New York Metropolis Corridor.
Photograph by Ethan Stark-Miller
This month, the 4 of us walked into our new places of work at Metropolis Corridor and commenced the job of a lifetime: serving to Mayor Eric Adams run an important metropolis on the globe.
In our new roles as deputy mayor for well being and human providers, deputy mayor for housing, financial improvement, and workforce, deputy mayor for operations, and deputy mayor for public security, we’re serving to lead a few of our metropolis’s most necessary companies and the general public servants who energy them.
From the nation’s largest public housing authority to the most important municipal hospital system, from a whole bunch of firehouses to a state-of-the-art emergency administration heart, from 2,000 sanitation vehicles that begin hauling trash earlier than daybreak to hundreds of shelter beds that give folks a secure place to sleep at night time, our metropolis authorities is rather like our metropolis: it doesn’t sleep.
We all know this work won’t all the time be straightforward. We all know that New Yorkers will rely upon us to maintain them secure, assist them discover an inexpensive house, assist our metropolis’s small companies, and extra. However we might not have accepted these jobs if we didn’t really feel assured that our careers throughout public service had ready us effectively for this second.
Between the 4 of us, we carry almost 100 years of expertise to Metropolis Corridor. We now have labored for town, state, and federal governments. We now have served our nation overseas within the navy and at house within the largest police pressure within the nation. We now have led organizations as numerous because the New York Metropolis Taxi and Limousine Fee and the New York state Workplace of Youngsters and Household Providers, reworked the way in which the FDNY inspects buildings, and created report quantities of inexpensive housing throughout the 5 boroughs.
However regardless of the range of our data, what unites all of them is a dedication to bettering the communities round us — a dedication we’re excited to carry to the Adams administration and our metropolis’s devoted public servants.
We all know that now we have massive sneakers to fill. When Mayor Adams appointed lots of our predecessors, New York Metropolis was shuttered, our economic system was plummeting, and crime was skyrocketing. In simply three years, Mayor Adams and his administration turned recession into resurgence, shattering the data for essentially the most jobs and small companies in metropolis historical past, and bringing crime all the way down to historic lows. The 4 deputy mayors who got here earlier than us helped carry us out of COVID and handle a world humanitarian disaster, handed essentially the most pro-housing zoning reform in metropolis historical past, and launched historic efforts to maneuver tens of millions of trash luggage off our streets and into containers. They labored on daily basis to create a safer, extra inexpensive metropolis.
However in assuming our new roles, the mayor was clear: He didn’t simply need us to construct on their legacies; he needed us to find out our personal and produce new, modern concepts to Metropolis Corridor as effectively.
Every of our jobs are completely different, and so these concepts shall be, too.
For our public security companies, which means deploying new applied sciences to construct on historic drops in crime and maintain New Yorkers secure. For our operational companies, it means steeling us in opposition to long-term threats like local weather change and making a extra sustainable metropolis at each juncture. For our well being and human service companies, it means persevering with to get New Yorkers on our streets and subways the assistance they deserve whereas constructing a extra equitable well being care and social providers system that strengthens low-income households. And for our housing and financial improvement companies, it means constructing extra family-friendly neighborhoods throughout all 5 boroughs the place New Yorkers have entry to a good-paying job and an inexpensive house.
We’re assuming these roles at a essential time for our metropolis. There isn’t any denying that persons are anxious in regards to the future; many are questioning whether or not authorities at each stage from New York Metropolis to Washington, D.C. can meet the challenges of our time, from security to sustainability to affordability.
But when the work of the Adams administration and our personal careers throughout public service make something clear, it’s that authorities can nonetheless act with audacity and ambition to enhance folks’s lives.
Metropolis authorities may also help households discover inexpensive properties and good-paying jobs. Metropolis authorities can maintain our streets secure and ship care to those that want it. Metropolis authorities can put a reimbursement in folks’s pockets and assist them afford hire, groceries, and well being care. As Mayor Adams usually says, we could be a metropolis of “yes.”
As we settle into our new places of work at Metropolis Corridor and start the work of serving to lead these essential portfolios, we promise to proceed the mission that has motivated our whole careers and the work of the Adams administration on daily basis — to create a safer, extra inexpensive metropolis that’s the finest place to boost a household.
Carrión is deputy mayor for housing, financial improvement, and workforce
Gustave is deputy mayor for well being and human providers
Roth is deputy mayor for operations
Daughtry is deputy mayor for public security
