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HEROES OF THE CORONA CRISIS

JESSICA RAMOS IS HERE TO KICK ASS SHE'S ALL

OUT OF

BUBBLEGUM

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POLITICAL ROYALTY IN QUEENS

July 13, 2020

The Partners and the team at Bolton-St. Johns congratulate our friends Anne Marie Anzalone and John Albert for being honored on City & State’s Queens Power 50 List.

Anne Marie represents a wide range of clients at Bolton-St. Johns and most recently helped clients such as GrowNYC and Common Threads provide food security for local communities throughout Queens.

John Albert helps critical-service institutions in Queens secure millions of dollars in funding to continue their important work. John also works closely each year with the United States Tennis Association as they organize the US Open tournament at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

We are very proud of what Anne Marie and John have accomplished and look forward to working with them to help recover, rebuild and reimagine Queens, and all of New York!

From the proud partners, and everyone at Bolton-St. Johns: Giorgio DeRosa, Ed Draves, Bill McCarthy, Emily Giske, Tom Connolly, Mike Keogh, Juanita Scarlett, Patrick J. McHugh, Teresa Gonzalez, Samara Daly, Justin Berhaupt, John D. McCarthy, Patricia Reilly, Bill McCarthy, Jr., Violet Moss, Julian Kline, Sara Anne Ritz, Joseph DeRosa, Robin Brown, Keyla Antigua, Philip Bolen, Sarah Bangs, Julie Jursik, Dave Siracuse, Iris White, Jessica Davos, Paul Santos, Jacob Policano, Ben Garrett, Paul Hypolite, Daniel MuĂąoz, Tori Newman-Campbell, Jessica Nieves Keogh and Edward Amador.

NYC

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July 13, 2020

EDITOR’S NOTE

JON LENTZ Editor-in-chief

If her lead holds, Jenifer Rajkumar could become one of the first South Asian lawmakers in New York City.

THE QUEENS ISSUE

City & State New York

IN 2018, THE REIGN of the Independent Democratic Conference came to an end. The renegade state Senate conference, which had infamously helped Republicans cling to power, officially disbanded in April of that year and rejoined the larger, mainline Democratic conference. But the eight former IDC lawmakers were not welcomed back by many of their Democratic colleagues, and in the primary elections, six of them lost. This year, state Sen. David Carlucci, one of two remaining IDC members still in the state Legislature, fell short in his congressional bid, leaving only Staten Island’s Diane Savino still in office. (Jesse Hamilton, another former IDC member, mounted a comeback bid for the state Assembly, but he lost as well.)

One common defense offered by the IDC over the years was that they knew how to govern and get things done for their constituents. The conference was a driving force behind several landmark bills, from Savino’s medical marijuana legislation to IDC leader Jeff Klein’s ambitious paid family leave program. Now, with more than a year and a half under their belts, how are their successors doing?

This week, we take a closer look at state Sen. Jessica Ramos, one of the first-term lawmakers who knocked out an ex-IDC member, and how she has put together an impressive record in such a short time in office.

CONTENTS TOP 10 … 10

The electeds doing the most for Queens

JESSICA RAMOS … 14

The straight-shooting state senator

CORONAVIRUS HEROES … 22

These people stepped up when Queens needed them most

SOUTH ASIAN CANDIDATES … 30 These newcomers could make history POWER 50 … 32

The most influential unelecteds in Queens

WINNERS & LOSERS … 54 CELESTE SLOMAN; SULTAN KHAN

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Who was up and who was down last week

CityAndStateNY.com

SCOTUS HANDS CY VANCE A WIN ON TRUMP’S TAX RETURNS

President Donald Trump may have grown up in the lap of luxury and may be the current occupant of the White House, but he is still, according to the Supreme Court of the United States, an “every man.” The court handed down a 7-2 ruling

July 13, 2020

on Thursday rejecting Trump’s assertion that he is immune from criminal subpoenas while in office.

“In our judicial system, ‘the public has a right to every man’s evidence,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

“Since the earliest days of the Republic, ‘every man’ has included the President of the United States.” The ruling hands a

win to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who subpoenaed eight years of Trump’s financial documents – including personal and corporate tax returns – as part of an investigation into payoffs made before the 2016 election to two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump.

While the ruling could mean that Trump’s tax returns will eventually become public, some have cast doubt on the possibility of that happening before the November presidential election.

But the Supreme Court didn’t have all good news for New Yorkers hoping to get access to the president’s long-sought returns. In a second case, the Supreme Court sent back to lower courts the question of whether congressional committees – including the House

REUSE, RECYCLE, REPUBLISH If history is doomed to repeat itself in today’s news, then so are the papers reporting that news. The New York Post demonstrated this in their cover calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to “do something” about a spike in crime in New York City. The cover is a word-for-word callback to the Post’s 1990 cover calling on then-Mayor David Dinkins to “do something” about a “crime-ravaged city.”

“Black lives matter ... in our classrooms and our educational system. And they damn well matter in our specialized high schools, but unfortunately, our current public policy has shown us otherwise.”

– Assembly Member Walter Mosley, on hopes that the Black Lives Matter movement will help propel changes in the city’s specialized schools admissions policies, via the Daily News

“President Trump said we would be denigrating the luxury of Fifth Avenue. Let me tell you: we’re not denigrating anything, we are liberating Fifth Avenue, we are uplifting Fifth Avenue.”

– New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, responding to the president’s objections to painting the words “Black Lives Matter” outside Trump Tower, via CNN

Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn Maloney – could subpoena Trump’s tax returns.

In the decision, the majority found that lower courts didn’t adequately scrutinize the validity of lawmakers’ requests for financial documents.

TISH JAMES RECOMMENDS NYPD REFORMS

In the weeks following massive protests against police brutality across the country, New York has ushered in a number of landmark policing reforms, including a ban on chokeholds and uncloaking police disciplinary records.

But New York Attorney General Letitia James has a few more suggestions, including one to strip sole control of the New York City Police Department from the mayor’s office.

In a report released on July 8, James called for an independent commission to oversee the NYPD that would be made up of representatives appointed by the New York City mayor’s office, the City Council, the public advocate’s office and the comptroller’s office. As The New York Times noted, the NYPD commissioner has served at the pleasure of the mayor since the 19th century, meaning any kind of push for an overhaul that would share oversight power would attract pushback from City Hall and police unions.

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July 13, 2020

SCHOOL REOPENING STILL UP IN THE AIR

On July 8, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that public schools would partially reopen in September, detailing a hybrid model of in-person and remote learning that would have students attending inperson classes just a few times a week, or every other week, to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

But like clockwork, Gov. Andrew Cuomo spoke to reporters just a few hours later delivering a different message – that the final decision on school reopening would be made by the state, and would come by early August.

“We’re doing everything to be ready in September,” Cuomo said. “If anybody sat here today and told you that they could reopen the schools in September ... that would be reckless and negligent.”

City & State New York

CUOMO REJECTS NURSING HOME CRITICISM

Who’s to blame for the coronavirus-related deaths of more than 6,400 nursing home residents across New York? A report released by the state Department of Health on Monday argues that it’s not Cuomo, but factors including nursing home staff and visitors possibly spreading the virus. In the past few months, as nursing homes and long-term care facilities saw devastating outbreaks of the coronavirus, Cuomo has come under fire – in particular, for a nowrescinded directive for these facilities to accept recovering coronavirus patients from hospitals.

While the report concludes it wasn’t that directive that contributed to deaths of nursing home residents, the real answer is likely more complicated.

Al Sharpton and Bill de Blasio help paint “Black Lives Matter” outside Trump Tower.

THE

WEEK AHEAD

WEDNESDAY 7/15 State lawmakers hold a virtual hearing on how an independent commission will oversee the upcoming round of legislative redistricting, and may indicate how transparent the process will be.

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When will we know who won the primaries?

After pushing off the start date for counting absentee ballots from the June 23 state legislative and congressional primary – which was delayed a week because of the record number of ballots coming in – the New York City Board of Elections started the count citywide on July 8, after Staten Island got a head start on July 6. While boards of elections in other parts of the state, such as Erie County and Monroe County, did manage to start on time, they are similarly facing a glut of ballots to sort through that will slow the process.

The overall process of garnering results will take longer than usual, because of the volume of ballots that have come in. Democratic voters in New York City returned 379,614 ballots this year, according to the city’s most recent tally. In comparison, just 157,885 of all voters statewide requested a ballot in the 2016 presidential primary.

Not all the submitted absentee ballots will be counted, however.

