “more of a visionary” than the other candidates and “a newer version” of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.He also said that he was worried about crime, garbage on the streets and an increase of people with mental health problems.“I feel like I’m living in some third world country,” Mr. Mancuso, 65, said after voting in Harlem. “I grew up here — my parents were born here, I was born here. I’ve never seen it so bad.”In southeast Queens, Ayo Olanipekun, 53, a pilot, ranked Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, first, then Mr. McGuire and Maya Wiley.“In my case, crime is the sole big issue,” he said. “So I focused on the candidate that I felt might be best suited to address the issue of crime. And then obviously the situation with bringing jobs back to the city — that was another issue.”New York City has 104 early voting sites, up from 88 for the 2020 presidential election, when there were very long lines. In addition to the Democrats on the ballot for mayor, there are two Republicans, and a host of other important races, from City Council elections to competitive races for city comptroller and Manhattan district attorney.Only about 16,800 people voted on Saturday, compared with 93,800 on the first day of early voting last October during the presidential election, according to the city’s Board of Elections.Political groups are encouraging New Yorkers to vote early to avoid long lines on Election Day. Two mayoral candidates, Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, and Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, voted on Saturday as did Evelyn Yang, the wife of Mr. Yang.The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader, held a rally on Saturday with several leading candidates to encourage people to vote early. Mr. Sharpton decided not to make a mayoral endorsement this year, disappointing Mr. Adams who had been pushing hard for his support. Still, on Saturday, Mr. Sharpton defended Mr. Adams regarding questions about his residency, saying that Mr. Adams clearly lived in Brooklyn.Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat in his second term, said he planned to vote on June 22 — after watching the final debate on Wednesday — and was still deciding which candidates to rank.“This has been unlike any election I’ve ever seen,” Mr. de Blasio said on WNYC on Friday. “I think this will be volatile right up to the end. I think people are going to be deciding, you know, many people, day before, day of, or even as they’re walking into the booth.”Bracelets labeled “Voted Early” were handed out at InTech Academy in the Bronx.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesAt Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Trish O’Sullivan, 73, a psychotherapist, voted for Ms. Garcia first and Mr. Adams second. She said that her top issue was homelessness and that she supported Ms. Garcia because of her endorsement from The New York Times’s editorial board and her “solid track record.”“I have faith in Garcia because she knows how to accomplish things,” she said.In Park Slope, Brooklyn, Peter Karp, 63, a software engineer, said he ranked three left-leaning candidates: Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, first; Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, second; and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, third. He said he cared most about affordable housing, the city’s economic recovery and reopening schools.“I’m very excited about the ranked voting,” he said. “I feel like it’s an ability to really vote for who closest aligns with your views without throwing your vote to the absolute opposite of that.”At the Bronx County Courthouse, Candice Rowser, 40, a college professor of political science and African-American history, said she cared about jobs and the “excessively high cost of living.” She left her apartment in Queens in May because she could no longer afford the rent, which had jumped to $1,400 per month from $1,000 over the years.Ms. Rowser ranked Ms. Wiley first, Mr. Adams second, Ms. Garcia third and Ms. Morales fourth. After years as an independent voter, she decided to register as a Democrat when she heard that Mr. Yang was considering a run for mayor.“When I saw on Twitter that Mr. Yang was filing paperwork to be mayor, I said, ‘hell no,’” Ms. Rowser said. “He has no experience, and he’s clueless.”.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;}Lois M. Williams, a retired teacher in the Bronx, first ranked Mr. Stringer, who was endorsed by the teachers’ union, followed by Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang.“I wasn’t going to leave Eric out of it because I’ve known Eric for years,” she said. “He’s honest and he speaks the truth, whether people like it or not.”In Flushing, Queens, Yu Liu, 69, a retired factory worker from Beijing, said he voted for Mr. Yang. Speaking in Mandarin, Mr. Liu said he was upset by an uptick in anti-Asian bias and people saying things to him like, “You brought the virus.”“It’s important to have a Chinese mayor who can speak for us — so all of us can be treated equally,” he said of Mr. Yang, whose parents are from Taiwan. “Right now, we are not treated equally.”Judy Luong, 47, and her husband, Yuen Wong, 57, also voted for Mr. Yang.“We want a moderate candidate,” Ms. Luong said. “For us, it’s about law and order. Public safety is No. 1.”New Yorkers will use ranked-choice voting for the first time in a mayoral election, choosing five candidates in order of preference, which some observers say might result in increased voting times and longer lines at the polls.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesBut many voters across the city were skeptical of Mr. Yang, including Carol Berkin, 78, a professor of American history on the Upper West Side. She declined to say who she voted for, but she said that her strategy was to help candidates not named Yang.“I was giving his competition as much support as possible,” she said.In Flatbush, Brooklyn, several voters said crime was their top issue. Vanessa Sanchez, 67, said Mr. Adams was her first choice. Although she understood the ranked-choice voting system, she did not rank any other candidates.“I have followed him through the years, I have seen his work,” she said. “He’s a retired police officer. He’s experienced.”Many voters were disillusioned with Mr. de Blasio. Joe Cangelosi, 44, who considers himself “left of center,” voted in Park Slope for Ms. Garcia first, Mr. Adams second and then Ms. Wiley and Ms. Morales.He said he did not vote for Mr. Yang because the candidate had left the city during the pandemic. Mr. Cangelosi said his family stayed, and he had Covid in March 2020. He had voted for Mr. de Blasio in 2013.“I think he was the best option at the time,” he said. “Am I pleased with the results? No.”Reporting was contributed by More

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      Has New York Hit a Progressive Plateau? The Mayor’s Race Is a Key Test.

