2 Women and 2 Ways of Wielding Power in New York

Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’ll look at two powerful figures in New York City politics — one who is well-known and one who isn’t. We’ll also get details on a fire that renewed concerns about the dangers of batteries for e-bikes.

Two stories in recent days were unexpectedly a study in contrasts. One was about a highly visible elected official who is keeping a low profile at the moment. The other was about the most powerful political official you’ve probably never heard of, someone who has never been elected but is perhaps the second most important person in city government — and the most important person in Mayor Eric Adams’s tight inner circle.

The first is Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The second is Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the mayor’s chief adviser.

My colleague Nicholas Fandos writes that Ocasio-Cortez is evolving from an insurgent focused on bringing in other like-minded leaders to a more conventional figure who, among other things, does not want to overextend her capital.

So, unlike such House colleagues as Representative Adriano Espaillat and Representative Nydia Velázquez, Ocasio-Cortez has yet to endorse any candidates in the City Council primaries.

“If we called on her for support in the future, I’m sure that she would definitely step in,” said Chi Ossé, a City Council member from Brooklyn whom she has helped behind the scenes. “But she’s very focused and busy on what’s happening in Washington right now.”

That is a change from 2021, when Ocasio-Cortez’s political action committee backed some 60 candidates, and it comes at a time when her own political operation is changing. She dismissed her campaign manager in March after a congressional ethics report concluded that there was “substantial reason to believe” that the congresswoman’s attending the 2021 Met Gala might have violated House ethics rules and possibly federal law. A replacement, the former political director for Senator Bernie Sanders, started only last week.

Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Ocasio-Cortez, said last week that she was “still considering” whether to wade into any City Council races. Hitt also said that Ocasio-Cortez’s silence did not signal a permanent pullback. “It’s just a very different election cycle,” she said, adding that “the overwhelming reason” is that many incumbent Council members are running unopposed or are not in competitive races this time around.

Lewis-Martin has played a role in some of the mayor’s most scrutinized moves, including criticizing President Biden over the influx of migrants, dismissing the separation of church and state and hiring three people who were accused of homophobic views. My colleagues Brian M. Rosenthal and Jeffery C. Mays write that Lewis-Martin has a propensity to override other municipal officials, even on minor issues — and that has helped create a divided City Hall where aides say she is a rival of the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright.

Lewis-Martin said she created the role of chief adviser after being offered any job at City Hall. She relishes the flexibility: “I can pick and choose which weeds to be in,” she said.

But her across-the-board reach underscored Adams’s reliance on a tight group of advisers — an issue that surfaced again last week with the resignation of Keechant Sewell as the police commissioner. Many cast Sewell as another official who has left the Adams administration frustration at being undercut by his inner circle.

Lewis-Martin’s husband knew Adams from their days in training at the police academy in the 1980s, and they socialized together. She says that Adams wanted to be mayor even then — and that she wanted to pitch in. “We were put together at that time to do exactly what we’ve done,” she said, echoing Adams’s assertion that his election in 2021 was divinely ordained.

Her work for Adams has raised some ethical concerns. Last month Politico reported that she had helped guide a political action committee that supported moderate candidates for the Assembly, the Committee for a Fair New York. That raised the question of whether one way to curry favor at City Hall was to donate.

Last year Lewis-Martin worked with another PAC, according to two people involved. That group, which also backed moderates, drew attention because it gave less to candidates than to its founder and his associates. It also donated $10,000 to Lee Zeldin, the Republican who ran against Gov. Kathy Hochul. City Hall did not comment directly on the group, Striving for a Better New York, but said that all employees must follow ethical guidelines and cannot do political work on city time.

Weather

For the first day of summer — the solstice will occur at 10:58 a.m. — expect a partly sunny sky with temps near the mid-70s. At night, prepare for a chance of showers, with temps around the low 60s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect until June 28 (Eid al-Adha).

“It is very clear that this was caused by lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes,” the fire commissioner, Laura Kavanagh, said.

She was standing outside an e-bike service store that was destroyed in a three-alarm fire. Four people who lived in the building, on Madison Street near Chinatown, were killed when the fire spread beyond the store, HQ Ebike Repair. Belal Alayah, who works at his family’s deli nearby, said a “circle of flames” lapped at the e-bike store’s metal gate until it “looked like it was melting.”

Daniel Flynn, the chief fire marshal, said the e-bike store had been cited for violations in 2021 and again last year, when the Fire Department cited violations that included charging lithium-ion batteries. He said the store had been fined $1,600.

He also said that Fire Department investigators had seen “many, many batteries” during some recent “surveillance” at the store. But none were being charged at the time.

Biyun Liu, whose family opened the store about two and a half years ago, said he did not believe the e-bikes had caused the fire. “We turn off all the electric panels, and we don’t charge anything inside the store,” he said. “So there’s no way to catch fire.”

Lithium-ion batteries power everything from smartphones and laptops to power tools, but fire officials have repeatedly warned of the risks from those used in e-bikes and scooters. They have started 108 fires in New York City so far this year, with 13 deaths, Kavanaugh said. About 200 fires were linked to lithium-ion batteries in 2022.

METROPOLITAN diary

Local joint

Dear Diary:

After completing university studies in the mid-1970s in our native South Africa, my husband got an internship at Bellevue Hospital and we set off to savor life in New York City for a few years.

We rented a modest apartment on 72nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue. A small Italian restaurant on the corner became our kitchen and dining room at least four nights a week. We could practically smell the garlic from across the street.

There was lanky waitress there with an acerbic tone. We called her Olive Oyl. She would toss the menus onto the plastic tablecloth, plunk down a carafe of house wine and walk away until we were ready to order. We always got the same thing: clams casino, veal parmigiana and a cannoli to share.

When our visas expired, we returned to South Africa. Seven years later, in New York for a conference, we went to find our old restaurant.

Happily, it was there and nothing seemed to have changed. We got the same corner spot, and Olive Oyl came over, threw down the menus and walked away.

Then she turned around and stared at us for a few seconds.

“We ain’t seen you guys for a couple of weeks,” she said. “Have you moved to another neighborhood?”

— Lydia Lipman

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.

Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.

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