Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Eric Adams

Thursday’s Headlines: Welcome to the Mayoral Race, Eric Adams Edition

Mayoral candidate and Brooklyn Beep Eric Adams hands out literature in the subway. File Photo

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams announced his run for mayor on Wednesday with a poignant biographical video that focused tightly on a message of police reform and public safety. The campaign advertisement tied vignettes from Adams’s boyhood growing up Black and poor in South Jamaica — as teens, he and his brother were arrested and beaten by police — with his decision to join the NYPD and fight brutality from within it.

Adams sought to position himself as a strong Black voice on public safety, though perhaps as a law-and-order voice and certainly not a "Defund" voice like others in the race. “The fight can’t only be in the streets; it must be also in the agencies that patrol the streets. That is how we change policing,” he says in the video — segueing to the uptick in gang shootings. 

Left unsaid was Adams’s position on another pressing public-safety question: traffic violence (and it didn't help that Adams touted endorsements from car-loving Council Members Daneek Miller and Laurie Cumbo, and also was preparing to meet on Thursday with a clergy group headed by former Council Member [and unrepentant homophobe] Ruben Diaz Sr.).

But we expect that the beep, himself a cyclist, will (like Carlos Menchaca and, with hope, unlike placard user Maya Wiley) take up the issue soon when he and his rivals return Streetsblog’s mayoral candidate questionnaire (hint, hint). Until then, here's the rest of Wednesday's news:

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Gale Brewer Flips on E-Bike Registration Due To ‘Nasty’ Pressure

The former Manhattan borough president says she supports banning e-bikes from parks and a state campaign to require licensing.

October 8, 2024

Is Amtrak’s Big Dig Harming West Baltimore’s Black Neighborhoods?

Amtrak's single biggest infrastructure project got hit with a civil rights complaint. How should sustainable transportation advocates get involved in the conversation?

October 8, 2024

Tuesday’s Headlines: The Real Ghost Car Crackdown Edition

More ghost cars are being towed away. Plus other news.

October 8, 2024

Monday’s Headlines: Violation Calculation Edition

Let's talk a little about NYPD enforcement of moving violations, plus other news (yet, understandably, not a word about our Mets).

October 7, 2024

Talking Headways Podcast: Transit Themed Rock Music

Meet a band that writes exclusively about the car-free life on public transit. And it rocks!

October 7, 2024
See all posts