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      Concerns about crime are dominating the Democratic primary, and the party’s left wing has just started to coalesce.A year ago, the left wing of New York’s Democratic Party was ascendant. Deeply progressive candidates triumphed in state legislative primaries and won a congressional upset, activists fueled a movement to rein in the power of the police, and Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to cut the Police Department budget.But for most of the Democratic primary season this spring, nearly every available metric has suggested that the political energy has shifted. The question is, by how much.The June 22 primary contests for mayor and other city offices are critical, if imperfect, tests of the mood of Democratic voters on the cusp of a summer that many experts believe will be marked by high rates of gun violence in cities across the United States.The Democratic race for mayor has in some ways reflected national tensions within the party over how far to the left its leaders should tack, after President Biden won the party’s nomination on the strength of moderate Black voters and older Americans, and Republicans secured surprising down-ballot general election victories.Now, a version of that debate is playing out even in overwhelmingly liberal New York City, where the Democratic primary winner will almost certainly become the next mayor. The primary underscores how the battle for the party’s direction extends far beyond concerns over defeating Republicans.Polls have increasingly shown that combating crime is the top priority among New York Democrats, a sentiment that was evident in interviews with voters across the city in recent months, from Harlem to Kew Gardens Hills, Queens. The debate over what role the police should play in maintaining public safety has become the biggest wedge issue in the mayoral campaign.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and former police captain who has recently led in the few available public polls, is a relative moderate on questions of policing and charter schools and in his posture toward business and the real estate industry.In other major contests — most notably, the Manhattan district attorney’s race — there are signs that the contenders who are furthest to the left are struggling to capture the same traction that propelled like-minded candidates in recent years.“The political class, I think, thought that the party, that the voters, had moved very, very far to the left,” Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner and another leading mayoral candidate, said in an interview last month. “That they were at a moment where they wanted to do radical, radical change. I just never believed that that was true.”The party’s left wing still holds extraordinary sway and the mayor’s race, which will be decided by ranked-choice voting, is far from the only test of its power. Progressive lawmakers are a force in the State Legislature and have already triumphed by passing a far-reaching budget agreement. The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has stayed out of the mayor’s race, is focusing instead on City Council primaries.Some activists say that if the trajectory of the mayor’s race has sometimes been worrisome, it has more to do with controversies surrounding individual candidates than with New Yorkers’ attitudes.“It’s a little taxing with all the drama that has been happening,” said Liat Olenick, a leader of the progressive group Indivisible Nation Brooklyn. “Coalescing is happening. It is really late, so we’ll have to see.”Indeed, even with the primary just over a week away, there is time for progressive leaders to consolidate their support. Maya Wiley is increasingly seen as the left-leaning candidate with the best chance of winning, and many progressives are moving urgently to support her, which could reshape the race in the final stretch.In the last several election cycles, New York Democrats have undeniably moved to the left, galvanized in part by outrage over former President Donald J. Trump. But with Mr. Trump out of office, voters have become more focused on recovering from the pandemic than on politics.And while many Americans consider New York synonymous with coastal liberalism, the city’s voters also elected Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican, mayor twice, and the moderate Michael R. Bloomberg three times before electing Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is much more progressive.It was always going to be harder for progressive activists to replicate their legislative victories in a vast metropolis that includes some of the most left-wing voters in the country, but also many moderates.On issues including homelessness, education and especially policing, the most progressive prescriptions have not always been popular, even in heavily Democratic neighborhoods.