Transcript: Mayor Adams, DOB Commissioner Oddo Unveil Plan to Remove Unsightly Sheds, Scaffolding From NYC Sidewalks

July 24, 2023

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Happy Monday. Excitement for that. I'm Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi. I have the privilege and the awesome responsibility of overseeing the maintenance and the evolution of our city's foundational infrastructure. That's the bones of how our city works, it's our core. But the city also has an ever present and not so pleasant external skeleton that when used right, protects the core and people on our streets. And when not, sadly this happens too frequently, hides the shining glory of our vibrant city streets. That bothers many people, but one person far more than anyone else, one who is driven to every day ensure all that it is beautiful about New York City is actually seen by all New Yorkers, and not hidden by steel poles and green wood, and that's our mayor, Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much and really want to thank our lawmakers, some real partnership and executive Councilman Powers and Borough President Levine and Borough President Brewer. We have been talking about these darn sheds for some times and just being able to do something about it. I remember borough president a few years ago, standing with the former mayor and NYCHA as we talked about taking down these sheds. These sheds just appeared to say they are as resilient as the rats in New York. But just as we have a rat czar, we are going to deal with this issue of sheds. Having Jimmy Oddo over at the Department of Building, Commissioner Oddo is just one of those guys once he gets his teeth into something he does not let go until it's done. So we are excited about making this happen. It may be lost on many of you, but it's not lost on me. That's a sharp suit, man.

So deputy mayor, you just have so many good things under your portfolio and you just continue to amaze us as you get it done over and over again. So we want to thank Deputy Mayor Joshi. We say over and over again, New York City's not coming back, New York City is back. We must show the visual beauty of this city and it should not be in this skeleton body of these sheds all over our city. It should not be a way of preventing us from moving forward. The sky is the limit and we must see the sky and our sheds are in a way of doing that. So today we're announcing our plan to take down unsightly sidewalk sheds and reclaim our streets. Thank you. This guy's giving me a New York wave. Sidewalk sheds, also known as scaffolding are the ugly green boxes that align our sidewalks. They block the sunlight, keep pedestrians away from businesses and are a magnet for illegal activity. They even block our dear friends I like... Let me see this poster.

Remember when you guys were trying to get a good shot of Trump and you couldn't get it? So we want to prevent that. Those sheds were all over the place and we want to press to get the shot that they need when they need it. New Yorkers have gotten so used to sidewalk sheds that it's easy to forget our city's beautiful architect and we want to make sure that it is not in the way. Last week there was a sidewalk shed covering this building behind me. It's hard to believe. Look how short the sidewalk space is. A shed was here. You can see what it looks like in these photos. Today is gone. Look at the difference. There's more light, more room for pedestrians, better access to businesses. So many businesses are impacted by having the sheds up in front of them.

While sidewalk sheds were created to protect New Yorkers, they now have become unsafe constructions. It is, as we stated, a safe haven for criminal behavior. The appearances has gotten out of control. We hear it over and over again and we must regain control of our city streets. But if we're honest about it, when we did an analysis, we realized that city rules are incentivizing property owners to leave sheds up and put off critical work. Most sheds stay up for longer than a year, and some have darkened our streets for more than a decade. We have normalized the sheds all over our city and that is unacceptable. All too often they stay up, but no repair is happening. We use the sheds as a form of pushing the repairs off years after, years after years. Property owners are not required to pay a penny in fines.

As a result, we have nearly 400 miles of sheds across our city, taking up public spaces that belongs to New Yorkers. Imagine if visiting Rome or Tokyo or any other attractive city and you cannot take the photographs you want because sheds are everywhere. This should not be part of our infrastructure in our city. It's unacceptable. A real indicator of how it has gotten out of control, I think John Wilson from HBO showed us in his... Just about every culture has made scaffolding his own with seasonal decorations and signs. This is not going to become the legacy of our city. We're going to make sure the design, the beauty and the architect is reflected in what we are doing. That's why GSD today is going to be the acronym for Get Sheds Down.

We're going to change the paradigm so that property owners complete repairs and get sheds down. We're going to help expedite the repairs of our building fronts. We're going to remove expired sheds and we are going to tap into the talent of our city design to have other options while doubling down on alternatives we have like using netting. We're also going to increase oversight enforcement because if you take public space that belongs to New Yorkers, you should have to pay for it. We're going to focus on business districts where property owners have the resources to repair for the work. Let's be clear, we're not going to burden our small property owners who are still recovering from the pandemic and public safety will always be our number one priority. The city is going to lead the way with our own projects.

