New York

10 Questions With Brad Lander

Published

8 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

How a Florist Lives on $23,000 a Year in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn

Published

2 days ago

February 7, 2026

Press Room

How a Florist Lives on ,000 a Year in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn

How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

We surveyed hundreds of New Yorkers about how they spend, splurge and save. We found that many people — rich, poor or somewhere in between — live life as a series of small calculations that add up to one big question: What makes living in New York worth it?

Ever since she was a child growing up in Guilford, Conn., Molly Culver wanted to live in New York City, “come hell or high water,” as she remembers it.

She was never under any illusion that it would be easy, but for years, she was managing well. She spent nearly a decade running an urban farm, teaching classes on farming and growing her floral business, which meant she was bringing in about $50,000 a year.

A few years ago, Ms. Culver, 44, turned her floral business, Molly Oliver Flowers, into a full-time job.

She sells flowers sourced from nearby farms for events, and also runs a subscription service in which customers sign up for weekly flower deliveries. When weddings and parties started back up after the Covid pandemic, she was able to pay herself as much as $62,000 before taxes one year. But then the economy soured, and clients pulled back on nonessentials.

Last year, Ms. Culver put nearly all the money she earned back into her business. She paid herself a salary of about $23,000 and took roughly $22,000 from her savings, more than half of her nest egg, to stay afloat.

Ms. Culver said she is comfortable with the trade-offs that come with living on a tight budget so she can run her business. “It’s been a saving grace to learn that I can be happy with less,” she said. Anna Watts for The New York Times

Priced out of the housing market

After the pandemic, Ms. Culver was newly single and no longer splitting rent with her former partner. She soon realized she could no longer afford to pay market rent.

As she searched for housing, she said, “I was looking for the miracle that only happens through word of mouth in this city.”

First, Ms. Culver spent a few years renting a 150-square-foot room with a twin bed in a friend’s home for $40 a night, which did not include cooking privileges. (She typically spent a few nights a week there, and the rest of the week at her mother’s house in Connecticut.)

Last year, after her friend said she needed the room back, a different friend mentioned she had a spare room to rent out in her home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

It was $600 a month, more than Ms. Culver was used to paying, but much cheaper than anything else she could find.

Ms. Culver’s housing setup shows what it takes for many people to afford housing in New York: The family that owns the home lives downstairs with their two small children. Ms. Culver and three other tenants rent rooms on the two top floors.

The group often gathers for Shabbat dinners on Friday nights, and Ms. Culver said the “funky” configuration has helped her accept a different version of life in New York City than she once thought she’d have.

“I’ve come to let go of that perfectionist idea of what home, success and happiness looks like,” she said. “That’s totally changed the game for me.”

In her new home, Ms. Culver has an induction burner, a sink and a microwave on a landing outside her bedroom. She shops for food at the nearby Flatbush food co-op and keeps her grocery bill to about $100 a week.

Spending half the week outside the city

Ms. Culver often spends a few nights a week in her childhood bedroom in Connecticut, where she helps her mother around the house and looks after her two cats, adopted from the streets of Brooklyn.

She bought a used Prius, with a car payment of about $270 a month, which she uses to shuttle between the city and her mother’s home.

Ms. Culver wonders from time to time whether it would be easier to do her job in a smaller, less expensive city, but she keeps running up against the same problem: How would she find success selling her floral arrangements in a less dense, less wealthy market? And then there are the relationships with the farmers, venues and clients she has spent years cultivating.

“Multiple things can be true at once: I love New York, I love my job and I wish rent was still at prepandemic levels,” she said.

“If the only people who can afford to pursue a dream are very wealthy,” she said, “what does New York become?”

Ms. Culver understands the trade-offs that come with doing something you love that doesn’t generate a lot of money, so she invests most of her money into her company.

She recently found a new floral studio with room for a professional cooler for flowers, which cost $10,000.

She signed a seven-year lease to keep the rent down, and brought in two studiomates, but still had to put $20,000 toward moving in, including a $15,000 security deposit. Her share of the rent is $2,800 a month.

Learning to live on a budget

Ms. Culver has never had a gym membership in New York City, opting for long walks in Prospect Park for exercise. She does not shop for clothes unless her winter boots or coat are really falling apart.

She does not need to live like the younger New Yorkers she sees on her Instagram feed, determined to live an extravagant life in an expensive city.

Ms. Culver loves the city’s museums, but typically visits them only a few times a year, when there’s an exhibition she really wants to see. She eats out with friends occasionally, which she sees as an investment in holding onto those relationships.

Her goal is to one day make her business successful enough that she could take home $75,000 a year, her dream salary.

But for now, Ms. Culver said, “I’m just another person trying to make it work.”

We want to hear from you about how you afford life in one of the most expensive cities in the world. We’re looking to speak with people of all income ranges, with all kinds of living situations and professions.

