Eric Adams worked for the New York City Transit Police as well as the New York Police Department (NYPD) for more than 20 years before serving as a New York (NY) State Senator from 2007 until 2013. On Nov. 17, 2020, Eric Adams announced his plan to run for Mayor in the 2021 election. A year later, on Nov. 2, Adams was officially elected with a mayoral campaign formed on the basis that he was a working class man from a working class family. He, unlike his counterparts, understood the challenges and difficulties many New Yorkers faced due to his own experiences growing up in Brooklyn and Queens. Adams not only placed an emphasis on being a member of the working class, also on being a “blue collar man.” In fact, during his campaign, Adams highlighted his desire to be the “first blue collar Mayor.”
Adams seems to have this tendency of crafting incredible tales in an effort to connect with New Yorkers and potential supporters, however, no real relationship can be built on dishonesty and lies or else its foundation will crack; Adams is a prime example of this. During his campaign, many of the anecdotes Adams shared about his past and present that continued after his election were not all true. Many of his stories lacked evidence, were over exaggerated, or just simply false. In fact, in a commencement speech given by Adams in 2019, he recited a story about a time he had to intimidate a neighbor’s dog because it was destroying his backyard. In 2021, when speaking to an investigator from The New York Times, Adams stated it was a true story that happened, just not to him.
On another occasion, Adams recalled a story during a news conference about his fellow officer, Officer Venable, who was killed while on duty in 1987. Adams went on to share that he has kept a photo of Venable in his wallet for “decades.” After a request from The New York Times to see this photo, Adams posed for a picture in his office, however, the nature of this photo falls in contrast to two former City Hall aides. In fact, according to an anonymous source inside City Hall, employees were instructed to find a photo of the officer and wear it down by spilling coffee on it to give the illusion that it was old and weathered.
In 2022, Adams went on an incredibly public “personal trip” to Europe where it was discovered shortly after that this so-called “personal trip” featured Adams in Monaco, sailing around on a yacht. His lavish expenses are not limited to just trips abroad, hitting home with his membership at Zero Bond, a members only club in Noho, NYC with an annual fee of a cool $4,000.
One of the many promises made by Adams during his campaign trail was the implementation of at least 150 miles of new bus lanes in an effort to tackle NYC’s bus problems (an average NYC bus goes eight miles an hour). The Mayor was so passionate about this project that he was dubbed “NYC Bus Mayor,” yet last year, the city implemented a mere 10 miles of new bus lanes and an additional 12 miles this year. The Mayor’s hesitation and lack to carry out this promise stems from the dislike that one of his allies, Representative Adriano Espaillat, expressed against it as well as a handful of business owners. The backlash from these people was enough to make him step down from his agreement and turn his back on the communities he promised to advocate for.
The drama surrounding Eric Adams continues as in this past July, he was caught in yet another rather sticky situation. In this case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged donors of Eric Adams’ campaign in a straw donor scheme. This is when a donor gives funds to another person or another entity, normally a shell company (a company that is not active and serves as a vehicle for financial gain) who then distributes those funds to a political committee or group.
The defendants in this recent case were charged by the NY State Supreme Court with Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree, Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, Attempted Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, and Attempted Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree. Based on documents released by the NY State Supreme Court, the defendants scheme was structured in an effort to maximize the amount of extra money gained through the NYC Matching Funds Program, specifically for Eric Adams’ campaign. This straw donor scheme is not the only legal issue Adams and his constituents are involved with. In fact, just this September, a grand jury indicted Adams’ former business commissioner, Eric Ulrich, on 16 felony charges including corruption. According to investigators at The Daily News, Ulrich told them he was tipped off about the evidence being gathered by prosecutors by none other than the Mayor himself, though Eric Adams has vehemently denied.
Furthermore, Adams has shown a complete lack of competence, action, or care in regards to the overwhelming migrant crisis NYC is experiencing right now, with more than 95,000 migrants arriving this year alone. Adams has been intensely criticized by the people and his political opponents for failure to provide housing, shelter, and resources to the thousands of asylum seekers residing on the streets. One of the few intake shelters is the Roosevelt Hotel, a once luxurious hotel, that has become the epicenter of the migrant crisis in NYC as thousands of immigrants wait for their information to be processed and a place to stay.
Adams’ attitude towards migrants and his belief that they are overrunning the city is a stark comparison to his once welcoming attitude towards those same migrants and their needs. At the beginning of the crisis, Adams went down to the Port Authority and welcomed a bus load of migrants seeking asylum in the city. Now, Adams is pleading with judges to overturn the “right to shelter” law which has been in place in NYC for decades. Perhaps the Mayor’s incredibly delayed response to this migrant crisis comes from his distaste for them.
In June 2023, while speaking to reporters, Adams mentioned that migrants were “taking up” half of NYC’s hotel rooms, insinuating that the migrant crisis was hurting the city’s tourism for rooms that could be used by potential tourists. The backlash from the public was so intense that City Hall officials had to make a statement in response to Adams’, explaining that the Mayor had in fact meant to say migrants have taken up around 40 percent of the rooms in NYC’s hotels. The statistic has been refuted by numerous Hotel Industry Leaders who say migrants have not hurt tourism or negatively affected the hotel industry. In fact, according to these leaders, there are more than 20,000 hotel rooms that are still unoccupied in the city. With Adams’ tendency to delay his responses to the city’s most pressing issues, migrants have become one of many examples he has failed to react to in time, if at all.
This past Friday, Sep. 29, NYC experienced record flooding in boroughs like Queens and Brooklyn which were severely underwater. Not only did the Mayor fail to issue a simple warning the day before, it took him until around two in the afternoon to issue a state of emergency. In fact, it took Adams over 24 hours to discuss the storm that weather officials had predicted the day before. By the time Adams spoke about the flooding, rain had already caused closures towards the majority of the subway, a LaGuardia airport terminal as well as flooded MTA buses. It wasn’t until midday Friday that the Mayor instructed people to “shelter in place,” hours after people had already shown up to work and dropped their children off to school. In response to his delayed warnings, Adams stated, “anyone that was caught off guard had to be living under a rock.”