They may be thrown out because voters failed to sign their envelope or chose to vote in person, as happens every year. One issue that is likely to be particularly pertinent this year is missing postmarks.

In order to be counted, absentee ballots must have been postmarked by primary day and be received by June 30. But because New York approved the use of prepaid postage for absentee ballots this year as a result of the pandemic, workers with the U.S. Postal Service may omit the postmarks needed to get a ballot approved. This may legally invalidate votes from people who otherwise filled out their ballots correctly.

How long exactly the counting will take is unclear, but one election expert previously said that it would

WEDNESDAY 7/15 What does a post-COVID Queens look like? A City & State webinar tackles the question with Reps.

Gregory Meeks and Grace Meng, DA Melinda Katz and Council Member Donovan Richards.

require at least two to three weeks for all results to be finalized.

The process may also be drawn out depending on the results of litigation over which ballots are counted. Given that candidates only had until July 6 to file a lawsuit, several have done so preemptively in advance of any possible issues, including Bronx-Westchester Rep. Eliot Engel, who is losing to Jamaal Bowman in results from in-person voting, and Brooklyn Rep. Yvette Clarke, both Democrats, and several state-level candidates.

Several political organizations, elected officials and candidates – including a few in competitive primaries, such as Jessica GonzálezRojas, who is running in the 34th Assembly District in Queens – have called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to loosen rules to allow postmarkless ballots to be counted. Votes with missing or illegible postmarks should be counted if they arrived on or before June 30, they said in a letter, unless they were clearly postmarked after June 23. No one is calling for counting ballots that were postmarked after June 23, although there would be a good case for doing so, since so many voters didn’t receive their absentee ballots until that day, or even later, if they received it at all. (Presumably, most voters in that situation never sent in an absentee ballot anyway.)

“I called upon the governor to accept all the absentee ballots that were not postmarked,” Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte, chairwoman of the Kings County Democratic Committee, said in a separate statement. “Sadly, experts have informed me that there is no way to determine which ballots met the statutory postmark deadline date.”

MONDAY 7/20 Both chambers of the state Legislature are expected to reconvene remotely to consider a broad range of issues, including legislation addressing the pandemic, police reform and local issues.

-Kay Dervishi

INSIDE DOPE

Federal lawmakers are not expected to consider more stimulus funding until the end of July. Any state-level debates on the state budget deficit will have to wait until at least next month.

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ZEROES

CityAndStateNY.com

THE T

HE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC brought out the best in some people. New Yorkers who, in desperate times, worked with and for those in need – even as many were under incredible stress themselves. But not everybody stepped up – in fact, some players across the New York political sphere seemed to step down. We’re calling them the Zeroes.

July 13, 2020

BY JEFF COLTIN

HEROES STEPPED UP DURING THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS. THESE PEOPLE DIDN’T.

GLENN NUSSDORF

The CEO of Quality King Distributors on Long Island probably thought he could make a quick buck by doubling the price of Lysol disinfectant during the pandemic. But the attorney general called his “profiteering” “appalling” and sued him for price gouging.

YARON OREN-PINES

This Silicon Valley mini-Musk talked New York into giving him $69 million to procure ventilators.

But Oren-Pines didn’t have any experience, and when he couldn’t deliver, the state had to claw back the money.

ELON MUSK

The tech exec talked a big game about manufacturing ventilators when New York was in dire need. That was more flash than substance, and he just ended up donating some BiPAPs, medical machines that weren’t as helpful.

ANDREA STEWART-COUSINS & CARL HEASTIE

When the state was in need, the state Legislature was … nowhere to be found. After handing off unprecedented emergency powers to the governor, the Senate and Assembly didn’t meet at all for almost two months.

RANDY GARUTTI

EDWARD SCHARFENBERGER

Despite filing for bankruptcy in response to more than 250 lawsuits accusing the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo of being complicit in sexual abuse, the bishop leading it applied for a federal PPP loan. So the diocese didn’t get much sympathy when the loan was denied.

Americans can debate who should be getting federal Paycheck Protection Program loans, but everyone seemed to agree the massively popular, well-funded Shake Shack should not. After hearing the backlash, its New York-based CEO returned the money.

July 13, 2020

City & State New York

A Q&A with Queens borough president candidate

DONOVAN RICHARDS

After in-person votes were counted, you were up by about 10,000 votes, but there are still nearly 90,000 absentee ballots to go through.

Are you confident you’ll be the victor?

I’m a firm believer that every vote should count.

And I feel pretty confident that after all the votes are counted, that we will be the Queens borough president.

I think the numbers, the science, says that we’re going to come out OK.

AKHIL APPU, RBLFMR, EGYJANEK, CIELL, FELIX LIPOV, PL GOULD/SHUTTERSTOCK; CELESTE SLOMAN

You were one of the few Black New York City Council members to vote against the latest city budget. Was that because you thought the NYPD budget cuts

weren’t deep enough?

Or was it more about where the city was not investing?

It was more to me about the culture of the NYPD, and me not wanting to put my stamp of approval even on the things they said they were going to do. So for instance, they talked about overtime. Every year, they talk about capping overtime. And that’s never happened. There wasn’t enough details on the school safety shift. That was problematic.

Let’s be clear, we could cut the budget $2 billion.

It doesn’t mean that they are going to reform the gang database or the DNA database, or that they’re

going to address bias within the department. It’s a dollar figure. So I wanted to send a message to the mayor and the department that you need a real culture shift, and the stuff that’s happened in the street is totally unacceptable.

Do you support the plan to redevelop the “Amazon site” on the Long Island City waterfront?

I don’t support projects until I get all of the specific details. I need to know what is the job commitment. I need to know what the (minority– and women-owned business enterprise) commitment is. I need

I feel pretty confident that after all the votes are counted, that we will be the Queens borough president. The numbers, the science, says that we’re going to come out OK. to know that there’s going to be community space.

I need to know what the housing (area median incomes) are. What is the city’s real commitment?

It’s hard for me to say yes to anything until we shape the plan. I’ll have an advisory opinion. But I will say, I intend to play an outsized role in these conversations – more aggressively than what we’ve seen in the past.

The Real Estate Board of New York spent about $100,000 to help you get elected.

The reason folks support me – it’s not that they believe I’m going to be their rubber stamp. And

I’m sure if you spoke to them, they’d say the same thing. Remember, I (helped negotiate the passage of) mandatory inclusionary housing. REBNY was totally against that. But we can sit at the table and have a conversation. And I think that’s what differentiated me amongst the pack. And I’ve never been one that blows with the wind. I’m not going to agree with REBNY on every project.

Do you own or rent?

I own. Thank God for a good woman. If it’s up to the man, we’re just going to rent! But my wife is like, ‘No, we’re going to save and we’re going to buy a house. So I’m a homeowner going on four years now.

Congratulations to all of the honorees of the City & State Queens Power 50 of 2020. It’s a privilege for NYSCI’s Margaret Honey, President & CEO to be included in such admirable company.

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We salute all the City and State Queens Hero’s, especially all the small business men and women who toil everyday to support their employees, their families and the Borough of Queens

The New York Racing Association

Congratulates

David O’Rourke City & State’s

Queens

Power 50 + Heroes

Queens College congratulates its top award-winning graduates and the entire class of 2020 on their extraordinary achievements.

Vallaire Wallace Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow

Adina Bechhofer National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow

Learn more about our nationally recognized programs. www.qc.cuny.edu

SERVING July 13, 2020

City & State New York

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QNS A few years ago,

perhaps the big story in Queens was its growing reputation as a tourist destination. Then, in 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset then-Rep. Joe Crowley, drawing attention to a rising progressive movement in Western Queens that went on to pressure Amazon into scuttling a plan to build a second headquarters in Long Island City. Over the past few months, however, the borough’s biggest storyline has been the devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more

people in Queens than in any other county in New York.

Yet Queens pulled together in response to the crisis. At the peak of the pandemic, it was all hands on deck at the borough’s hospitals. Members of the community delivered food to the newly unemployed, while business leaders took steps to protect local shops. Elected officials passed legislation to protect tenants and stepped up to serve their most vulnerable constituents.

So this year, we’re not just doing a power list recognizing the influential leaders navigating the borough through a crisis.

We’re also doing something new – honoring a group of heroes who met the challenge in different ways.

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CityAndStateNY.com

QUEENS’ TO P 10 ELECTED O FFICIALS Who’s delivering for the World’s Borough

July 13, 2020

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City & State New York

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1 MICHAEL GIANARIS

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris’ political power has soared in his nearly 20 years in office, just like the new skyscrapers in his Western Queens district. The top strategist in the state’s upper chamber seems to have perfected the balancing act, pushing the right positions for his progressive constituents while maintaining his establishment ties and working with moderates. Gov. Andrew Cuomo can’t stand him – and Gianaris considers that a badge of honor.

