Day: September 25, 2025

Mayor Eric Adams went on the warpath Thursday as questions continue to linger over the future and viability of his reelection bid.

Adams said that he will “forge ahead,” while lashing out at his rivals and claiming his campaign has been “undermined” by a “coordinated effort” to cripple its fundraising ability.

Hizzoner, during an unrelated Sept. 25 press conference, launched attacks at both Democratic nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. However, he appeared to spare former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is polling in second place.

Adams charged that Mamdani, a democratic socialist running on an affordability-focussed platform, has been knowingly selling voters a bill of goods in order to win the November general election.

In particular, Adams accused Mamdani of misleading New Yorkers with his proposal to freeze rents for the city’s nearly one million stabilized tenants. He claimed there are many people, including one unnamed New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) resident he spoke with, who do not live in stabilized housing, but are under the false impression that the rent freeze would apply to them.

“Zohran is smart and if he was unknowledgable about the powers of the mayor, then you could say ‘well, he’s just not knowledgable,'” Adams said. “But when you are smart and you understand the powers of the mayor and you’re going out and having NYCHA residents feeling as though you’re going to freeze their rent…then you’re no longer doing it on the point of ignorance, you’re doing it on being diabolical. And that’s hurtful.”

Mamdani’s campaign did not immediately respond to Adams’ broadsides.

Adams also took aim at Sliwa, who is ahead of him in the polls.

Asked about Sliwa on Wednesday accusing Cuomo’s allies of offering him jobs and cash to drop out of the mayor’s race, Adams surprisingly declined to go after the former governor — who has been the target of his ire in recent weeks.

Instead, he responded: “The only fact about Curtis Sliwa, is that Curtis Sliwa is a liar.” 

“It’s almost laughable whenever we quote anything from Curtis Sliwa,” he added.

Sliwa’s did not immediately respond to Adams’ remarks. His campaign instead shared a social media post from Sliwa saying: “I cannot be bought. I will not stand by while my supporters are silenced. Any attempt to intimidate our campaign or voters will be reported.”

Cuomo’s campaign spokesperson Rich Azzopardi denied Sliwa’s accusations to NY1 and labeled him “liar and a fraudster.”

When it comes to the future of Adams flagging camapaign, he alleged there is a shadowy effort by unnamed inidivuals to deprive his bid of much-needed funds.

The mayor pointed to the city Campaign Finance Board’s (CFB) decision to withhold millions of dollars in matching funds from his campaign in the wake of his now dismissed federal indictment.

The board has renewed its decision nearly a dozen times, shifting its reasoning from Adams’ scuttled bribery case to accusations that his campaign has not provided requested information and may have violated the law.

Adams has sued the CFB in an effort to reverse its decisions and unlock the funds, so far to no avail.

“This campaign, going into the race, I lost $4 million,” Adams said. “We’re in court right now fighting with the Campaign Finance Board to get our $4 million.”

Furthermore, Adams said, his ability to fundraise is being stymied by persistent reported rumors that he is looking to exit the race and take a job in either President Trump’s administration, as a possible Saudi Arabia ambassador, or in the private sector. He has repeatedly denied those reports publicly, even as they have continued to come out.

“Each week, people are saying, ‘Eric is leaving tomorrow,'” Adams said of the rumors. “When I go to my funders, they say ‘Eric we thought you were in Saudi Arabia.’ My campaign has been decimated.”

The mayor said his lack of campaign funds has led prevented him from getting his message out to voters.

“We have been just undermined with a very coordinated effort,” he said. “‘Let’s shut off his oxygen, the money, and then he won’t be able to breath.'”

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has approved a new five-story building for an eye-catching section of Hancock Street in the Bedford Stuyvesant Historic District, voting unanimously to green-light the design with some key modifications.

The vote at last week’s LPC meeting comes almost a year after the plans for 164 Hancock Street were first presented to the commissioners, and two years after the designs for neighboring 162 Hancock Street were approved.

The site at 164 Hancock Street is one of two adjacent parcels being redeveloped by 164 Hancock Development LLC. Together, the pair of similar looking 50-foot-tall brick and brownstone buildings will occupy what was once the private garden of 168 Hancock Street, a grand 1880s Neo-Grec townhouse with a mansard roof and side bays. The developer purchased the landmarked property and its large garden in 2021 for $4.55 million, later dividing it into separate tax lots, city records show.

In October 2024, commissioners reviewed the plans for 164 Hancock and signaled support for the front facade design, but flagged concerns about its rear massing. They said the building’s depth was out of scale with the typical row house footprints on the block and encroached too heavily into the green space at the center of the block’s “donut.” Community members at the meeting expressed similar concerns.

At the meeting on Tuesday, September 16, architect Ana Maria Torres of AT Architects and preservation consultant Jacqueline Peu-Duvallon presented updated plans in which the cellar and basement would retain their full footprint, but the middle floors were reduced by 14 feet, the third floor pushed back 28 feet, and the top floor and penthouse aligned more closely with the rear wall of 168 Hancock Street. The reworked rear facade also swapped the previously proposed modern windows for more traditional openings and fewer terraces.

Peu-Duvallon told the commissioners the architects had “been wrestling with a very unique situation in that this lot is much deeper, much more uniquely shaped than your typical row house lot.” The lot at 164 Hancock is substantially larger than 162 and 168 Hancock as it includes much of the L-shaped site at the rear of the mansion, meaning the developer could build a larger building.

“What we’re attempting with this iteration of this design is to follow commissioners’ directions from the last hearing, which was to pull back a portion of the facade so it would align with the back of the neighboring building at 168,” she said, adding the lower floors aligned with other extensions on the block and the basement extended beyond that. “We still think that’s appropriate to be the depth of this particular lot.”

However, some commissioners didn’t agree. Commissioner Michael Goldblum said “the fact that these guys have a very unusual lot isn’t, I think, in and of itself, a reason to consider a volume appropriate or inappropriate.”

He said the judgment of appropriateness should be based on context, and in this case “it’s based on the common space that is the backyard, the donut.”

Goldblum said there was a lot of uniformity on the historic block and the new development should complement that, suggesting the lower two floors above the basement level should be chopped back to align with No. 168. He also said the balconies at the upper floors should go.

Commissioner Steven Chu agreed with Goldblum, adding “I feel like the mass that’s being proposed picks the largest extensions of all the existing conditions and combines them into one proposal.”

He said the new construction shouldn’t be the largest projection on the block, “but represent, again, more context where the existing historic fabric is the predominant reading of the donut.” He agreed with Goldblum that the projection of the first and second floors needed to be scaled back.

In the end, commissioners agreed to approve the project with the modifications that the depth of the first and second floor are reduced to align with the upper floors and the extension next door, the balconies are removed from the top floor, and the development team work with LPC staff on refining the balconies on the other floors.

Vice Chair Angie Master, serving as interim chair, said “the construction of a new building at the site will enhance the continuity of the street wall, which is currently broken by the existing vacant lot.”

According to city records, the developers have applied for a new-building permit for 164 Hancock Street, which is yet to be approved. The permit says the new building will be five stories, 50 feet high, and contain eight residential units. An application for a new-building permit has also been submitted for 162 Hancock Street, which says a 50-foot-tall, four-story building containing four residential units will be erected on the site.

This story first appeared on Brooklyn Paper’s sister site Brownstoner

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