New York
Brad Lander’s 2 Goals in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race: Beat Cuomo and Win
Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller and self-described “tough nerd,” knows that for him to win the race for mayor of New York City, Andrew M. Cuomo must fall.
To make that more likely, Mr. Lander decided that his campaign strategy needed an overhaul. He would no longer focus his ire on the increasingly inconsequential mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, and his apparent alliance with the Trump administration.
Instead, Mr. Lander, the Park Slope father with the University of Chicago degree, would use his distinctive voice — a singsong lilt that his critics find grating — to try to take down Mr. Cuomo, the former governor leading in the polls.
During a Passover week meal of latkes and matzo ball soup at a restaurant on Montague Street in Brooklyn, Mr. Lander unspooled his indictment of Mr. Cuomo, allegation by allegation.
“I know he looks like a good leader, but actually, you know, he’s just a corrupt chaos agent with an abusive personality that has shown through in every position he’s been in, and that’s dangerous for New York City,” Mr. Lander said, stopping only to spread sour cream and apple sauce on his potato pancake, or to sip from his French 75, a cocktail he likes because it is fizzy.
New Yorkers, he said, deserved a stark alternative: “I am a decent person. Let’s just start there.”
In eight weeks, Democratic primary voters will choose a candidate for mayor, with the victor promptly becoming the favorite to win the November general election in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one.
What kind of person New Yorkers want as their mayor is the elemental question of this and any mayor’s race. Do they want someone who projects a muscle-car style of masculinity, like the former governor, who resigned in disgrace in 2021 after an investigation found he had sexually harassed 11 women? (Mr. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing.)
Would they rather a female politician adept at projecting an even-tempered self-confidence, like the City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams? Would they prefer a charismatic democratic socialist and son of a movie director from Queens with an age-appropriate aptitude for social media, like Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, who is now polling in second place?
Or would they like Mr. Lander, an earnest-seeming policy wonk who read Antigone in the original Greek; a former member of the Democratic Socialists of America who in 2020 said he still considered himself a member, but whose spokeswoman now says hasn’t attended a D.S.A. meeting in decades; a critic of the city-backed financing of the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s West Side who has since come around; a reform Jew who considered becoming a rabbi, and who is also an anti-occupation Netanyahu critic who cursed Mr. Cuomo in Yiddish as he accused him of wielding antisemitism as a political weapon?
At the moment, it appears that New York City voters are looking elsewhere. Mr. Lander is polling at 6 percent among registered Democratic voters, well behind Mr. Mamdani, a liberal upstart who has energized much of Mr. Lander’s presumptive base. Twenty percent of voters remain undecided. Mayor Adams has opted out of the Democratic primary and will run as an independent in November instead.
Lander partisans note that it is early. At this point in 2021, Andrew Yang was still leading the polls, Mr. Adams was in second place, and Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer, and Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner, were polling at 7 and 4 percent, according to a Spectrum News NY1/Ipsos poll from the time.
That June, Ms. Garcia lost to Mr. Adams by just 7,000 votes, Ms. Wiley finished third, and Mr. Yang finished fourth. And Mr. Lander won the Democratic primary for comptroller.
“What I did last time to win was build a coalition that had the Maya Wiley voters, like people that have a more progressive vision of a city that can deliver on affordability, and Kathryn Garcia voters, who just want a good manager who loves New York City,” Mr. Lander said.
“And I believe that coalition still exists and can be a majority of the Democratic primary electorate.”
But first, Mr. Lander said, Mr. Cuomo has to be “knocked down.”
To that end, Mr. Lander has bombarded the press with anti-Cuomo messaging, hoping that something, anything, will stick.
“Lander Demands Cuomo Release His Tax Returns After History of Shady Business and Lies About His Income,” read one news release. “In Addition to Shady Crypto Client, Who Else Has Cuomo Been Paid to Advise Since Resigning as Governor?” read another.
Mr. Lander’s first real political encounter with Mr. Cuomo happened in 2017, when Mr. Lander was the city councilman representing Park Slope, Brooklyn, and Mr. Cuomo was still governor.
Mr. Cuomo effectively killed a New York City law imposing a 5-cent fee on plastic bags that Mr. Lander had sponsored, acting right before it was set to begin. “Plastic bags won,” Mr. Lander said at the time.