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GREGORY MEEKS

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ

SEAN PRESSLEY; SEAN MCCABE; RON ADAR/SHUTTERSTOCK

Chair Qu eens Cou nty Democ ratic Party The Queens machine doesn’t hold the sway it once did, but you wouldn’t know that from Gregory Meeks’ confidence. Like any good political boss, he’s weathered minor scandals and held on to power, thanks in part to constant check-ins with the other elected officials in his Southeast Queens district.

He’s an elder statesman in Washington, D.C., too, moving money as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee.

Clockwise from left: State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris; Rep. and Queens County Democratic Party Chair Gregory Meeks; and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, right.

Member of Congress

Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez’s congressional victory two years ago remains a symbolic driver of progressive energy in New York. Two AOC-endorsed challengers have made impressive strides in preliminary voting results this primary season and other candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America have had a strong showing. And though AOC’s focus is on national politics, she certainly makes her voice heard on top local issues, such as defunding the NYPD.

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CityAndStateNY.com

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4 GRACE MENG

Member of Congress As New York’s first and only Asian American member of Congress, Grace Meng represents a community that extends well beyond the borders of her district. And as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, she represents members of her party around the country.

But as the only member of Congress who represents Queens, and Queens only, she’s first and foremost the No. 1 defender of her diverse district.

5 DANIEL DROMM

Chair New York City Cou nc il Financ e Committee “The Queen of Queens” has been a progressive voice since he fought for gay rights as a New York City school teacher. Activism brought him to politics, where he’s risen to chair one of the council’s most powerful committees.

And while he may not see eye to eye with some of the more radical activists on the left, he’s been a staunch ally of Jackson Heights’ ever-growing Latino political cohort.

Clockwise from bottom left: New York City Council Member Daniel Dromm; Council Member and Queens Borough President candidate Donovan Richards; Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz; Rep. Grace Meng, top row, second from right; state Sen. Jessica Ramos, top row, far right; state Sen. John Liu, bottom row, second from right; City Councilman Eric Ulrich, bottom row, far right.

6 MELINDA KATZ

Queens District Attorney The path from the Queens borough presidency to the district attorney’s office wasn’t smooth, but Melinda Katz made it work, thanks in part to the full weight of the borough’s political establishment getting behind the longtime politician and carrying her over the finish line. Now she’s playing catch-up with her progressive peers, modernizing a massive prosecutor’s office that saw little change in the preceding three decades.

SEAN PRESSLEY; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK; U.S. HOUSE; NY SENATE MEDIA SERVICES; WILLIAM ALATRISTE, JOHN MCCARTEN/NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

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City & State New York

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DONOVAN RICHARDS

JESSICA RAMOS

JOHN LIU

ERIC ULRICH

This onetime rising star now seems to be on his way to the Queens borough presidency, where the developmentfriendly Southeast Queens native could stay for nearly a decade – if another job doesn’t come up before that. Donovan Richards has been ahead of the curve on criticizing the NYPD and never letting the department off the hook while chairing the City Council Public Safety Committee.

The pandemic has created plenty of opportunities for state Sen. Jessica Ramos to push legislation supporting workers. As chair of the Labor Committee, she sponsored New York’s paid sick leave law to help employees who contracted the coronavirus, and pushed the state to expand its definition of essential workers and boost their pay. Her district – populated by many service workers – was among the worst hit by the coronavirus.

John Liu made history in 2018 when he became the first Asian American elected to the state Senate, after setting similar historic firsts in the City Council and city comptroller’s office. The Queens lawmaker has wielded influence in education policy as chair of the Senate New York City Education Committee. He has criticized the governor on school funding, and the mayor for the admissions process to specialized high schools.

There are more Republicans in New York City than any other city in the country. That’s a function of the city’s size, but as the only Republican elected official in the city who doesn’t represent Staten Island, Eric Ulrich’s voice is heard well beyond the Rockaways. And Ulrich’s outer-borough charm and moderate brand of politics helped him to win the Queens vote in the 2019 race for public advocate.

New York City Council Member

State Senator

State Senator

New York City Council Member

JESSICA RAMOS IS OVER YOUR BULLSH 14

CityAndStateNY.com

By Rebecca C. Lewis

Photography by Sean Pressley

The no-nonsense state senator is an outspoken progressive, an adept political operator – and isn’t sugarcoating anything.

July 13, 2020

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City & State New York

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DAY BEFORE her 35th birthday, state Sen. Jessica Ramos hosted a Zoom fundraiser to celebrate. Although she advertised it on her Twitter feed, the video call was populated mostly by friends and colleagues “shooting (the) shit,” as Ramos said at one point during the Zoom party, sharing stories about the woman of the hour.

Ramos had expected to get roasted by her colleagues – and there was a little roasting, notably from state Sen. John Liu, a fellow freshman from Queens.

But by and large, her colleagues spoke sincerely and painted a picture of a person unafraid of a fight. “She is a whirl of energy and just powerful messaging,” state Sen. Brian Benjamin said near the start of the Zoom party. “And every time she gets up to speak, Republicans start to moan and groan because they know she’s gonna bring that heat.”

Liu shared a similar sentiment. “When she doesn’t like what somebody is saying, Republican or Democrat, I start seeing the twitches,” Liu said.

“Jessica Ramos: Don’t get on her bad side.”

“That is ... freakin’ true,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera chimed in.

Among friends and colleagues, Ramos is known for her candor and no-nonsense attitude. As Parkside Group partner and longtime Ramos ally Evan Stavisky put it to City & State, “She doesn’t just have a low tolerance for bullshit, she has a low tolerance for incompetence as well. If you’re trying to convince her

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of something, you’d better be prepared.”

Upon first meeting her, some may find that quality a little abrasive. Former New York City Council Member Rafael Espinal Jr. joked during her party that at first he thought she didn’t like him. “Did you say anything stupid to me?” she quipped back.

But to her allies, it has helped make her an effective legislator. “I find it incredibly, incredibly refreshing,” Working Families Party National Political Organizer Tiffany Cabán told City & State. “I think one of the reasons we vibe so well is that she is no bullshit and we can just straight-up talk about it.” Cabán said Ramos is her “homie,” a term she said she doesn’t use for just anyone.

During her first term as a state senator, Ramos has cemented herself as an outspoken progressive, and her reputation for blunt honesty is a key part of that image.

Unlike some other freshmen who toppled incumbents, however, she has followed a more conventional political career trajectory. She served on her community board and as a district leader, joined a political club and worked in government before running for office. For most of her career prior to holding office, she was a communications professional crafting political messaging for others, preparing her to eventually craft her own political image.

But Ramos’ history is also more complicated than just a young politico working her way up the ladder. She has defied the county party more than once – not just when she ran for state Senate. She worked for over a decade in communications, mostly for labor unions, making her uniquely prepared to get information out smoothly to constituents. With a mix of progressive credentials, establishment roots and public relations skills, state Sen. Jessica Ramos embodies many of the crosscurrents in Queens politics, but she doesn’t fit into any one mold of a New York politician.

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AMOS HAS A long history of civic engagement in her community thanks in part to her parents, both undocumented Colombian immigrants who became activists in Western Queens. At age 15, she was quoted in a New York Times article as a participant in anti-police brutality protests following the 2000 acquittal of the officers involved in Amadou Diallo’s shooting death. But Ramos officially got her start in politics in 2006 working for then-City Council Member Hiram Monserrate. She dropped out of college at Hofstra University, abandoning plans to be a corporate lawyer, to work in his office after getting involved in union organizing on campus.

Monserrate, now a polarizing figure due to domestic violence and public corruption convictions, was involved in Ramos’ campus labor activism, and Ramos was

invited to work for him. She said that at the time, he was fairly progressive – he was the first to introduce legislation for municipal IDs – and that he made history as the first Latino elected official from Queens, despite his now tarnished reputation. “It was a very big learning experience for me,” Ramos, who now denounces Monserrate, said. “It really opened my eyes into the legislative process, and also how to work with other offices to get

things done.”

Soon after Ramos went to work for Monserrate, she joined the Queens County Young Democrats, which at the time was led by future City Council Member Costa Constantinides, then just a council staffer himself. It was a time when the group was trying to rebuild, expand and reestablish its influence in Queens politics. “Sure, we worked within the confines (of the county party) to a degree, but we also pushed them

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City & State New York

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“Every time she gets up to speak, Republicans start to moan and groan because they know she’s gonna bring that heat.” – STATE SEN. BRIAN BENJAMIN

to be better,” Alexis Confer, who befriended Ramos through Queens County Young Democrats when the two were in their 20s, told City & State. “That was like the whole point of what we were doing.”