Look at the Supreme Court building in Queens County. We are going to run a pilot and using netting. That shed has been up for six years. So don't let anyone make you believe, we must make the forced choice between safety and scenery. We could have them both. This plan will flip the script so that property owners are incentivized to complete safety work and remove sheds. Last year, the governor and I, in the "New" New York report, we highlighted the importance of public space in our city's recovery. Addressing sidewalk sheds was paramount to getting it right. Today we say again, promises made, promises kept and with the partnership of our borough president and our council members, we're able to execute on this problem and get it resolved. This is how we reimagine our city and revitalize our business district. This is how we get people to spend money in New York City and make sure the beauty of our city shines through.

Something of that, our Chief Public Realm Officer, Ya-Ting Liu, and Commissioner Jimmy Oddo and Deputy Mayor Mayor Joshi knows all too well. I want to thank them for leading the way. Again, I want to thank our partners, both Borough President Levine and forever Borough President Gale Brewer and Councilman Powers. This is such an important initiative. It is part of the symbolic and substantive things that we must do to make sure this city not only come back financially, economically, but to come back visually as well. Great city, beautiful city. We need to see it in a very clear way and sheds must be removed and not part of our history. Deputy mayor, thank you.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you very much, mayor. I'm going to just briefly go through some of the details of how we're getting sheds down and putting better sheds up. For years, our sidewalk shed policy made it easy for property owners to leave their sheds up forever, push off repairs indefinitely and ignore the impacts of inaction. They've stolen our public space because it made more financial sense to leave the sheds up than to fix the facades. Those days are over. We're going to shine a light on those bad actors so light can shine on our city streets. Here's the plan. Once a sidewalk shed goes up, the clock starts ticking. At 90 days, the first penalties are issued. So you have to act. Every month thereafter until repairs are complete, we'll issue another penalty. The maximum accrual of 6,000 per month. The permit length for putting up a shed will be cut from one year to 90 days to match our enforcement cycle, and every quarter buildings will have to check in with DOB to share their progress.

We're increasing the pool of long-term sheds that are subject to more focused enforcement from about 500, that's sheds that have been up for five or more years, to another 500, so that's about a thousand sheds. Those are all the sheds that have been up for about three years or more. This will no longer be just the cost of doing business. We're increasing the fines for out of compliance sheds in our central business districts throughout the city, because these are our commercial centers. Local businesses suffer when shrouded in darkness. If buildings in these pedestrian hotspots don't meet responsible deadlines, filing a repair application in three months, getting work permits in six months, or finishing their repairs in two years, there will be additional monetary penalties. Let me be clear, our goal here isn't just to collect fines or sue people.

It's actually to get the sheds down and get the critical repair work done that protects all pedestrians throughout New York. That's why we're waiving penalties if building owners show us that the repair work is underway and will be complete in a reasonable timetable. We're also looking into creating a low interest loan program to provide financial support for small property owners. And because safety comes first, when buildings have unsafe facades, we're reimagining pedestrian protection without blight that the old sheds created. What we'll do is promote the use of netting in place of sidewalk sheds wherever possible. Like the mayor said, we're leading from the front. Netting will be the city's first choice moving forward. We'll only use traditional sidewalk sheds. If we can't use netting. We're going to require light. Thanks for our partnership with council members on existing sheddings, and we'll allow art panels and more choice of colors.

But that's for existing sheddings. What we need to do is reimagine the way scaffolding looks across our city. So we're kicking off a process to permanently redesign scaffolding in New York City. New York City is where the creative and artistic minds congregate, as well as our sharpest and most innovative engineers. 

Between these two groups we'll select at least three redesigned, affordable scaffolding proposals and working with City Council get them codified into law. This way businesses have a choice, but the choice is limited to aesthetically pleasing, practical, and sound design. We get beauty, functionality, affordability and uniformity. It's time for scaffolding to evolve. We're doing all of this because New York's most valuable asset is its space. It's where we work, where we play, where we eat, where we move, and where we are.