New York

Read David A. Ross’s Statement About Jeffrey Epstein

Published

4 days ago

February 5, 2026

Press Room

Read David A. Ross’s Statement About Jeffrey Epstein

I was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein in the mid 1990’s when I was director of the Whitney. He was a member of the Museum’s Drawing Committee. I knew him as a wealthy patron and a collector, and it was part of my job to befriend people who had the capacity and interest in supporting the museum. I retired from museum work in 2001.
In 2008 he was arrested and jailed in Florida, I emailed him to find out what the story was because this did not seem like the person I thought I knew. I emailed him when he got out of jail. He told me that he had been the subject of a political frame-up because of his support of former President Clinton. At the time, I believed he was telling me the truth.
Though I’d had no further contact with him, when years later I read that was being investigated again on the same charges, I reached out to him to show support. That was a terrible mistake of judgement. When the reality of his crimes became clear, I was mortified and remain ashamed that I fell for his lies. Like many he supported with arts and education patronage, I profoundly regret that I was taken in by his story. I continue to be appalled by his crimes and remain deeply concerned for its many victims.

David A. Ross

New York

How a House Cleaner Lives on $24,000 a Year in Rockaway, Queens

Published

1 week ago

January 31, 2026

Press Room

How a House Cleaner Lives on ,000 a Year in Rockaway, Queens

How can people possibly afford to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet? It’s a question New Yorkers hear a lot, often delivered with a mix of awe, pity and confusion.

Tyson Watts spends every day trying to make enough money to eventually leave New York City.

He wants to live somewhere where life is easier, and more peaceful. “I don’t think there’s anything left for me here,” he said. So for now, his life revolves around his work.

Mr. Watts, 28, spends his days traveling across the city, cleaning homes as an employee of Well-Paid Maids, a local service that guarantees its cleaners $27 an hour. He started out at the company making about $2,000 a month after tax. Though he’s part time, he picks up as many overtime shifts as he can. In January, he was so busy that he earned $3,300, and hopes to keep his income around that level for the rest of the year.

Mr. Watts lives with his mother in Rockaway Park, Queens, and he gives her about $600 a month to help pay for groceries and utilities in their shared apartment. Since his mother does not work, he is encouraging her to take a job as a cleaner, too.

Tyson Watts, 28, sees New York as a place where “you can be whoever you want to be.” But he hopes to leave the city for good one day soon. Anna Watts for The New York Times

A step toward independence, then moving back home

Mr. Watts knows there is something special about being able to afford your own apartment.

After he moved to New York City from California as a child, he bounced between apartments and homeless shelters with his mother and brothers, before moving in with his uncle.

Mr. Watts started working right out of high school, taking home about $1,000 a month from his job at a children’s clothing store, and soon started paying his uncle $700 a month for his share of the rent.

A few years ago, when Mr. Watts moved out of his uncle’s place and into an apartment in Flatbush, Brooklyn, he felt like he was taking his first big step toward adulthood.

But he had to break the lease when his roommate was unable to keep up with his half of the $1,900 rent and ended up back with his mother, who by then had secured her own apartment.

During the summer, Mr. Watts spends as much time as he can at the beach, selling fried chicken, rice and peas, and mac and cheese. Anna Watts for The New York Times

“If you do have an option to live with a family member that will be there for you, to help you save and want to do better with yourself, take advantage of that until you’re really, really good,” Mr. Watts said.

Everyone needs a side hustle

In the early days of the Covid pandemic, Mr. Watts took up a new hobby: making Caribbean food in his mother’s kitchen and spending hours in quarantine watching YouTube cooking videos.

In the summer of 2020, he typically woke up at 5 a.m. and started cooking oxtail and fried chicken before it got too hot outside. Then he took his creations to sell at nearby Rockaway Beach. He called his business T.U.P.S., with the tagline, “a savory taste away from heaven.”

It could be stifling sitting on the beach all day, but business was brisk, and he could make $400 on good days.

The only problem, he said, was the high cost of ingredients — about $200 a day — even at the wholesaler where he shopped.

He needed a more reliable job until he could make his cooking business more profitable. After applying for about 100 jobs online, he got hired at Well-Paid Maids last summer. He hopes that one day he’ll be able to turn his cooking side hustle into his primary source of income.

“I believe my business will flourish,” he said. But for now, “I believe this job will help me save and learn how to invest into myself, and not just be a knucklehead.”

Taking two buses to the cheapest grocery store

Every month, Mr. Watts sets aside $50 for a transit card, which he uses to commute to his cleaning gigs across the city. He also taps his card once or twice a month when he boards the Q53 bus with a stash of grocery bags, then transfers to the Q60, on his way to the Aldi in East New York, where he scouts for deals on groceries.

There, he spends about $150 on ground beef, salmon, nuts and other essentials, some of which he shares with his mother, on top of the money he gives her each month. A single grocery visit can last him two weeks. He brings homemade breakfasts and lunches with him to work and rarely eats at restaurants.

He spreads his expenses over three credit cards and is assiduous about paying them in full each month, and about making sure he spends less than 10 percent of his spending limit on each of them. He is trying to improve his credit score, which is now 740, in the hope of being able to eventually rent his own apartment.

Mr. Watts treats himself to a few days off each month, riding the subway to Central Park for a walk or taking one of his three younger brothers to the American Museum of Natural History, which has a pay-what-you-wish option for New Yorkers. When he goes to the movies, he makes sure to eat before he gets to the theater, but the trip still costs about $50, between train fare, a movie ticket, and a meal at Chipotle after.

He works out regularly, and found a deal at his local gym for seven months of access for $200.

But mostly, he keeps his head down and works, dreaming about a day when he can own his own home, settle down and have children who can live in comfort.

“I want to make a big family knowing that I came from a small one,” he said. “That’s why I work hard every day. This is what I have to work my butt off for. This is my American dream.”