New York

10 Questions With Brad Lander

Published

6 months ago

June 11, 2025

Brad Lander took a risk last summer when he entered the New York City mayor’s race instead of running for a second term as comptroller.

But he was worried then, he says, about the city’s future under the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams — and later about the possibility that former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo would join the race, as he did.

He has run as an earnest technocrat with a stack of progressive plans. But he has not had the same momentum as Zohran Mamdani, who has risen in the polls and received the first-choice endorsement of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (She ranked Mr. Lander third.)

Ahead of the June 24 primary, the leading Democrats in the race visited The New York Times for interviews. We are publishing excerpts from those interviews, and this is the sixth in the series; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

We asked Mr. Lander, 55, questions about 10 themes, with the occasional follow-up, touching on his management of the city’s finances and the two good things he thinks Mr. Adams has done as mayor.

We’ve written previously about Mr. Lander’s plan to end street homelessness for people with severe mental illness, his criticism of Mr. Cuomo and how he seriously considered becoming a rabbi.

1. What’s the most important issue in the race: affordability, public safety, President Trump or something else?

In that order — affordability, public safety, Trump and then just cleaning up corruption and making the city run better. But I’ll put affordability first. That is what’s pushing people out of New York.

2. Who was the best New York City mayor in your lifetime?

The best New York City mayor ever was Fiorello La Guardia, and he was not in my lifetime. Alas, I wish he had been.

The mayors in my lifetime have done great things, but I hesitate to say which one. If you want the mayor who managed the city best — picked up the garbage, made the city function well — Mike Bloomberg certainly did that the best. But the gap in seeing how much income inequality was growing, and stop and frisk, were real.

The best single accomplishment of any mayor is universal prekindergarten, which has been incredible and life-changing for a lot of families, but there were a lot of other issues in the de Blasio administration.

3. Should the Elizabeth Street Garden in Manhattan be closed to build affordable housing?

Yes.

4. What’s one issue in politics that you’ve changed your mind about?

I’m pleased to say I’m open to admitting when I get things wrong.

We did some research on Hudson Yards. I had put some things out when I was the director of the Pratt Center for Community Development that I thought the city was going to get screwed, basically, and not benefit financially. I thought it was all for the developer.

My team in the comptroller’s office did some research, then came to the office and showed me: We’re making between $200 million and $300 million a year. We published it. I put a cover note on that said: “I got this wrong. The research says this is actually working for New York City.”

5. There have been questions about where Mayor Eric Adams lives. Where do you live?

I live on 13th Street in Park Slope.

How much is your rent or mortgage?

Our mortgage is $3,300 a month.

Do you own a car?

We do own a car.

What model?

We have a Toyota Prius.

How often do you take the subway or bus?

I take the subway or bus a couple of times a week.

6. What do you consider yourself when it comes to your finances, growing up and now? Middle-class? Upper-middle-class?

My mom was a public elementary school guidance counselor. My dad was a legal services lawyer and then a private-sector lawyer. We grew up middle-class.

I would say we, my wife and I, are upper-middle-class. We made the very fortunate decision to buy a co-op in brownstone Brooklyn for $125,000 in 1996, and that is why we’ve been able to raise our family. We sold it, and then bought our rowhouse on 13th Street, and that has enabled us to live in a neighborhood that we couldn’t afford now, if we hadn’t bought then.

7. Mayor Adams has said that you’re not investing in Israel as comptroller and criticized your management of the city’s pension funds. Why?

I mean, Eric Adams lies every day and twice on Tuesdays — probably more than that, honestly.

Investments in Israel have grown on my watch, so it’s just a lie. And our pension performance — you can look at it. We’re actually the first to publish it online. They’re right out there for everyone to see.

Why do you think the mayor has targeted you?

I do my job. The job of city comptroller, in addition to managing those pension funds well, is oversight of the mayor — is to be a watchdog, and I have been a good watchdog.

We worked to cancel that $432 million DocGo contract. [Mr. Lander criticized the city’s decision in 2023 to grant DocGo, a medical services company, a no-bid contract to help care for an influx of migrants.] Our audits have been hard-hitting in all kinds of places.

I went early on to him and said: “Let’s find some things to work together on. Let’s try to have a strategy for what to do when it’s my job to say ‘This contract stinks’ or ‘This agency isn’t getting its job done.’”

And he smiled, like he does, but not one time have they been willing to work with us to fix something that’s broken.

8. What’s one good thing that Mayor Adams has done?

I’ll give him two.

NYC Reads — the focus on literacy, phonics education, kids with dyslexia. A lot more to do there. There’s only two of those structured literacy schools. I think there should be one in every district, but it’s a good start.

And trash containerization. It shouldn’t have taken us so long to put lids on the trash cans. There’s a long way to go there as well. And probably Jessie Tisch gets more credit than Eric. But a big part of the job of mayor is hiring good people. He has hired a lot of bad people, but he’s hired some good people as well.

There’s going to be a couple of big mayoral priorities that I’m going to deliver — ending street homelessness, building a lot of affordable housing, expanding child care and after-school — and then my commissioners and deputy mayors are going to do a whole bunch of great things we haven’t thought about yet. That’s what happens when you hire really good people and have their backs.

9. What’s your bagel order?

My bagel order is an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, a slice of tomato and lox.

Toasted or not toasted?

Not toasted.

10. What’s the last TV show you binged?

We’re watching “Extraordinary Attorney Woo.”

I haven’t heard of that one.

Should I pick something that people have heard of? The thing I’ve seen that people should watch is the “Station Eleven” mini-series on HBO. That is like the best thing ever on television. “Watchmen” is a close second.

Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.

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New York

Vote For the Best Metropolitan Diary Entry of 2025

Published

17 hours ago

December 12, 2025

Press Room

Vote For the Best Metropolitan Diary Entry of 2025

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.

Two Stops

Published on Feb. 16

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.

— Ingrid Spencer

Ferry Farewell

Published on April 6

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.

— Caitlin Margaret May

Unacceptable

Published on May 4

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.”

— Richie Powers

Teresa

Published on Sept. 14

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?”

— Neal Haiduck

Nice Place

Published on July 20

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?”

— Melinda DeRocker

Illustrations by Agnes Lee.

New York

They Witness Deaths on the Tracks and Then Struggle to Get Help

Published

5 days ago

December 8, 2025

Press Room

They Witness Deaths on the Tracks and Then Struggle to Get Help

‘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.

Mr. Guity helps care for his 93-year-old grandmother, Juanita Guity.

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.

An Uptick in Subway Strikes

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.

Source: Federal Transit Administration.

Note: Transit agencies report “Major Safety and Security Events” to the F.T.A.’s National Transit Database. The Times’s counts include incidents categorized as rail collisions with persons, plus assaults, homicides and attempted suicides with event descriptions mentioning a train strike. For assaults, The Times used an artificial intelligence model to identify relevant descriptions and then manually reviewed the results.

Bianca Pallaro/The New York Times

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 York

Video: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

Published

2 weeks ago

November 30, 2025

Press Room

Video: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

new video loaded: Protesters Arrested After Trying to Block a Possible ICE Raid

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.

: [chanting] “ICE out of New York.”
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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.

By Jorge Mitssunaga

November 30, 2025