So I want to introduce our other speakers and take a quick moment before that to thank the numerous people that made this possible. As the John Wilson skit points out, there's numerous people in the scaffolding hierarchy, so there's numerous people in the get sheds down hierarchy as well. Our Manhattan Borough President, Mark Levine, City Council member, Keith Powers, City Council member, former Manhattan Borough President, Gale Brewer, New York State Assembly member Tony Simone, James Mettham, President of Flatiron NoMad Partnership; Isabella Conway, Marketing Director of Hudson Yards, Hell's Kitchen Alliance, Tammy Meltzer, Chair of Manhattan Community Board 1; Susan Kent, Chair, Community Board 2; Mark Diller, District Manager, Community Board 2; Susan Stetzer, District Manager, Community Board 3; Jesse Bodine, District Manager, Manhattan Community Board 4; Jesus Perez, District Manager of Manhattan Community Board 6; and Jackson Chabot, Director of Advocacy & Organizing Open Plans. It's a long list, but that's where the work is really done, so thank you to all of those members of our advocacy group. And now I'd like to introduce James Mettham, President of the Flatiron NoMad Partnership.

James Mettham, President, Flatiron NoMad Partnership: Good to see you again. Good morning, everyone. I'll be very brief. Thank you all for joining us this morning in Chelsea. I'm a little bit outside my own boundary. I'm in Flatiron and NoMad a couple blocks away, but fortunately, if you don't feel the dreams referenced, I didn't turn into Moonlight Graham. I know Commissioner Oddo is a big baseball fan. That was for you. But anyway, thank you so much. This is really an important day for the aesthetics of our city as well as for the safety of our city. At any given moment in the Flatiron and NoMad District, just around the corner, over 25 percent of our sidewalks are covered by scaffolding and sidewalk sheds. We've been serving that for a number of years.

And look, we can do this, as the mayor said, we can make sure that the structural integrity of our buildings are secure while providing a safe and traversable network of sidewalks and plazas and streets for our entire community. That's our New Yorkers that live here, our businesses that do their commerce, our visitors, our students, and so on. So I just want to say this is a terrific step forward. We can do better. And again, thank the New York panel that the mayor and the governor put together for really thinking about how this city can think can be a better place for our residents and our visitors and our businesses going forward. So thank you so much and enjoy the day here in Chelsea and stop over in Flatiron and NoMad shortly afterwards. Take care.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. And now we'll hear from Borough President Levine.

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine: Thank you so much. Thank you. Deputy mayor, thank you for leading on everything, public space for our city. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think history will show you the first mayor to put scaffolding in your State of the City speech. I'm going to go with that. I know how much you care about this. These are huge policies that we're announcing today. You kind of scared me when you said get sheds down. I thought you were going to drop the S-H bomb. Proof of your commitment there. You got an amazing human being as your chair of your commissioner of buildings. Jimmy Oddo is just one of the best people in government, also one of the best dressed.

That is true. And we just have amazing leadership in the City Council on scaffolding. Majority Leader Powers has been phenomenal on this legislation. And of course, shout out to my wonderful professor. Professor Anne predecessor, Gale Brewer, thanks to all of you. So this press conference was scheduled because there were scaffolding up here. I think for years someone will tell me how long it was up. They tore it down when they heard the mayor was coming to town. So I think we may have hit on the ultimate policy solution, Mr. Mayor. We're going to schedule press conferences at all 9,000 locations in New York City. It shouldn't come to that.

We all support protecting pedestrians when there's a dangerous facade like that. That's not up for debate, but the time it takes to actually fix the facade, the time you need workers up there doing that, it's like a few days, maybe a few weeks, and in extreme cases a few months. But the average time that the sheds are up is 497 days. And as the deputy mayor said, a thousand sheds have been up more than three years, 500 more than five years. And I think the number at more than 10 years is more than 200. So what's going on here? If it only takes a few days, a few weeks to do the work, why are the sheds up? Well, sometimes it's because you got building owners who have done the math and they've realized that they can spend a little bit of money to rent the shed or pay a million dollars or more for the repairs and they're just opting to take the cheap way out.

And that's unacceptable because it has a negative impact on communities. It is bad for public safety. It harms the businesses underneath the sheds. It's bad for quality of life. It's ugly. And I truly applaud the set of announcements today that the mayor and his team are making to put real fines in place so that people who are trying to save a few bucks by leaving scaffolds up will now realize they're going to lose money on that proposition. And then there's cases where buildings are in financial distress and they don't have the funds. And we've been talking to the buildings commissioner and other members of the administration about that problem by getting them low interest loans.

