At a candid farewell press briefing on Tuesday, Mayor Adams and his senior team fondly reminisced about his tenure leading the nation’s largest metropolis, sharing memories of the highs, lows, and everything in between.
“Unfiltered, perfectly imperfect, you never know what I might do or say—I’m just Eric,” declared Adams, surrounded by his deputy mayors and a host of agency heads in the City Hall Rotunda, as he pondered his impact as mayor.
“Many mayors in history strive to be polished, to put on a facade of perfection. That’s not me,” he added.
Adams is slated to step down on December 31, concluding a term that saw both notable accomplishments and significant corruption controversies.
His administration was notably rocked by a federal indictment last year, accusing Adams of accepting bribes and illicit campaign contributions from Turkish operatives in exchange for political favors. The charges were later dismissed by President Trump’s Department of Justice, sparking further debate.
During the 90-minute press conference, Adams, who made history as the city’s second Black mayor, conceded that his term was a roller coaster of successes and setbacks.
But when all is said and done, Adams argued history will be kind to him, pointing to drops in most index crimes, the adoption of a citywide housing rezoning plan, implementation of trash containerization efforts across the city and other achievements.
“When you look from the outside, you think that all our team may have done is frown, but no, we laughed a lot,” said Adams. “We leaned into the work,” he continued, “we knew what we were fighting for, we stood firm and we stood tall.”
Adams and his aides assembled a time capsule filled with various memorabilia, including parts of an NYPD drone, the ID badge for a migrant who resided at the Roosevelt Hotel and a padlock to symbolize the administration’s crackdown on illegal cannabis stores.
First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, a Giuliani administration alum who came on board last spring after four of Adams’ top aides resigned amid fallout from his indictment, placed a speedometer set to 15 mph in the capsule, a nod to the administration’s successful push to lower the city’s permissible e-bike speed limit.
“That’s the kind of legacy, that’s the kind of innovation of this administration of which I am very proud,” Mastro said. “And I will say: As a second generation Italian-American, in closing, I paraphrase the immortal Frank Sinatra: We did it our way.”
After the press conference, Adams, Mastro and the other top staffers walked outside City Hall to bury the capsule in a hole dug up in the sidewalk on Park Row. Adams declined to take questions after the event.
Adams has yet to disclose his next professional move. But he indicated Monday he’s likely to take a private sector job, and sources say he has been eyeing a job related to an Israeli construction firm. He was headed to Mexico later Tuesday.
Frank Carone, Adams’ first chief of staff who was instrumental in leading his 2021 campaign, said “every rational person agrees” the mayor’s administration was “the most successful in history,” citing how he “brought the city all the way back” from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All this despite relentless bogus corruption claims, nonsense personal attacks. History will judge Eric Adams as a great mayor who is resilient and always focused on what he believed was in the best interest of NYC,” Carone told the Daily News.
Adams’ successor, democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, is set to be sworn in as the city’s next mayor Jan. 1.