Ramos left Monserrate’s office in mid2008, months before he was charged with assault, in part due to low pay and because of concerns she was beginning to have about conduct in the office. (Monserrate was later convicted on corruption charges from his

time in the City Council.) She took a communications and editing job with Social Service Employees Union Local 371, the first of several labor union jobs she would have before joining the state Senate, where she would become chair of the Labor Committee. Two years after leaving Monserrate’s office, Ramos told county Democratic leaders she wanted to run against longtime District Leader Helen Sears, a former City Council member who was considering a state Senate run on the Republican line in an upcoming special election. But Sears remained a Democratic district leader with the party’s support. “They kind of laughed in my face,” Ramos recalled to City & State.

Later in the year, Ramos had the opportunity to run for an open district leader seat in the 39th Assembly District when someone retired. (She had recently moved about nine blocks to the west, placing her within that district as opposed to Sears’.) With the county party’s blessing, she won the seat.

“Colombians had never had an elected official,” Ramos said. “It was really about making sure that representation was reflective of the actual demographics of our community.”

She joined New Visions Democratic Club, a progressive Queens political club.

Things changed for Ramos in 2014 when she bucked the party. This wasn’t necessarily new, nor would it be the last time.

“She tangled a bit with the local organization, because she always had a very clear agenda of what she thought was right,” Stavisky said. In this case, Ramos decided she would support then-Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito for council speaker, the progressive choice in the race, rather than Council Member Daniel Garodnick, whom the county organization supported.

Ramos said she supported Mark-Viverito because of her progressive values, but also because of the historic nature of her soonto-be tenure – Mark-Viverito was the first Latina to hold the powerful position of council speaker.

Ramos joined fellow Queens progressives then-Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland and Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer. But while Ferreras-Copeland and Van Bramer received choice committee chairs from Mark-Viverito after she won, Ramos lost the backing of county

leaders for her reelection, and then lost her district leader seat.

“It certainly cemented my political self,” Ramos said. “I felt proud of my decision because I knew I did the right thing. And that’s the type of person I want to be.”

Running for reelection without party support also gave her the experience of petitioning on her own and putting together an operation – even though she lost. That experience would come in handy four years later when Ramos decided to once again challenge the county organization by running against then-state Sen. Jose Peralta who had belonged to the Independent Democratic Conference, which shared power with state Senate Republicans.

Shortly before that run for office, Ramos left the union world to work in the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. Initially, she worked as the communications adviser to then-Deputy Mayor Richard Buery in 2016. She was involved with all of Buery’s initiatives, notably Pre-K for All, which rolled out a year earlier, and the start of ThriveNYC. “I think Jessica, she’s a good storyteller,” Confer, who was Buery’s chief of staff and recruited Ramos, said. “It’s not always about the sound bite; it’s about how you can make it accessible to people.”

After 10 months with Buery, Ramos was brought on to de Blasio’s immediate press team as his first director of Latino media, where she ran the administration’s outreach to an array of other ethnic media in the city.

Ramos left the mayor’s office at the end of 2017 in preparation for her run for state Senate. She said her work with ethnic media serves her well now as she represents one of the most diverse areas in the entire country.

A

LTHOUGH RAMOS HELD some traditional political and governmental roles leading up to her time as a lawmaker, the way she actually entered office was a bit atypical.

President Donald Trump had been elected two years before her 2018 run, which energized Democratic voters to engage in politics.

Loyal Democrats in New York became enraged that the Independent Democratic Con-

18

CityAndStateNY.com

ference shared power with the GOP instead of caucusing with their own party.

Peralta – who represented the largely working-class, immigrant communities of Jackson Heights, Corona and East Elmhurst – was one of those IDC members, having joined in 2017. He faced staunch backlash from his community at the first town hall he held after joining the breakaway conference. Ramos was one of his constituents in attendance that day, and it would eventually lead to her challenge.

Other Democrats in the past had tried and failed to gain enough traction to unseat IDC members. And after the conference disbanded in April 2018, months before the primaries, the prospect seemed even more difficult – officially, the state Senate and Democratic Party leaders across the state were expected to back the incumbents. But in the end, six of the eight IDC challengers declared victory on primary day in September.

State Sen. Michael Gianaris played a role in unseating those former IDC members behind the scenes, quietly recruiting strong candidates to take them on. He remembers exactly where he first met with Ramos to discuss the prospect of her candidacy: Bareburger on 31st Avenue in Astoria. “She expressed a great enthusiasm for it and basically came in – didn’t require a lot of recruiting,” Gianaris said. “At the time, other people were talking to some established officials, council people, et cetera, but she took the bull by the horns and made it happen.”

Like the other insurgents who did not have the institutional support to aid their campaigns, Ramos was in part propelled by grassroots progressive organizations like True Blue NY and No IDC NY. But Gianaris considered her background in politics and government, combined with her work in union organizing, invaluable. “In her role as a legislator, she has enough experience to know how government works, but was never a big enough part of the institution to be kind of reluctant to make aggressive moves,” Gianaris said. “She’s first and foremost an activist trying to bring change, but also has enough knowledge of how to use the levers of power to do that.”

Still, the experience sets her apart from many prominent progressive challengers recently, notably those backed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, who often have little experience in local politics or government before running for office. Tiffany Cabán was one such DSA candidate when she ran for Queens district attorney in 2019. A young former public defender, she threw her hat into the ring to replace Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, running to completely reshape the office in a progressive, restorative justice model.

How Cabán ultimately entered the politi-

July 13, 2020

cal arena is very different from Ramos, who was one of Cabán’s early supporters, but that hasn’t prevented the pair from being homies. “We think about movement work very similarly, in the sense that it doesn’t really matter what the labels are or who the folks are, but if we are rooted in the same theories of change,” Cabán said. She added that there are a million ways for people to get civically engaged, and coming up in a more “traditional” sense is just one of them. It’s somewhat reminiscent of what Confer said about rebuilding the Queens County Young Democrats years ago – working within the party while pushing it to be better.

Despite their ideological similarities, Cabán isn’t trying to get Ramos to join the DSA. And Ramos has no interest in becoming a member either. “No, thank you,” Ramos said bluntly when asked about it.

“I think that remaining independent has allowed me to stay limber, and be able to adapt to different working groups, depending on the issue at hand.” While county Democratic organizations have long gotten a bad rap from progressives, Ramos is wary to a degree of any particular group that may wind up with outsized influence. “There will always be a group of people that are in charge,” Ramos said. “Machines are so funny, because, often, people are just upset they are not the machine.”

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HEN HER LANDMARK Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act passed in the state Senate in 2019, after hours of debate from reticent Republicans, Ramos thanked a variety of people for their support. Notably, she thanked two Republican state senators – Michael Ranzenhofer, who had questioned her for about 35 minutes on the bill, for being the only Republican to invite her into his district while she toured the state for input on the legislation, and Phil Boyle, for being the only GOP member to attend a hearing on the bill.

“That really did, I think, make a difference,” Ramos said during her floor speech.

Ramos prides herself on her independence, and she feels it’s one of the things that allows her to work with anyone and everyone

necessary to help her constituency, whether that’s the Queens Democratic Party, the DSA or even Republicans. “She has ... very savvy ways of building coalitions to accomplish her goals, even if it’s with people she would not otherwise agree with,” Stavisky said. “If you’re willing to work with her to address the challenges and the problems that she sees in her community, in her borough, in the city and in the state, then she’s a great ally. If you’re an impediment to that, then, you know, watch out.”

Back in 2019, Ramos was one of three state legislators (the others being her former roommates state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi and Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou) to denounce Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s high-dollar fundraising practices during budget season.

The decision got the attention of Cuomo’s bulldog spokesman Rich Azzopardi, who made headlines for calling the trio “fucking idiots.” Later that year, Ramos admonished Cuomo for his spat with the Working Families Party. Azzopardi declined to comment, either about his own relationship with Ramos or how the executive branch works with her more broadly.

More recently, Ramos publicly expressed her anger with Assembly Member Catalina Cruz for sharing what turned out to be a false tip about a “loot out” planned for early June in Corona, which brought increased police presence to the neighborhood. Cruz did not respond to a request for an interview.

“Typically what happens behind closed doors when we’re in conference with our colleagues, her blunt voice stands out in that context,” Gianaris said. “When others might be more interested in being polite, she’s more interested in telling people what she believes and what she thinks is important.”