There are people who are trying to do the right thing and there's delays in getting the approval process. Again, I know the buildings commissioner and his team are really thinking through streamlining approvals. These are all topics that we've been working on with our partners in the council. We got a great plan. Shed the sheds, go check it out. This today is a huge step forward towards those goals. We got 9,000, almost 9,000 citywide more in Manhattan than anywhere else. This is one thing I don't want Manhattan to be in the lead on. So let's do this. Let's get sheds down and let's make this a more beautiful, healthy city. Thank you everybody.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. Next we'll hear from our Councilmember Powers.

City Council Member Keith Powers: Thank you. Thank you Mr. Mayor for gathering us here today. I think this scaffolding I heard was over 600 days that it was up. And I'll tell you, the people that are happiest that it's down is that small business and this building and that small business because the one thing we haven't discussed yet is the impact it has on our street life. We talked about the public safety issues of course, but for the small businesses, for the residents there who are dealt this hand of having to live under scaffolding for sometimes years, it means less pedestrians and less people walking into that business. It's a way to boost and encourage people to shop at our great small businesses here in this neighborhood and everywhere else. So it's a great day for them as well. As the borough president said, this is a quintessential New York City issue.

You don't go anywhere else. You don't go to Chicago or Boston or Los Angeles and see scaffolding like you do here. But this is not the issue that New York City wants to be leading on. I'm looking at a pizza place. That's what I want to be leading on, not on scaffolding. We did a great report with the borough president's office and introduced the legislation, and we found that the oldest sidewalk shed that was up that we could find was installed in the year 2006. And just for context, George Bush was the president then and the Da Vinci Code was the rage of the talk of the town at that point. It feels like we're much, much further away from that moment. And so we were happy to be here to kick off a process to talk about this very New York City issue.

But I got to tell you when I think he was the Democrat elect mayor, and he reminded me this not long ago, the mayor and I had this conversation about reforming scaffolding under the discussion of how you could tackle everyday New York City issues to make sure New York City was a better place and to solve these bureaucratic hurdles that people face every single day. And you could tell right then he really understood what that meant. He understood that solving problems for New Yorkers have a range of big to small, but to solve safety, to help small businesses. To make it feel like government works, this is an issue that you can do all the above.

So I'm grateful that we're here today. I'm grateful that scaffolding's down. You wouldn't have got that selfie if that scaffolding... He wouldn't have even seen you there. But it is here. It is down. And that's what we got aspire to do. And while they're up, it is a good idea to make them nicer and make them feel more part of the aesthetic of the surrounding neighborhood. And that's what we are here today. So this is a very big step for property owners, for business owners, for New Yorkers today, to give them a piece of their city back. And I'm really grateful for the mayor and his team and very grateful for my partner here, Borough President Levine, for deciding to take on these small issues that will have a very large impact for New Yorkers. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Thank you. I'd also like to express my deep gratitude to Commissioner Oddo because all of the steps we outlined take a lot of day-to-day work with the enforcement team, work that hasn't been done in the past but absolutely needs to be done and will make a real impact on city streets. I'd also like to call up former borough president, current Councilmember Gale Brewer.

City Council Member Gale Brewer: Thank you very much. I too want to thank the mayor and the deputy mayor and the awesome DOB commissioner. I would say two things. Number one, I know 51 West 86th Street, I've had several press conferences there. I think it's been up 20 years. I don't know how many days that is, but it's a lot of days and it's still there. And that particular owner has several buildings with scaffolding up for a similar amount of time. I do not understand how you can't do work in that number of decades. And the second thing, of course, is just recently the administration, Mr. Mayor should be thanked, tried so hard to get an encampment moved three times and they came back because scaffolding was there. When the scaffolding left, the encampment left. It was the only way to get rid of it. And so there are so many ways in which scaffolding plays a role that is not positive.

And of course I actually have a district office now, scaffolding just went up. And I think that the businesses that are under it, of course, are going to suffer. We heard that earlier. Trash develops, complaints go to 311. It's a revolving constant situation that the scaffolding is absolutely the problem that is to be solved. So I'm just here to be supportive. I know that there are going to be some situations, so I'm glad that you have figured out maybe to have some low interest support. There are some churches, synagogues, till buildings/HDFC/ANCPs, whatever you want to call them, that have scaffolding where that's been up for a while because they don't have the funding to do the repairs. So I assume that will be part of the issue, to try to figure that out. Congratulations. Thank you for making sure that this is a top priority.

Question: So question to Mr. Mayor and then the buildings' commissioner. I heard about the fines and then you said they were incentives, but what were the incentives? I didn't [inaudible].

