Mayor Eric Adams on the Future of New York City

Tracy Alloway (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

Joe Weisenthal (0:18)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:23)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:24)

Tracy, we have a special episode of the podcast today, which needs very little introduction, but we are speaking to the mayor.

Tracy Alloway (0:31)

I love our transition to local city reporters.

Joe Weisenthal (0:34)

It's really fun learning about our city. Mayor Adams, New York City Mayor Adams, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

Eric Adams (0:40)

Thank you, thank you. I think this is my second time this week, or was it last week? The days go this fast, but it's great here being at Bloomberg.

Joe Weisenthal (0:47)

Thank you so much. I read an article recently from the journalist Derrick Thompson. He was talking about the death of partying in America. People apparently don't party as much as they used to. New York City people still party, but like, you know, there aren't as many 24-hour clubs they used to be. Apparently, there's fewer 4 a.m. liquor licenses, et cetera. You're a man who appreciates nightlife and partying. What happened? Why don't people party as much as they used to?

Eric Adams (1:11)

Great question. And first of all is, why do I appreciate the nightlife? It's a $30 billion industry. And we viewed the city often as mayors. We viewed it as nine to five, but it's not when I was a police officer, I worked overnights, midnights. And when I go into a nightlife, a restaurant, I walk in the kitchen, I talk to the dishwasher, I talk to the busboy or girl. Those are everyday working class people. And I knew when I came back after COVID, I had to turn our nightlife around. And we did that. You can't get reservations in the city anymore. Broadway had the best 12 months in the history of the city. And part of coming back out at night is what is our signature. New York, the city that never sleeps.

Joe Weisenthal (1:58)

So there's no party crisis?

Eric Adams (2:00)

No, it's not.

Tracy Alloway (2:01)

But stuff still shuts down earlier than it used to.

Eric Adams (2:03)

No, it does. And part of the problem, I believe, you have far too many people on community boards that have been for a long time and they're not connecting the economics with their desire really not to have any nightlife. Nightlife is important of the community. It's allowed to let off some steam, networking, really collaborating. Listen, you come to New York, you're going to find your mate here because the diversity of this great city.

Tracy Alloway (2:32)

I wanted to ask about some other specific policy proposals, specifically housing, and I went to your website and I saw the summary of your proposals, and then I clicked in to learn more, and it took me to your previous accomplishments under your first term. So I'm really curious if you could maybe broaden out some of your housing policies. What exactly are you talking about here?

Eric Adams (2:55)

Well, first let's look at the fact that when you look at shovels in the ground and what we're proposing in our rezoning, it's including the most comprehensive housing reform in the history of the city. 60 years previously was the first time we really started looking at housing and some of the reform. We're going to build more housing in one term than the 12 years under Bloomberg, the eight years under de Blasio combined in one term. And $25 billion we put into our 10 year capital plan. In addition to that, for the first time in history, we are including NYCHA housing into the plan. So we're looking at a couple of different locations. Number one, we saw the federal and state government walk away from NYCHA. NYCHA has an $88 billion capital problem. We had to find new ways of building on NYCHA. We did the land trust. Many people tried, we got it done. We're also doing the RAD program. Many people have attempted to do it, we got it done.

The amazing project that we are getting ready to do in Reese Houses, where we're going to tear down old buildings, build new buildings, and without zero displacement of tenants. That's how we deal with the NYCHA issue. Then we realized that if we want to build more housing, we have to build everywhere. It was unbelievable how many elected officials were stopping that building. 59 community boards, 10 of those 59 were building more affordable housing than 49 combined. So our goal now is to build all over the city, and that's what City of Yes was about. A little more housing in every community that we could allow residents and tenants to stay in their community instead of leaving the city. So our goal in the future as we move forward, we want to build faster, we want to build more. Drive by Willis Point right now, 2,400 units of affordable housing that's there, new soccer stadium that's paid private dollars, a new school, new open space. And you see the build is actually going up in the same term. So our focus is building more and building everywhere.