Four years after Mr. Lander’s bill passed the City Council, a plastic bag ban signed by Mr. Cuomo went into effect.
“We call that 40 billion plastic bags later,” Mr. Lander said.
More damning, Mr. Lander argues, were the Cuomo administration’s choices during the height of the Covid pandemic, when it directed nursing homes to accept infected patients, and then failed to publicly account for the deaths of more than 4,000 nursing home residents, according to an audit by the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli.
Mr. Lander has also tried to highlight the estimated $61 million New York has spent on legal representation related to issues surrounding Mr. Cuomo’s tenure.
“In every relationship, he views it as like, how could I manipulate this other party to my benefit?” Mr. Lander said. “And I really think that’s how he thinks about New York City.”
And so, inevitably, more than an hour into a pro-migrant, pro-trans-rights, pro-Mr. Lander event at a Unitarian church in Brooklyn Heights, Mr. Lander turned to Mr. Cuomo.
He pinned Mr. Cuomo’s polling status on “name recognition in a time of Trumpian distraction” and “pandemic memory repression.” He invoked a former Syracuse mayor, Stephanie Miner, who recently described Mr. Cuomo’s kissing her against her will as a power play. He brought up Covid and the $5 million book deal on which Mr. Cuomo used government resources. He noted that Mr. Cuomo’s lawyer had sought the gynecological records of a woman who had accused him of harassment.
“This is an abusive, corrupt person who is running for his own revenge tour,” Mr. Lander said. “He is not looking to solve the problems of New York City, where he hasn’t lived in 25 years.”
Then Mr. Lander asked the room to sing “Happy Birthday” to his 81-year-old mother, whose celebration he was missing while on the campaign trail. The audience happily complied.
In a statement, Esther Jensen, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo, described Mr. Lander’s strategy as “bizarre.”
“New Yorkers aren’t naïve,” she said. “They know Governor Cuomo is the only person in this race with the proven record of accomplishment, and leadership necessary to effectively confront the very serious challenges we face, and take on President Trump, which is why these repeated gutter attacks from Brad Lander, a career politician, with no meaningful record or vision of his own, are not only not working, but backfiring.”
Mr. Lander, the 55-year-old son of a St. Louis lawyer and guidance counselor, met his wife at the University of Chicago and moved to New York City in 1992, so she could attend N.Y.U. law school. He found work running a community development corporation and then the Pratt Center for Community Development, both in Brooklyn.
After Mr. Lander announced he would run for mayor, he began tacking toward the center, renouncing the defund the police movement he had once supported and giving a pro-growth speech at a prominent civic association.
The speech won the respect of Dan Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Michael R. Bloomberg and a driving force behind New York City’s economic development. “The most important thing is he’s adopted my vision of the pro-growth cycle,” Mr. Doctoroff said of Mr. Lander.
It was a strategy seemingly predicated on the idea that moderates seeking competent governance would coalesce with left-leaning voters behind Mr. Lander.
He has cast himself as a liberal with managerial chops, and a housing expert who promises to end the mental health crisis on city streets and to build apartments on public golf courses. But the left seems more enamored of Mr. Mamdani these days.
In this city of shifting political loyalties, the pendulum may still swing in unexpected ways.
At this point in 2021, Ms. Garcia, who was running on her managerial competence, was a political afterthought. Then she surged forward, winning the endorsements of The New York Times and The Daily News.
Many voters still “want someone who is going to be a good manager,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who formerly led the state party. He added that voters were also looking for someone who could stand up to Mr. Trump.
“Brad Lander has a chance if he can make the case that he can do all of those things,” Mr. Smikle said.
Every week since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has published stories by, and for, New Yorkers of all ages and eras (no matter where they live now): anecdotes and memories, quirky encounters and overheard snippets that reveal the city’s spirit and heart.
For the past four years, we’ve asked for your help picking the best Diary entry of the year. Now we’re asking again.
We’ve narrowed the field to the five finalists here. Read them and vote for your favorite. The author of the item that gets the most votes will receive a print of the illustration that accompanied it, signed by the artist, Agnes Lee.
The voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 21. You can change your vote as many times as you’d like until then, but you may only pick one. Choose wisely.
Click “VOTE” to choose your favorite Metropolitan Diary entry of 2025, and come back on Sunday, Dec. 28, to see which one our readers picked as their favorite.