Commissioner Jimmy Oddo, Department of Buildings: Yeah, so there has to be some carrots and sticks, if you will. The sticks are pretty significant. Some of the incentives are once you demonstrate a good faith effort and you're actually beginning to undertake the work, we'll have a conversation about the fines that have been issued. The other, I think real incentive here is we are committed to work with the borough president to talk about creating this sort of running loan fund, for those property owners who legitimately are having a difficult financial time. And that's the reason why the scaffolding is up. We want to treat people in different situations differently. Those who have the ability to remove the scaffolding, but for their own economic incentives do not, we're going to come at them with the stick, if you will. For those who are in a financial situation that they just can't make ends meet, we have to figure out a way of getting them those financial resources.

And more generally, sort of from 20,000 feet, if you will, the incentive is, as the DM mentioned, we are committed to creating a much better product to give property owners a choice of a more aesthetically pleasing, a product that doesn't give rise to a bunch of the quality of life issues that Councilmember Brewer just spoke about. And by the way, talk about incentives, we're going to take a really hard look at the inspection process, the cycle, local law 11 cycle. We drive the rest of the country, but that's not to say every five years for every building of every age, of every material is correct. So we're going to bring on an outside entity to help us study that. And perhaps there is some relief in the duration of the permit process and that will go right to the heart of why so many sheds are up. And if I could say one last thing, because I may not get back to the mic. You all and the folks at home know the names of the folks up here, Eric Adams and Meera Joshi and Mark Levine. You may not know the names of Gus Syracus from the Buildings Department or Egal Shamash who are going to do the work and have been fantastic. But there's one name I want to leave you with, I think it would not be right if I didn't, and that is Grace Gold. She was the young Barnard student in 1979 who was killed when something flew off one of our buildings, which led to Local Law 10 of 1980, which led to Local Law 11. But we should remember her today.

Question: This sounds like a lot of work that if building owners' are going to put into the Department of Buildings, are they going to get an inspector in a timely manner? I guess the question is, do you have the manpower to actually work with these buildings?

Commissioner Oddo: Yeah, we have some vacancies to fill in terms of inspectors, but we're going in the right direction. And directly to your point about timeliness and inspections, I worked for this deputy mayor for 16 months… I've worked for this man for 18 months and I know him for a long time. I will be accountable to them, and the good folks that I work with on a daily basis at DOB are absolutely committed. 

Listen, sheds going up in and of themselves is not a bad thing. It can mean and it should mean that work was being done. It can mean and it should mean that we are avoiding a problem from turning into a tragedy. But for those sheds that are up too long for no good reason, DOB will be on this until we remove them.

Question: So part of what you guys are talking about today involves the aesthetic of the shed and I mean, people complain about them, what have you… There are other aspects of the city scene people complain about like awnings and stuff like that. So I'm wondering more broadly here, is the city looking at any other regulations to aesthetics as far as buildings and what have you aside from this?

Mayor Adams: Yes. We're always looking at how to run, how to visually show our city better and how to be more efficient. So everything is on the table of how do we reform our city. And as we reach a point of announcement, we will do something like this.

Question: Anything specific?

Mayor Adams: No, nothing specific at this time.

Question: [Inaudible]? Is that enough to defer this, especially when, as the council member mentioned, there's some scaffolding up for two decades? So why is that [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: Well it's fine in other actions and as we always do, we look at the response and if we're not getting the results we need, we are going to move to the next level. Our goal is to take down unneeded sheds and not allow these long period of times to take place. And we are not going to be so stagnant that if it's not getting the results we want, when we go back and do an analysis, if we have to do 10,000 a month, then it's 10,000 a month. But we're not trying to over-penalize. We just want to send a strong message. It's time to take down the shed culture.

Question: [Inaudible], how many do you have that are related to scaffolding? And then also encampments, have the number of complaints increased [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: Don't have the exact number but we'll get it to you and let you know.

Question: Aside from your soliciting suggestions as to how to make the sheds prettier, aside from changing the ugly green part of it, is there anything that can be done in terms of how do you deal with the light and the blockade of businesses, et cetera? Is that even addressable or is it just really the green part would be prettier?

Mayor Adams: And that's why we're looking at the netting aspect of it. We have been looking at there are new ways to actually protect pedestrians below and we are going to put in place a competition again. They had a competition several years ago. We want to re-look at that because there's some great ideas out there. 