And Ramos hasn’t always stayed in people’s good graces. Her comment about Cuomo and the WFP reportedly got under the governor’s skin and interfered with negotiations on Ramos’ e-bike and e-scooter legalization bill, which he ultimately vetoed over what he said was a lack of safety measures. Both parties denied allegations of political tension. About a month after

“When others might be more interested in being polite, she’s more interested in telling people what she believes.”

– STATE SEN. MICHAEL GIANARIS

July 13, 2020

City & State New York

THE IDC SMASHERS The freshman Democrats who toppled turncoats keep making headlines

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the veto, though, Cuomo introduced language closely mirroring Ramos’ proposal, with some tweaks, as part of the 2020 budget, which did pass. “My team and I are in regular contact with his team and I’ve met with him twice. He even gave me his big ship octopus poster autographed!” Ramos said in a text when asked about her working relationship with the governor. “We’re two Queens kids who disagree on policy and approach. I’m a Working Families Democrat, not a billionaire-loving Democrat--from Queens.”

Earlier, Ramos was denied entry to Peralta’s wake after he died unexpectedly a few months after their impassioned primary. “You are not welcome,” someone reportedly shouted at her. Just days before that, Ramos and other anti-IDC challengers drew the ire of state Sen. Diane Savino, Peralta’s former IDC colleague and one of only two former members of the group who survived a primary challenge in 2018, who sent a series of tweets attacking unnamed opponents of Peralta’s. “He risked it all for his district, and paid the price on Primary Day. I am sure all those who stood by and let him be vilified for simply wanting to be more effective in this totally fucked up winner take all game of politics will be posting tributes today,” Savino wrote.

“Save them, it is really too late.” She declined a request for an interview, although publicly Savino did not seem to carry bad blood into the 2019 legislative session.

Still, Ramos typically tries to make sure she has a good working relationship with anyone who might help to achieve her goals, her public callouts of the governor perhaps being the most notable exception. No one who agreed to an on-the-record interview had a bad word to say about her. It’s one of the reasons she said she has largely remained silent in this year’s state legislative primaries, particularly in the contentious Assembly race in Astoria, which includes a small portion of her district. DSA-backed

July 13, 2020

Zohran Mamdani challenged incumbent Assembly Member Aravella Simotas, and currently leads her in the polls. Ramos said she aligns closely with Mamdani ideologically, while she has known Simotas for a long time and works well with her – hedging her bets so she can work with whoever emerges victorious. “My job is to work with whoever prevails as the Assembly person,” Ramos said. “I don’t want there to be political ramifications, you know, or consequences based on the decision that I made politically. That should not be a hindrance to working together.”

That initially seemed to be the case in the one Assembly race she chose to weigh in on.

About a month before the June 23 primary, she endorsed incumbent Assembly Member Jeffrion Aubry, whose district is included in her own, when Monserrate mounted a challenge. But before that, she took a softer stance on the race, telling reporters months earlier, including this one, that voters knew his background and that it would be up to them to decide whether to elect him. “I guess I was trying to see how the race was going to shape up,” Ramos said, noting that there were many in the community who still supported Monserrate. “What we saw was a real race was developing, so it became inevitable to get involved.”

U

NUSUALLY FOR A Legislator, Ramos’ background was in media relations before becoming a lawmaker. She was a communications specialist for 32BJ SEIU, a communications director for the Build Up NYC labor union coalition, and she spent over two years helping to craft Buery’s and de Blasio’s messaging in the mayor’s office. “It certainly has created in me the sensibility of understanding the power of words and learning how to choose carefully how I communicate with everyone,” Ramos said.

One example is Ramos’ use of the

“If you’re willing to work with her to address the challenges and the problems that she sees in her community, then she’s a great ally. If you’re an impediment to that, then watch out.” – EVAN STAVISKY, PARTNER AT THE PARKSIDE GROUP

hashtag she created, #SeenIn13. Basically, it’s meant to draw attention to things happening in her Senate district, the 13th.

Nearly every time she’s out in the district, posts about local businesses, holds an event or otherwise shares information, she tags it. Ramos said she wanted to use it to help build a sense of pride in the community and allow members to see what’s going on in their neighborhood. Like any smart social media campaign created by a communications expert, it has become a signature on her social media. “I want to make sure that people know what’s happening and that it’s easy for them to find,” Ramos said of her largely immigrant community, who may sometimes know more about the news from back home than from down the block. “I cannot tell you how many people just know to look for the hashtag and it’ll bring up whatever’s going on.” Ramos still uses it the most frequently, but others often use it in relation to her and the things she does.

A skilled communications professional is also able to craft messaging and to control her public image – and public image is crucial to any politician. “I think elected officials who know how to communicate tend to be more successful, regardless of ideology, but the other reason that they tend to be more successful is they understand that the best message is one that’s based on truth,” Stavisky said. “And the way that Jessica Ramos has positioned herself is true to who she is.” Gianaris shared a similar thought about Ramos’ communication strategy and public persona. “She’s very, very authentic, and that is less of a communication strategy than a desire to just be true to oneself,” Gianaris said. “I suppose one can say that, you know, choosing to be authentic is a communication strategy but with her I believe it’s genuine.”

Whether it’s pure authenticity or a calculated strategy, Ramos appeals to young progressive activists. She’s very popular among a group of politically engaged, left-wing teenagers and college students who are becoming increasingly influential in progressive politics called the Zoomers. One of them even created the Twitter handle @ramos4gov – which often takes shots at Cuomo – with the half-kidding premise that Ramos should run for governor.

But Ramos has no plans to become governor, at least right now. And as a believer in term limits, she isn’t even sure how long she will stay in the state Senate and government more broadly. “I’m not here to be a career politician. I’m here to make waves. I’m here to make the status quo uncomfortable. I am here to push buttons,” Ramos said. And for now, it’s working for her.

■

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22 CityAndStateNY.com

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ERICA HARRIS; JAMAICA HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER; KATHRYN HASLANGER; SYED IQBAL

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BREAKING THROUGH New York City has never elec ted a South Asian American.

That could change this year.

W

By Annie McDonough

HEN HE TOOK office in 2019, Kevin Thomas, the first Indian American elected to the state Senate, had a lot riding on his first term representing part of Nassau County on Long Island. “I had an immense responsibility to make sure that I do things the right way, that I get on and vote on bills for the right reasons,” Thomas said.

“It’s like being the first child in a family and everyone is looking at that child to set the pace, to set the road ahead for everyone else that follows.”

In his first two years in the Senate, Thomas said he has tried to make the most of his time – not just with the legislation that he has supported but also in sharing some elements of South Asian culture with the legislative body. He has pushed for the recognition of the Hindu festival Holi, shared the Indian sweet laddu with his colleagues and invited imams to give the Senate’s opening prayer.

Despite Thomas’ historic election, one fact remains true: Of the more than 300,000 South Asian Americans living in New York City, not one has ever been elected to political office. In Queens, where the South Asian community is most heavily concentrated, no candidate has broken through the barriers to elected office in South Ozone Park, Jackson Heights or Jamai-

ca. “It is very striking,” Zohran Mamdani, a candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America who is running against Assembly Member Aravella Simotas in Western Queens, said of the lack of South Asian representation in elected office.

“I think it speaks to the fact, as a community, South Asians have been marginalized politically. And not simply ignored, but also erased from the political fabric of our city,” added Mamdani, who identifies as Indian-Ugandan.

Mamdani is one of a handful of candidates this year who identify as South Asian – which broadly includes countries in the Indian subcontinent as well as some people who identify as Indo-Caribbean and trace their ancestry to South Asia.

Along with Mamdani – who, with in-person ballots counted, led Simotas by 7 percentage points – there’s Jenifer Rajkumar, running to oust Assembly Member Michael Miller in southwest Queens, and Suraj Patel, who is challenging longtime Rep. Carolyn Maloney in her district that spans Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.

With in-person ballots counted, Rajkumar led Miller by a whopping 25 points and has declared victory, while Patel, waging his second battle against Maloney, is less than 2 points behind the 14-term congresswoman.

These candidates’ strong performances make Thomas happy. “I get this feeling in my heart saying, ‘All right, this is good,’” Thomas said. “There are so many of them stepping up.” That includes candidates who didn’t perform on Election Day, but who ran competitive races nonetheless. There’s also Shaniyat Chowdhury, who is running against Rep. Grego-

ry Meeks; Mary Jobaida, who challenged Assembly Member Catherine Nolan; and Richard David, who is running in the vacant 31st Assembly District.

