As of this writing, the race for New York City mayor is still underway, though odds lean heavily in one person’s favor: Eric Adams. The former NYPD officer and Brooklyn Borough President is seen as the more sensible candidate, at least when compared to Guardian Angels founder (and, to his credit, cat-lover) Curtis Sliwa. Adams is, to put it lightly, a bit of an odd duck. One sticking point: No one seems to believe he actually lives in New York City. And a recent attempt by New York magazine to get to the bottom of this pickle ended with them catching the city’s likely leader breaking some traffic laws.
In a new piece for Curbed, a total of seven reporters took turns staking out his alleged Bed-Stuy apartment building, where Adams has claimed he lives (but which may belong to his son). A number of publications have called this into question, finding legal documents that said Adams at least used to spend zero time there. A bizarre video tour of the place only raised more questions. Maybe he really lives in nearby Fort Lee, New Jersey, where he says he spends his weekends. Or maybe he still sleeps at his Borough Hall office, as he claimed he did during parts of the pandemic. Whatever the case, Adams has been nothing but unclear about the matter.
What did the gaggle of Curbed reporters find? On the first night of stakeout-ing, Adams did indeed enter the Bed-Stuy apartment building, albeit in the middle of a Tuesday night, around 4;18am. But the unusual hours were far from the strangest part:
[Adams’] Prius, it seemed, was illegally parked in front of an active garage for a plumbing-supply company. Which quickly became a problem for the trucks attempting to enter said supply company: They were soon backed up all the way down Lafayette Avenue, causing a bona fide pileup while Adams slept inside. This went on for hours — the trucks sat there; a few of the drivers got out to see what was the holdup — until finally, at 8 a.m., someone from the supply company came out in a forklift, tied a yellow rope to the back of Adams’s car, and towed it a few feet so things could get moving.
An hour and change later, there was still a traffic jam, which now blocked the driver’s side of Adams’ Prius. When the main reporter’s replacement showed up to take over, he had arrived just in time to see the mayoral hopeful “leave his apartment, climb into the car from the passenger side, shimmy into the driver’s seat, then drive the car up onto the sidewalk. He drove blithely on the sidewalk until he was past the jam, then turned right on Stuyvesant Avenue.”
the (almost definitely) soon to be mayor of New York, driving on the sidewalk to get past a small traffic jam by his house: https://t.co/Ga8slC73xS pic.twitter.com/OcgCUw7ktQ
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) November 2, 2021
Adams later responded to Curbed’s damning findings, saying, “I got home late and drove around my neighborhood several times looking for parking, like so many New Yorkers do, and thought I would be out of the house early enough to move my car before the business opened. There is no excuse for it. In reflection I should have just rode my bike.”
So does Adams live in this Bed-Stuy home? “Maybe,” Curbed concludes. After all, there was one other Adams sighting during their multi-day stake-out, when he showed up at the more reasonable time of 12:37am, entered the premises, only to emerge several minutes later to pace back and forth on the porch while on a call. He soon spotted the reporters spying on him and shouted at them, “Oh, s*it! I caught you! I caught you!”
Perhaps by the time you read this, Adams may be the mayor-elect of New York City.
(Via Curbed)
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