How do you protect the public? How do you make sure that we deal with the aesthetics and how do you not keep sheds up for a long period of time? We don't even want the netting up for a long period of time. The goal is, fix the problem. And that's some of the things we're doing with the drones that we announced to infuse that into building inspections. It's easier to do to identify exactly where the problems are. And so all hands are on getting the sheds down from our city. 

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. I wanted your reaction [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.

Question: I'm sorry. I wanted your reaction to Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez outside the [inaudible] Netflix headquarters here in the city. And also, if you support the strike [inaudible] some point?

Mayor Adams: Listen, I am pro-union. Everyone knows, I don't know the historical facts, but I'm probably one of the few, if not the only, mayor that had a union card. I'm in full support of workers and I don't have a problem at all of joining the picket line to show my support. I think they need to get to the table, come to a resolution. The film, the theaters, the writers, the actors, it's an important part of our economy in the city, and so let's resolve these issues. We've been able to do it. We solved 75 percent of our union contracts. Many of them have 97 percent ratification. It shows that I'm a blue collar mayor, I believe in workers and I look forward to getting any support that I can to the members that are now striking.

Question: I was wondering what your response was to [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: No. I think congestion pricing is here and Governor Murphy, I consider him to be a friend, a good colleague. We spend time together. He's going to voice his concerns. We have our concerns. We have to deal with this traffic congestion and I think this is the right thing to do. And the court will determine. The courts make the decisions whenever there's a dispute of this magnitude. It's not a reflection on who Governor Murphy is as a person. It is what he's advocating for. And we're looking forward to bringing the World Cup here. Hopefully we have the finals.

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wanted to ask you again about the straw donor story. The DA said you guys aren't implicated, the campaign itself. You talked about that. Your campaigns talked about that. Would you be open to sharing with the press just to kind of reinforce that communications, written communications between yourself and Montgomery and communications between Rachel and Montgomery, just to kind of clear the air of the whole matter?

Mayor Adams: Don't crash. The DA spoke. It's clear that we follow rules. I tell everyone, "Follow the rules," and that is what I live by. I know that I am constantly under scrutiny. I sleep well every night. I follow rules. The DA is handling the case. He made it clear. I don't think you could make it any clearer. The DA did a thorough investigation. He made it clear what his investigation revealed. He laid it out for everyone, he allowed all of you to see it, so I don't know much more. Let the DA do his job and we will support whatever the DA determines.

Question: Mayor, has the 60 day shelter rule, has the city started enforcing that, and have any migrants been kicked out of the shelter, and also, [inaudible] minor populations, like single adults, and when the 60 day time clock ends]?

Mayor Adams: Okay. Do that in pieces. You said the 60 days rule. No, we just started the 60 days rule. So we're going to sit down, we're giving everyone the 60 days, give them the intense support to land them an appropriate setting for them that's fitting. Is a shelter, a HERRC, a cot, that's not fitting. I mean, many people didn't talk about the mother and wife who lost her spouse, her significant other, I don't know if they were married or not, that committed suicide because of these conditions. And I went in and I saw her and I spoke with her. I saw the children. And this is real. So we need to get people in a suitable setting.

And it's not only that we're dealing with the over 90,000 that have arrived in the city, but we're still getting about 2,500 a week. And so it's not like, okay, let's deal with this number and then, we can say, "Okay, we're finished." No. It's just continuing. So the system must change and our goal is to place people in the right setting, but this is not sustainable and we have to be honest about that. And so the tabulation on how we're doing it, the team is doing to try to be as clear as possible, as transparent as possible, the numbers that we're getting in, the numbers that are leaving, and this is a constant moving target. It's a moving target. And so I don't know what more clarity and transparency that we're missing because I don't know of that. Hold on. I want to hear. I want to understand.

Question: [Inaudible] today, does the 60 day time clock start compared to somebody who's been in the system for already a month, do they already have a month on their time clock?

Mayor Adams: I see what you're saying. They were in already. Right. I'm not 100 percent sure how they're going to handle those 60 days. I would be of a mindset that even if you were here for a month, that we're just telling you it's a 60 day. I don't like changing the rules in the middle of the game. And so I'm going to drill down on that. But I believe that if you were in already, let's say you were in for 60 days, do I say, "Well, you know what? You used up your 60 days."? Then people are going to say, "You just told me this." 