Not to mention South Asian Americans running for lower level roles like district leader or judicial delegate.

While Mamdani, Rajkumar and Patel differ in background and ideology, all are excited about the prospect of expanding South Asian representation in Congress and the state Legislature. If one or more of these candidates succeed, it will be a testament not simply to civic engagement in the South Asian community or the ability to turn out the vote in pockets of Queens where there are growing South Asian communities.

Instead, their victories would occur in the face of many challenges that stand in their way.

One of the hurdles that South Asian candidates in Queens face is the way legislative district lines were drawn.

It’s nearly impossible for heavily South Asian communities to coalesce around a candidate because those communities are mostly split into different districts. “The lines were drawn such that the South Asian population was gerrymandered into four different Assembly districts in Queens,” Rajkumar, who is Indian American, said. “That prevented any South Asian candidate from consolidating the South Asian vote.”

Those four districts – the 24th, 31st, 34th and 38th Assembly districts – each boast a population that is at least 12% South Asian. And even though the 24th Assembly District is more than a quarter South Asian, so far it hasn’t led to electing more South Asians.

This year, it looks like David Weprin will hold on to his seat in the 24th Assembly District after two challengers – Albert Baldeo, who is Guyanese, and Mahfuzul Islam, who is Bangladeshi – split the vote.

Some hope that the dilution of the South Asian vote will change when new district lines are drawn after this year’s census. John Albert, a consultant at Bolton-St. Johns, has worked

extensively on getting more South Asian representation in politics and is a founding member of Taking Our Seat, an organization that advocated for the South Asian community in the 2010 redistricting. “That round of redistricting in 2010 didn’t actually allow for opportunities that would have reflected the gains in population on the ground,” Albert said. By 2022, he said, New York could have elections under new district lines.

But for Patel, Rajkumar and Mamdani to have done as well as they’re doing this year, their base of support went far beyond the South Asian community. Patel said in the district he’s running for – which spans Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens – there’s not a big population of South Asian voters, but the largest concentration is actually in Manhattan, not Queens. “They have a kernel of a South Asian neighborhood to use as a platform or a springboard, but their message has to appeal to a lot of people for them to be successful,” Albert said

KARA MCCURDY

July 13, 2020

July 13, 2020

of Patel, Rajkumar and Mamdani. “Now what you’re seeing is even with the district lines from 2010, the community has grown and it’s just producing a bumper crop of highly qualified candidates who have learned over time that appealing purely based on race is not going to serve them.”

In addition to the issue of district lines in Queens, some South Asian candidates point to a lack of support from the party establishment. Patel said it has been a problem not just for South Asian communities, but for immigrants in general.

“For a long time, it was Queens County, (former Rep.) Joe Crowley or whatever, who would pick

Zohran Mamdani, right, a candidate backed by the DSA in Western Queens, is one of two South Asian American candidates currently ahead of incumbents in the primaries. They would be the first to be elected in New York City.

and choose who gets to run for office. They never picked and chose a South Asian person,” he said. “Frankly, a lot of times what I’d hear when I ran two years ago is, ‘Wait your turn, wait your turn.’ The immigrant experience is one where we’ll always be waiting for our turn.”

It’s one thing for South Asian Americans to be involved in politics, said Patel, who worked for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, and then in his administration. It’s another to have those same people running to replace mostly white incumbents. “For years, you’ve had Democrats and the machinery rely heavily on fundraising support from the Indian Amer-

“The South Asian population was gerrymandered into four different Assembly distric ts in Queens.

That prevented any South Asian candidate from consolidating the South Asian vote.”

– jenifer rajkumar, assembly candidate

ican community. But when you step out of that lane and run for office, you are certainly met sometimes with a strange resistance about being in the wrong lane,” Patel said. “It was eye-opening for me. You expect that kind of reaction – everything from the coverage and the tropes – from Republicans.

But I was naive enough to think that wouldn’t be a reaction you get sometimes from Democrats, from self-avowed progressives.”

“Wait your turn” is a message that Chowdhury heard as a long-shot challenger to Meeks.

He is trailing the congressman by more than 50 points. Despite the rise of politicians and candidates like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018 or Jamaal Bowman this year, Chowdhury pushed back on the idea that the successes of those insurgent candidates have rendered party establishment groups like the Queens machine suddenly powerless, noting that some people still blindly buy into the “wait your turn” philosophy. “I think there’s always going to be a political divide between people

City & State New York

31

who are progressives and people who are lining up with the machine,” Chowdhury said.

One other explanation for why New York has still seen so little South Asian representation thus far is the fact that the candidates running now are the children of immigrants, who largely didn’t have the luxury of political pursuits. “The last generation, the generation of our parents, came here and their motive was survival – getting on their feet, getting a house, getting a car, being able to have food on their table,” Islam said.

“They didn’t have the ability to be involved in things like electoral politics, nor were those who were in electoral politics reaching out to educate them about this entire process.”

Though representation is still an uphill battle, a combination of the growing South Asian population and the barriers that were broken down by progressive insurgents in recent elections puts South Asian candidates one step closer to that goal.

In New York City’s 2021 elections, the wave of South Asians hoping to represent New Yorkers may show that this year’s results weren’t a fluke, but a movement that will continue to grow in Queens, and citywide.

Female candidates like Felicia Singh and Shahana Hanif – running for the City Council’s 32nd District in southwestern Queens, and the 39th District in northwestern Brooklyn, respectively – have already thrown their hats in the ring.

Should candidates like Patel, Rajkumar and Mamdani win this year, Congress and the state Legislature could see greater representation of New York’s South Asian population. But as a few progressive candidates pointed out, representation for representation’s sake is not enough. “When we go to the negotiating table, we go to the legislative chambers. We have to ensure that we are not simply there to put a brown face in a white legislative body, but we’re there to advocate for people who have been left behind on the basis of their race and on the basis of their class,” Mamdani said.

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QUEENS PO WER 32 CityAndStateNY.com

July 13, 2020

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THE MOST INFLUENTIAL UNELECTEDS IN THE BOROUGH

1 RICK COTTON

Executive Director Port Au thority of New York and New Jersey Rick Cotton made headlines in early March when he became the first major New York public official to test positive for COVID-19.

Now fully recovered, Cotton has focused his energy on requesting $3 billion from the federal government to make up for decreased train and airport traffic – including the two major airports in Queens.

One positive development recently has been the opening of Queens-based LaGuardia Airport’s long-awaited Terminal B.

2 PATRICK JENKINS

Founder Patric k B. Jenkins & Assoc iates The Southwestern Queens native has held key roles in mayoral, gubernatorial and attorney general campaigns in New York and brings over 15 years of experience in community relations and public policy and crisis communications. Known for his long friendship with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Jenkins’ lobbying

business has thrived both in Albany and New York City.

He has also worked for Carl McCall, Eliot Spitzer and Rep. Gregory Meeks.

3 DENNIS WALCOTT

President and CEO Qu eens Pu blic Library In a borough where more than 160 languages are spoken, the Queens Public Library and all 66 of its branches help preserve the borough’s cultural richness and serve its diverse residents. The library is run by Dennis Walcott, a top education official in the Bloomberg administration. While the coronavirus pandemic shut down the system, branches were still used for mobile testing and voting – and Walcott is overseeing a limited reopening.

Patrick Jenkins is a longtime friend of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

4 THOMAS GRECH

President and CEO Qu eens Chamber of Commerc e Representing more than 1,150 businesses and more than 100,000 borough-based employees, the Queens Chamber of Commerce is on the front lines of the local business community’s efforts to weather the devastating economic impact of COVID-19.

Tom Grech, who took office in 2015, has used his experience working in the energy industry to elevate the Chamber’s influence in city and state government and advocate for growth-spurring policies.

The Chamber of Commerc e is on the front lines of efforts to weather the ec onomic impac t of CO VID-19 .

5 HOPE KNIGHT

President and CEO Greater Jamaic a Development Corporation With over two decades of experience in private, public and nonprofit sectors, Hope Knight has spearheaded efforts to revitalize Downtown Jamaica, which has been capitalizing on its transit links. At Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, Knight helps local businesses acquire loans, spurs real estate development and bolsters minority- and womenowned businesses. She serves on the New York City Planning Commission and was recently elected treasurer of the Jack and Jill Foundation’s board.

July 13, 2020

6 KYLE BRAGG

President 32 BJ SEIU A member of 32BJ for over 35 years, Kyle Bragg became president suddenly after the death of Héctor Figueroa and was unanimously approved by the union’s board. Bragg, who’s credited with leading the merger with Local 32E that brought 9,000 members into the union, is also the founder of the Mount Zion Youth Literacy and Sports Program and a member of SEIU’s first Racial Justice Task Force.