Click “VOTE” to choose your favorite Metropolitan Diary entry of 2025, and come back on Sunday, Dec. 28, to see which one our readers picked as their favorite.
Two Stops
Dear Diary:
It was a drizzly June night in 2001. I was a young magazine editor and had just enjoyed what I thought was a very blissful second date — dinner, drinks, fabulous conversation — with our technology consultant at a restaurant in Manhattan.
I lived in Williamsburg at the time, and my date lived near Murray Hill, so we grabbed a cab and headed south on Second Avenue.
“Just let me out here,” my date said to the cabby at the corner of 25th Street.
We said our goodbyes, quick and shy, knowing that we would see each other at work the next day. I was giddy and probably grinning with happiness and hope.
“Oh boy,” the cabby said, shaking his head as we drove toward Brooklyn. “Very bad.”
“What do you mean?” I asked in horror.
“He doesn’t want you to know exactly where he lives,” the cabby said. “Not a good sign.”
I spent the rest of the cab ride in shock, revisiting every moment of the date.
Happily, it turned out that my instinct about it being a great date was right, and the cabby was wrong. Twenty-four years later, my date that night is my husband, and I know that if your stop is first, it’s polite to get out so the cab can continue in a straight line to the next stop.
Ferry Farewell
Dear Diary:
On a February afternoon, I met my cousins at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Their spouses and several of our very-grown children were there too. I brought Prosecco, a candle, a small speaker to play music, photos and a poem.
We were there to recreate the wedding cruise of my mother, Monica, and my stepfather, Peter. They had gotten married at City Hall in August 1984. She was 61, and he, 71. It was her first marriage, and his fourth.
I was my mother’s witness that day. It was a late-in-life love story, and they were very happy. Peter died in 1996, at 82. My mother died last year. She was 100.
Peter’s ashes had waited a long time, but finally they were mingled with Monica’s. The two of them would ride the ferry a last time and then swirl together in the harbor forever. Cue the candles, bubbly, bagpipes and poems.
Two ferry workers approached us. We knew we were in trouble: Open containers and open flames were not allowed on the ferry.
My cousin’s husband, whispering, told the workers what we were doing and said we would be finished soon.
They walked off, and then returned. They said they had spoken to the captain, and they ushered us to the stern for some privacy. As the cup of ashes flew into the water, the ferry horn sounded two long blasts.
Unacceptable
Dear Diary:
I went to a new bagel store in Brooklyn Heights with my son.
When it was my turn to order, I asked for a cinnamon raisin bagel with whitefish salad and a slice of red onion.
The man behind the counter looked up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do that.”
Teresa
Dear Diary:
It was February 2013. With a foot of snow expected, I left work early and drove from New Jersey warily as my wipers squeaked and snow and ice stuck to my windows.
I drove east on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which was tied up worse than usual. Trucks groaned on either side of my rattling Toyota. My fingers were cold. My toes were colder. Got to get home before it really comes down, I thought to myself.
By the time I got home to my little red bungalow a stone’s throw from the Throgs Neck Bridge, the snow was already up to my ankles.
Inside, I took off my gloves, hat, scarf, coat, sweater, pants and snow boots. The bed, still unmade, was inviting me. But first, I checked my messages.
There was one from Teresa, the 92-year-old widow on the corner.
“Call me,” she said, sounding desperate.
I looked toward the warm bed, but … Teresa. There was a storm outside, and she was alone.
On went the pants, the sweater, the coat, the scarf, the boots and the gloves, and then I went out the door.
The snow was six inches deep on the sidewalks, so I tottered on tire tracks in the middle of the street. The wind stung my face. When I got to the end of the block, I pounded on her door.
“Teresa!” I called. No answer. “Teresa!” I called again. I heard the TV blaring. Was she sprawled on the floor?
I went next door and called for Kathy.
“Teresa can’t answer the door,” I said. “Probably fell.”
Kathy had a key. In the corner of her neat living room, Teresa, in pink sweatpants and sweaters, was sitting curled in her armchair, head bent down and The Daily News in her lap.
I snapped off the TV.
Startled, she looked up.
“Kathy! Neal!” she said. “What’s a five-letter word for cabbage?”
Nice Place
Dear Diary:
When I lived in Park Slope over 20 years ago, I once had to call an ambulance because of a sudden, violent case of food poisoning.