So I think the fair thing to do is to let everybody know these are the rules now. 60 days, you have to reapply. There's no guarantee on your reapplication. I was on Hall Street and Park Avenue, Saturday night around 11:30, 12:00 at night speaking to those migrants there, explaining what was happening. And we're going to try to do the best we can as we have always, but this is not sustainable and I'm not going to give the false impression that it is.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. I want to ask you about a situation we've been reporting on about the Ebbets Field Apartments. As you know, some of the Black tenants there are living in fear, they are experiencing racial harassment from a neighbor, possibly even arson and a homicide, he threatens to kill them. It's been going on for over a year. And some of the tenants have told me repeatedly that they would like to hear from you in part because–

Mayor Adams: They would like?

Question: To hear from you in part because you have a history with Ebbets Field, you're a former police captain, they voted for you, they say because you said you wanted to support working people like them and protect their safety in their community. 

So last week the neighbor was again arrested and taken to a psych hospital and is now back home again. And they say he's still got the knife, he's still walking around the building, he's still threatening to kill them. So what I want to ask you, Mr. Mayor, is what is your reaction to this situation when you heard about it or saw it, and are you satisfied with the city's response?

Mayor Adams: Okay, first, let me answer that in layers. Number one, that is a working class, very stable community. The residents there, I know very well. I represented them as a state senator. My office was across the street. I represented them as the borough president and it is a good, solid working class community and I am going to stop over there. I reached out to some of the tenants that I've known for years and sort of get a gauge on what was happening when I heard this story about a week or so ago, and it's a horrific incident. It's clear that this person is dealing with some mental health issues.

This is the problem. This is the problem. We have people who are dealing with real mental health issues that we want to wait until they commit a crime before we resolve them, or I should say those who are the advocates for this. I don't believe that. If you exhibit serious signs that you are in danger to yourself or others and you can't take care of your basic needs, we need to have you placed in a locale where you are able to get the services that you deserve. But there's a real challenge with it. We got to follow the law. We can't do based on what Eric feels. The law is very clear. If we arrested him for menacing, if we arrested him for possible arson and other things, there's a process. We don't control the courts. We don't make a determination if he's going to be released or not. I believe he should be kept inside until he gets the help that he needs, but that's beyond my scope and that's beyond my authority.

Question: Can I just follow up?

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: Because I guess that's what some people were wondering. Since you and Governor Hochul are the ones who have said that this law should be reinterpreted, it doesn't have to be an imminent threat, you don't have to be charged with the crime, someone appears to be a risk, there would be more coordination between police and either mental health or drug treatment or whatever it is that the person needs. Yet for a year, these tenants were calling 911 asking for help and it was either not taken as a complaint or harassment or maybe he was arrested and released, but we didn't see under the way you want it to—

Mayor Adams: No, you did. You did see. You did see under our guidelines and you did see the coordination. You saw exactly what we called for. Police did arrest. We did remove them to a facility. The doctors determined if he could leave or not. That's outside my scope. That's what everybody was attacking me on. They were attacking me on the fact that police officers should not make that determination. Do you remember? Do you remember? Come on. People are having selective amnesia here. Remember how I was attacked? This is an exact case of what I was talking about. I was strongly criticized, and I think even Michael Garland wrote a story about me trying to keep—

Question: But in terms of getting community resources to visit, some people thought the response could've been more coordinated, more creative.

Mayor Adams: Like what? Like what?

Question: Bringing in mobile health units, bringing in some kind of services in the community, the way you do with homeless people—

Mayor Adams: You said have services to what, the tenants or the—

Question: No, for the person in his home, to try to bring community services to him, the way you do with homeless people.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, I'll speak with Dr. Vasan to find out what's the extent of what we did. I know we exercised the full scope of what our authority is. And these are these complicated cases. I believe this person should be inside until he gets the care that he needs and not harm someone. That's what I believe.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry. Listen. Like I said, not only are those constituents as the mayor, as the borough president, as a state senator, but many of them are friends. They're friends. And I'm going to do a stop over there and communicate with them and we are going to see everything that's possible to get this person out of the environment. He clearly needs mental health support. But again, this should resonate with every New Yorker that last year that this mayor said people who can't take care of their basic needs are in danger to themselves and others should not be allowed to stay in the environment. This is what I said. This is what I said, and we are seeing over and over again why I was taking that position.

Question: Mr. Mayor, my question is about the migrants again. [Inaudible] that happened in Bushwick over the weekend. A lot of the men there, I drove out to see them, and they said they already had a new place to stay. They found this place to stay, but the city came and threw away all their papers, all their belongings. Just what is your reaction to that?