7 ELIZABETH LUSSKIN

President Long Island City Partnership

RYAN A. DAY; SASHA SMOLINA; THE ROOT GROUP

As leader of Long Island City’s neighborhood development organization and the local business improvement district it runs, Elizabeth Lusskin is working twice as hard to promote local businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. Lusskin has been advocating for small businesses and entrepreneurs in several public and nonprofit roles. LIC Partnership’s latest campaign encourages Long Island City goers to snap photos and use hashtags when shopping and eating local.

8 PETER TU

Executive Director Flu shing Chinese Bu siness Assoc iation Peter Tu is a familiar face and respected community leader in the borough’s Flushing neighborhood. Tu has helped small businesses get off the ground and advocate for the

City & State New York

city’s Chinese immigrant community. He dined with Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson to dispel coronavirus fears in February, and has overseen donations of face masks and thermometers amid a recession hammering the community as a result of the pandemic.

9 JASON NAIDICH

Senior Vice President and Regional Executive Director, Central Region Northwell Health As executive director of one of the largest health care providers in Queens and neighboring Long Island, Jason Naidich was on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic that tore through the borough.

On Naidich’s watch, Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital, which is located in a Queens neighborhood that was particularly hard hit, transferred patients to other facilities in its network to deal with overstretched capacity.

10 GERARD SWEENEY, MICHAEL REICH AND FRANK BOLZ III Founding Partners Sweeney, Reic h & Bolz

This powerful trio of lawyers has helped steer the Queens Democratic Party for more than 30 years. Although the defeat of Joseph Crowley, the former congressman and chair of the Queens Democratic Party, in 2018 hinted at reform, since then, the three lawyers have cultivated a close relationship with the new Queens Democratic Party boss, Rep. Gregory Meeks, in addition to providing pro bono help for Melinda Katz’s successful district attorney bid.

11 ISRAEL ROCHA JR.

CEO NYC Health + Hospitals/ Elmhu rst Elmhurst Hospital, which serves nearly one million Queens residents, was hit early and hit hard by the

33

coronavirus, with long lines of locals seeking tests or treatment. Israel Rocha Jr. teamed with Hyatt and American Airlines to provide its 4,000-plus employees with a complementary vacation later this year. Rocha is also the vice president of NYC Health + Hospitals and leads OneCity Health, an effort to improve health care delivery.

Tu has overseen donations of fac e masks and thermometers amid a rec ession hammering the c ommu nity.

Elizabeth Lusskin leads the Long Island City Partnership.

34 CityAndStateNY.com

ROBIN HAYES CEO JetBlu e

With the airline industry has been hampered by the coronavirus, JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes is doubling down to maintain JetBlue’s affordable reputation while still complying with proper travel restrictions and social distancing orders. The Queens-based airline, which bills itself as “New York’s Hometown Airline,” marked its 20th birthday in February.

JetBlue is also partnering with JFK International Airport to remodel Terminals 6 and 7.

over the years. For the past two decades, he has been a partner at The Parkside Group, a leading political consulting firm. Working with partner Harry Giannoulis, Stavisky is the public face of the firm and manages its government relations and public affairs portfolios.

The hospital began to play “Don’t Stop Believin’” for those being disc harged. began to play “Don’t Stop Believin’” for those being discharged. As president since 2016, Jaclyn Mucaria has overseen the hospital’s expansion of services and forging of community partnerships.

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SETH BORNSTEIN

HAEDA MIHALTSES

JACLYN MUCARIA

Political expertise runs deep for Haeda Mihaltses. The New York Mets’ top external affairs official served in the Bloomberg administration and was the first female director of the New York City Council Finance Division.

While the team navigates a return to playing ball – with spring training set to return to New York – she’s also on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is contending with its own coronavirus challenges.

Located in Flushing, New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital was one of many hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Working to adapt to an influx of patients and stay positive, the Queens hospital transformed its cafeteria into more space for coronavirus patients and

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Queens Economic Development Corporation has delivered meals to the local community and provided advice for businesses trying to reopen via its Reboot & Restart webinar series. The organization’s executive director for over a decade now, Seth Bornstein first joined the Queens Economic Development Corporation in 1979. He has overseen the

Executive Director of External Affairs New York Mets

14 EVAN STAVISKY

Partner The Parkside Grou p Evan Stavisky, whose parents have both represented Queens in Albany, gained experience as a top aide in the state Legislature and assisted on many campaigns

President NewYork-Presbyterian Qu eens

Michael Woloz is one of the city’s most soughtafter consultants.

Executive Director Qu eens Ec onomic Development Corporation

expansion of the Queens Tourism Council, as well as the opening of the Entrepreneur Space.

17 CHRISTOPHER ERIKSON

Business Manager Loc al Union No. 3 IBEW Flushing native and stalwart union official Christopher Erikson has been helping rank-and-file electrical workers enjoy pensions and benefits for over two decades at Local 3. Erikson also serves on the executive board of the Building & Construction Trades Council of Greater New York and the New York City Central Labor Council.

He has continued to battle Charter Communications, and despite support from both the governor and the mayor, the standoff continues.

18 MICHAEL WOLOZ

President and CEO CMW Strategies After stints in the New York City Council’s Legal Affairs Division and as a journalist, Michael Woloz now is one of the city’s most sought-after consultants in the real estate, transportation and nonprofit sectors. An advocate for taxi companies, he has been outspoken about the pandemic’s impact on an industry already overtaken by ride-hailing companies.

He chairs the New York City chapter of the New York League of Conservation Voters.

NEWYORK-PRESBYTERIAN QUEENS; LISA BERG

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July 13, 2020

Thanks to all of Queens’ frontline workers and first responders for keeping us safe and healthy & Congratulations to our President, Patrick B. Jenkins, on making City & State's Queens Power List.

5 Penn Plaza 19th Floor, New York, NY 10001 |119 Washington Ave 2nd Floor, Albany, NY 12210 www.patrickbjenkins.com

The Board of Trustees of

congratulates our Executive Director,

Carl Goodman for receiving this honor. He has ensured that the Museum is maintaining its leadership role in advancing the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the art, history, technique, and technology of film, television, and digital media.

In this time of COVID-19, Carl has expanded the Museum’s impact and reach through the creation of innovative free online programming, special events, supplemental and free online arts education for public school students, and as a free meal distribution site.

Ivan Lustig

Michael Barker Co-Chairs

movingimage.us

PROUDLY SUPPORT

THE QUEENS POWER 50 LIST CONGRATULATIONS TO

Congratulations to

Sateesh Nori

Honored by City and State as a

Queens Power 50 Thank You to the Queens Pandemic Heroes

HAEDA MIHALTSES NEW YORK METS VICE PRESIDENT, EXTERNAL AFFAIRS & COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

STAY SAFE STAY HEALTHY

Your leadership and vision have been essential and inspiring as we continue to respond to the disproportionate impact of this triple pandemic on our client communities – the crisis of health consequences of Covid19, the crisis of mass unemployment, and the crisis of racial violence. We appreciate all you do for The Legal Aid Society and our clients.

July 13, 2020

City & State New York

Lync h’s u nion su ffered perhaps its biggest loss when de Blasio agreed to redu c e NYPD spending by $1 billion.

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21

CARYN SCHWAB

MARK WEPRIN

Caryn Schwab leads the Queens outpost of the influential Mount Sinai network, a role she has held for more than two decades.

The hospital has treated many COVID-19 patients, including the local New York Council Member Costa Constantinides, one of the most prominent politicians to contract the virus in New York. Schwab, who served in City Hall in the late 1980s, has spearheaded efforts to modernize and upgrade the hospital.

At one of New York’s most prestigious law firms, Mark Weprin uses his past experience as a former New York City Council member, Assembly member and deputy secretary to Gov. Andrew Cuomo to negotiate land use issues and advocate for clients. It all comes naturally to Weprin, who grew up in a political family, with a father who served as Assembly speaker and a brother who’s still in the state Legislature.

Executive Director Mou nt Sinai Qu eens

20 PATRICK LYNCH

GREENBERG TRAURIG

President New York City Polic e Benevolent Assoc iation As president of the largest union representing New York City Police Department officers in the country’s largest municipal police unit, Patrick Lynch has been a staunch defender of the rank and file since the final years of the Giuliani administration.

However, his influential union suffered perhaps its biggest loss when the New York City Council and Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to reduce NYPD spending by $1 billion.