Two paramedics, a man and a woman, entered our third-floor walk-up with a portable chair. Strapping me in, the male medic quickly inserted an IV line into my arm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his partner circling around and admiring the apartment.
“Nice place you’ve got here.” she said. “Do you own it?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, all but unconscious.
Once I was in the ambulance, she returned to her line of inquiry.
“Do you mind me asking how much you paid for your apartment?”
“$155,000,” I croaked.
“Wow! You must have bought during the recession.”
“Yeah” I said.
They dropped me off at Methodist Hospital, where I was tended to by a nurse as I struggled to stay lucid.
At some point, the same medic poked her head into the room with one last question:
“You wouldn’t be wanting to sell any time soon, would you?”
Illustrations by Agnes Lee.
‘Part of the job’
Edwin Guity was at the controls of a southbound D train last December, rolling through the Bronx, when suddenly someone was on the tracks in front of him.
He jammed on the emergency brake, but it was too late. The man had gone under the wheels.
Stumbling over words, Mr. Guity radioed the dispatcher and then did what the rules require of every train operator involved in such an incident. He got out of the cab and went looking for the person he had struck.
“I didn’t want to do it,” Mr. Guity said later. “But this is a part of the job.”
He found the man pinned beneath the third car. Paramedics pulled him out, but the man died at the hospital. After that, Mr. Guity wrestled with what to do next.
A 32-year-old who had once lived in a family shelter with his parents, he viewed the job as paying well and offering a rare chance at upward mobility. It also helped cover the costs of his family’s groceries and rent in the three-bedroom apartment they shared in Brooklyn.
But striking the man with the train had shaken him more than perhaps any other experience in his life, and the idea of returning to work left him feeling paralyzed.
Edwin Guity was prescribed exposure therapy after his train struck a man on the tracks.
Hundreds of train operators have found themselves in Mr. Guity’s position over the years.
And for just as long, there has been a path through the state workers’ compensation program to receiving substantive treatment to help them cope. But New York’s train operators say that their employer, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has done too little to make them aware of that option.
After Mr. Guity’s incident, no official told him of that type of assistance, he said. Instead, they gave him the option of going back to work right away.
But Mr. Guity was lucky. He had a friend who had been through the same experience and who coached him on getting help — first through a six-week program and then, with the assistance of a lawyer, through an experienced specialist.
The specialist prescribed a six-month exposure therapy program to gradually reintroduce Mr. Guity to the subway.
His first day back at the controls of a passenger train was on Thanksgiving. Once again, he was driving on the D line — the same route he had been traveling on the day of the fatal accident.
M.T.A. representatives insisted that New York train operators involved in strikes are made aware of all options for getting treatment, but they declined to answer specific questions about how the agency ensures that drivers get the help they need.
In an interview, the president of the M.T.A. division that runs the subway, Demetrius Crichlow, said all train operators are fully briefed on the resources available to them during their job orientation.
“I really have faith in our process,” Mr. Crichlow said.
Still, other transit systems — all of which are smaller than New York’s — appear to do a better job of ensuring that operators like Mr. Guity take advantage of the services available to them, according to records and interviews.
A Times analysis shows that the incidents were on the rise in New York City’s system even as they were falling in all other American transit systems.
An Uptick in Subway Strikes
San Francisco’s system provides 24-hour access to licensed therapists through a third-party provider.
Los Angeles proactively reaches out to its operators on a regular basis to remind them of workers’ compensation options and other resources.
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has made it a goal to increase engagement with its employee assistance program.
The M.T.A. says it offers some version of most of these services.
But in interviews with more than two dozen subway operators who have been involved in train strikes, only one said he was aware of all those resources, and state records suggest most drivers of trains that strike people are not taking full advantage of them.
“It’s the M.T.A.’s responsibility to assist the employee both mentally and physically after these horrific events occur,” the president of the union that represents New York City transit workers, John V. Chiarello, said in a statement, “but it is a constant struggle trying to get the M.T.A. to do the right thing.”
new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
transcript
transcript
Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid
Nearly 200 protesters tried to block federal agents from leaving a parking garage in Lower Manhattan on Saturday. The confrontation appeared to prevent a possible ICE raid nearby, and led to violent clashes between the police and protesters.
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[chanting] “ICE out of New York.”
By Jorge Mitssunaga
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