Mayor Adams: No, that wasn't in Bushwick. That was in Fort Greene area. We're talking about on Hall Street and Flatbush Avenue or was that another location?

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Yeah, yeah, that's Hall Street and Flatbush Avenue. And I went out there Saturday night. That's what we were just talking about. I was there Saturday night speaking with all the migrants that were there and communicating with them and we had a great conversation. I'm going back to see them again and some of them are going to come meet me at City Hall because there was something very revealing that came out of that conversation. Listen, we are not going to have tents and encampments on our streets. 

That's not happening. Once you start that, you're going to see what happened in San Francisco, California, other places. That is not happening in New York. I said this last year that I was removing the tents and encampments off our subway system, off our streets. Many of you said it was not possible, but as you move around this city, you don't see it. I know it's happening in other cities. I visited there. We're not having that here in New York.

Now, will there come a day that we are going to have to find locations where we're going to have to have migrants go to? We're going to have to look at that because we have reached our capacity. And so when I went there personally to speak with those men who were there at the Hall Street location, communicated with them, were able to get them back inside of the shelter system and find a shelter for them, we were able to communicate and that's what a leader do. A leader leads from the front. You know what else I discovered when I spoke with them? Some of them were engineers. Some of them were mechanics. They were professionals and they only wanted one thing. They said, "We want to work. We want to work."

What is more anti-American than coming to America and you can't work? That's what we all should be talking about. This is so anti-American that someone could come to our country. People want to say six months. It's not six months. You could be here for almost two years and you told that you can't work. All of us, all of our ancestors came somewhere. Think about if your ancestors were unable to work when they came to America. Think about it. Imagine what the impact is that they won't ... You wouldn't be here right now doing what you're doing. But we're telling these group of migrants from Venezuela, South America, Ecuador, Africa, Haiti, Russian, there was a Russian-speaking person that came to speak with me, we're telling them all, "You have to be here for a minimum of six years. It could be two years and you can't provide for your family." And that is not what they're asking for.

And so listen, I told everyone last year, "This migrant crisis is going to come to a neighborhood near you." That day has arrived. It's going to come to everyone's neighborhood. There are meetings all over the city. South Jamaica Queens had a meeting the other day. People on the Upper West Side is having a meeting. Everyone is meeting now. They should have met last year when I said, "We need to get this under control." 

People need to focus their attention to Washington DC. A national problem should be a national solution. It should not be New York City's solution. And this is not going to get any better. It's going to get worse before it gets better if we don't get help from the national government.

Question: Mr. Mayor?

Mayor Adams: Yes, sir.

Question: So a 44-year-old man, Curtis Davis, is found unresponsive in his cell at Rikers. He's pronounced DOA a little after 5:30 on Sunday. Were you briefed on this, and what can you tell us about how corrections staff handled this?

Mayor Adams: It's still an investigation. We know that. And we don't know the cause of death. The ME will make that determination. And every death should be taken seriously and every death is a tragedy. We must keep in mind also, and this is something that's really lost I think sometimes in the communication, the population at Rikers, we want to give them the best care as possible. Close to 50 percent have mental health illness. 18 percent have severe mental health illness. Many are coming in with serious medical issues, serious medical issues. Many are dealing with emotional trauma. Some are extremely dangerous. 

We are dealing with a population of New Yorkers that have, for the most part, reached the end of their rope and we're telling correction officers, Rikers staff, all those professionals every day, show up. Some of those correction officers do triples. Triples. Some of them are dealing with their own ailments. That entire population has been dysfunctional for decades.

I came in, this administration under Commissioner Molina, the special monitor and their team wrote a report in April that stated that we were moving in the right direction. That's all I know. And I want to continue to move in the right direction. I'm the right person to fix NYCHA. We had a hiccup in June where she saw five issues that should have been reported and he wanted us to be held in contempt for those five issues. She didn't call for a receivership in that report. They didn't recall for receivership in that report. 

Federal government made a decision that they're going to do so, and I respect the decision. No matter what happens, I'm going to continue to fix Rikers. I know I could fix Rikers. I want to give the opportunity to do so. I did in 18 months what previous administrations were unable to do. They never wrote in any of their reports under previous administrations that we were moving in the right direction. They wrote that under my administration, and we're going to continue to do it. Okay. 

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