“More police need to be out here,” Linda Acosta, 50, said as she walked into the Bronx Night Market off Fordham Road on a recent Saturday. “Not to harass. To do their job.”Ms. Wiley, Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, have supported cuts to the police budget. They argue that adding more officers to patrol the subway would not meaningfully reduce violence. Ms. Wiley and others have promoted alternatives, including investments in mental health professionals and in schools.Those positions have been central to a broader competition among the candidates seeking to be the left-wing standard-bearer, even as Mr. Stringer and Ms. Morales have struggled with campaign controversies.Last Saturday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Ms. Wiley for mayor, a potentially race-altering move. The same day, Representative Jamaal Bowman, a left-wing Democrat who beat the longtime incumbent Eliot Engel last summer, said he was supporting Ms. Wiley as well.On Wednesday, Jumaane D. Williams, the city’s public advocate, also endorsed Ms. Wiley.“This moment is being dominated by a loud discussion of whether New York will return to the bad old days,” Mr. Williams said. “For so many of us, those ‘bad old days’ run through Bloomberg and Giuliani” and “the abuses of stop-and-frisk and surveillance.”Eric Adams, a relative centrist among the leading candidates, has led the field in recent polling.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Adams has led the mayor’s race in recent surveys, often followed by Andrew Yang and Ms. Garcia, two other relatively centrist candidates. Many strategists said Mr. Adams’s rise was tied to public safety concerns, even as he has begun to attract more scrutiny.All of the leading contenders stress that public safety is not at odds with racial justice, another vital priority for New York Democrats. The candidates who are considered more centrist support reining in officers’ misconduct and making changes to the Police Department, and Mr. Adams worked on those issues as a police officer..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;}But they are also openly skeptical of the “defund the police” movement, and have emphasized a need for more police on the subway. Those views have resonated with some voters.“My No. 1 is safety in the subway,” said Jane Arrendell, 52, after an Adams campaign event in Washington Heights. “I hate working at home but I feel safer.”There was much more violent crime in New York in earlier decades than there is today. But the city has been experiencing a spike in gun violence, along with jarring crimes on the subway and in bias attacks against Asians, Asian-Americans and Jews.The candidates’ talk about crime “has almost driven discussion about any other issues to the back burner,” said Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which is polling the race. “I find that surprising given where New York is coming off of Covid.”“For the other candidates,” he added, “that really cedes that discussion to Adams.”An NY1-Ipsos poll released on Monday found that 46 percent of likely Democratic voters viewed crime and public safety as the top priority for the next mayor. A staggering 72 percent said they somewhat or strongly agreed that the Police Department should put more officers on the street.A quarter of likely voters polled for the survey identified themselves as more progressive than the Democratic Party. Nearly an equal share, 22 percent, said they were more centrist or conservative. Just over half called themselves “generally in line with the Democratic Party,” which has shifted significantly to the left as a whole in recent years.Whatever the primary results, party strategists warn against drawing sweeping conclusions from a post-pandemic Democratic municipal contest that is likely to be a low-turnout affair.Still, city elections in recent years have been important barometers of grass-roots energy, including the 2019 race for Queens district attorney, where Tiffany L. Cabán, who ran as a Democratic Socialist, nearly defeated Melinda Katz, a veteran of New York politics.In this year’s race for Manhattan district attorney, at least three contenders have sought to emulate Ms. Cabán. But the three — Tahanie Aboushi, Eliza Orlins and Dan Quart — have struggled to win support. A more moderate candidate, Tali Farhadian Weinstein, has led in fund-raising, including $8.2 million in contributions that she recently made to her own campaign, and the few available polls.Tensions on the left burst into public view when Zephyr Teachout, a candidate for governor in 2014, argued on Twitter that Mr. Quart, Ms. Orlins and Ms. Aboushi had no path to victory.That drew a sharp response from Cynthia Nixon, who challenged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo from the left in the 2018 primary and supports Ms. Aboushi. (Ms. Teachout supports Alvin Bragg, a former prosecutor who has also won the backing of progressive groups.)“Your point of view is myopic, privileged, and just plain wrong,” Ms. Nixon wrote.In an interview, Ms. Nixon argued that Ms. Aboushi, who was endorsed on Wednesday by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, was the candidate of the left movement and that others should recognize that.“It’s really nice that the movement has all these people in it and we welcome them and we need them,” she said. “But there’s only going to be one Manhattan D.A.” More