Happy New Year!
If you’re getting this note it’s because we’ve crossed paths before, either in my work covering New York, in school or just around town. I’ve started this newsletter as a way to keep people up to date on my life and work, and just to keep in touch. Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com, any time, with thoughts, feedback or just to say hi.
The new year means a new administration in New York City. Eric Adams was sworn in after the ball dropped in Times Square and spent his first day visiting police officers and laying out his priorities. I wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal about how Adams, a Democrat and former NYPD officer, has been courting the city’s business leaders in what executives said was a break from outgoing Bürgermeister Bill de Blasio. (Politico’s Sally Goldenberg wrote a great overview on his tenure and legacy.)
Adams created a corporate advisory council and, people who attended its first meeting told me, promised to get on the phone to recruit businesses thinking about re-locating to New York City. “We’re all hoping that the excellent rhetoric translates into action,” said Mary Ann Tighe, the chief executive for the New York region of the commercial real-estate company CBRE.
It looks like there will be bumps ahead in how Eric Adams deals with the New York City Council, which is dominated by new members and will be helmed by Adrienne Adams of Queens. (No relation to the mayor, but both attended Bayside High School.) The incoming mayor had a tart reply for a group of Council members who pushed back on his plan to revive solitary confinement, d/b/a punitive segregation, at Rikers Island.
“I’m going to ignore them,” Mayor Adams said in reply last month. “I’m going to stay committed, undistracted and I’m going to grind. If they like it or not—I’m the mayor.”
COMING UP: While Adams will continue his first week in office, lots of eyeballs will be on Albany where Gov. Kathy Hochul delivers her first State of the State address since taking office in August. She’ll do it in the state Assembly Chamber, a return to tradition broken by the last guy.
Speaking of: Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to be arraigned Friday on a charge of forcible touching in Albany City Court.
THE QUESTION: Who was the last New York governor to deliver a State of the State address in the Assembly Chamber? And who was the first? (Send me an email if you know the answer.)
Cheers,
Jimmy