Shareholder Greenberg Trau rig

22 FRANK WU

President Qu eens College Frank Wu this summer became Queens College’s 11th president and the first person of Asian descent to lead the 83-year-old institution. Wu, who taught at California’s Hastings College and the historically Black institution Howard University, is a civil rights activist and the author of “Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.” He replaces William Tramontano, who has filled in since former President Félix Matos Rodriguez left to become CUNY chancellor.

23 DANIEL ZAUSNER

Chief Operating Officer USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center In three and a half decades, Danny Zausner’s career in event management has taken him from promoting concerts to running the nation’s preeminent tennis center.

This spring, he transformed Flushing’s $650 million National Tennis Center into a temporary hospital and used the Louis Armstrong Stadium to prepare and distribute food in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, a U.S. Open without fans will be held there in August and September.

24 SCOTT MOLINA

Chief Operating Officer Genting New York State With more than 5,000 machine and electronic table games, Resorts World Casino New York City has been a major moneymaker in Southeast Queens as the city’s only

Mark Weprin served in the City Council and as a Cuomo aide.

37

casino of any kind. Scott Molina, who was named president of the racetrack casino in 2017, has also been helping to revive a commercial casino that Genting recently purchased in the Catskills – although the coronavirus has forced both locations to shut down temporarily.

25 KENNETH ADAMS

Incoming President LaGu ardia Commu nity College Kenneth Adams knows economic development – he led the Business Council of New York State and the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, and as the head of Empire State Development he launched the state’s regional economic development councils. Most recently, he was Bronx Community College’s dean of workforce and economic development.

Starting in mid-August, he will continue tying education to job development at the City University of New York’s LaGuardia Community College.

38 CityAndStateNY.com

July 13, 2020

28 FLOYD & ELAINE FLAKE

Senior Pastor; Co-Pastor Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York

Travis Terry and Capalino helped secure PPE for frontline workers.

Silverc u p Stu dios is c onstantly c hu rning ou t hit shows like “Su c c ession,” and “30 Roc k.”

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27

CARL MATTONE

RICHARD LEFRAK

President and CEO CFM Development The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for Carl Mattone, who last fall launched another family-run real estate company. The move comes after decades developing dozens of properties across Queens with his father Joseph at The Mattone Group. “Look, Queens has been very good to me and my family so I feel a moral obligation to be good to Queens,” he told QNS.com.

Chairman and CEO LeFrak As chairman and CEO of LeFrak, Richard LeFrak runs New York City’s third largest multifamily rental landlord. With most of the company’s properties located in Queens, perhaps the most notable is the LeFrak City complex, a 20-building, 5,000-unit apartment complex stretching between Corona and Elmhurst. Outside of real estate, the billionaire businessman has contributed to his close friend President

Merging politics and prayer, The Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral’s Floyd and Elaine Flake provide services to 23,000 parishioners at their Jamaica congregation.

A former congressional representative, Floyd left office in 1997, midway through his sixth term, to tend to his flock.

He runs a 600-student private school the couple founded. As co-pastor, Elaine developed the Allen Women’s Resource Center which houses victims of domestic violence.

29 TRAVIS TERRY

Chief Operating Officer Capalino+Company As the chief operating officer of one of New York City’s top lobbying firms with clients such as UPS and Rudin Management, Travis Terry manages a roster of highprofile clients. Terry recently touted the company’s ability to adapt in crisis, citing the need to be solution-oriented and collaborate with the government. The firm has assisted in securing personal protective equipment for frontline workers and delivering meals to homebound seniors.

30 CONRADO “BOBBY” GEMPESAW President St. John’s University

As the leading Catholic university in a borough with a

significant Catholic population, St. John’s has thrived under its president, Conrado “Bobby” Gempesaw. As the first lay person to lead the institution, Gempesaw improved the institution’s recruitment, retention and graduation rates and set a record for funds donated. This past June he announced he will be retiring at the end of his term in June 2021, concluding a 36-year career in academia.

31 HAL ROSENBLUTH

President and CEO Kau fman Astoria Stu dios Over four decades, Hal Rosenbluth has helped build Kaufman Astoria Studios into one of the East Coast’s premier television and film production studios and is home to popular television shows “Orange is the New Black” and “Sesame Street” and such movies as “The Irishman.” As the city reopens, the production studio put public health protocols in place and hopes to provide an economic boost to the Astoria community.

32 STUART & ALAN SUNA Founders Silverc u p Stu dios

Home to several iconic New York based series like “Sex and the City,” “Succession,” and “30 Rock,” Silvercup Studios is constantly churning out hit shows. The success behind the television and film production studio is not a one-man show, though. Founded by developers Stuart and Alan Suna, the brothers manage two Long Island City studios and have become major players in the local real estate scene.

LEIGH BECKETT

Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.

This is your city.

Do you know your zone?

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During these unprecedented times, we applaud the exemplary efforts and leadership of this year’s honorees:

Syed Iqbal, MD Jason Naidich, MD Michael A. Epstein Chair, Board of Trustees Michael J. Dowling President & CEO

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40 CityAndStateNY.com

JUKAY HSU

Founder and CEO Pu rsu it Born in Taiwan and raised in Flushing, Jukay Hsu graduated from Harvard and served in the U.S. Army before founding the Coalition for Queens in 2011, a nonprofit – since renamed Pursuit – that teaches coding and job skills to underprivileged residents.

Responding to recent protests, Hsu and other local nonprofit leaders of color penned a letter in early June calling for police reforms and other significant policy changes.

Boone interviewed Alexandria O c asioCortez after her primary u pset, a sc ene featu red in “Knoc k Down the Hou se.” once a potential successor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. John Albert, a Queens native, represents nonprofits, cultural organizations and corporations. Among his accomplishments is paving the way for improvements at the USTA Billy Jean King National Tennis Center.

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ANNE MARIE ANZALONE & JOHN ALBERT

DAVID O’ROURKE

Executive Vice President; Counsel Bolton-St. Johns Anne Marie Anzalone joined the government relations and public affairs firm BoltonSt. Johns early last year.

Before stepping into the role, Anzalone served as chief of staff to then-Rep. Joe Crowley,

altered by the pandemic, racing has resumed across the Queens border at NYRA’s Belmont Park with the Belmont Stakes, whereas racing at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens has yet to return.

36 PETER VALLONE SR.

President and CEO New York Rac ing Assoc iation Taking over as the leader of the New York Racing Association last year, David O’Rourke oversees an industry with 19,000 jobs and $3 billion in annual economic impact in New York. Although the horse racing season has been

Jukay Hsu’s Pursuit teaches coding and job skills.

Partner Constantinople & Vallone Consu lting With a history in New York politics dating back to 1974, Peter Vallone Sr. was the first and longest serving speaker of the New York City Council, a Democratic nominee for governor and a candidate for mayor. No longer representing Astoria in the council, Vallone Sr. runs his own government relations, public relations and business firm, working with clients like The LGBT Network, Waste Management of New York and T-Mobile USA Inc.

37 CHRISTINE MANGINO

President Qu eensborou gh Commu nity College Dr. Christine Mangino is set to take the reins at Queensborough Community College in August, leaving her position as provost at one City University of New York institution – the Bronx’s Hostos College – to lead another.

Besides holding a number of

positions at Hostos over the years, she also taught at St. John’s University. She replaces Diane Call, who stepped aside in 2018, and the interim president, Timothy Lynch.

38 RUSCHELL BOONE & SHANNAN FERRY Reporters NY1

Ruschell Boone, a three-time Emmy nominated reporter and anchor for Spectrum News NY1, was raised in Kingston, Jamaica, and joined the news station in 2002.

In 2018, she interviewed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after her Democratic primary upset, a scene featured in the Netflix documentary “Knock Down the House.” Queens’ Shannan Ferry is another Emmy-nominated reporter and anchor for NY1. A selfdescribed proud millennial, Ferry joined NY1 as a reporter in 2014.

39 SCOTT LEVENSON

Founder and President The Advanc e Grou p Scott Levenson got his start in community organizing and labor union organizing. He also worked on campaigns for Jesse Jackson and David Dinkins. Since founding the political consulting firm The Advance Group in 1990,

PURSUIT; GLENMAR STUDIO; URBAN UPBOUND; DON POLLARD

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July 13, 2020

Bishop Mitchell Taylor cofounded Urban Upbound.

July 13, 2020

City & State New York

estate company lays claim to some of the borough’s most prominent real estate, including Flushing Plaza. In 2019, Jason Muss took over as president, while his father, Joshua Muss, became chairman.

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York institution. York College, located in Jamaica, targets students pursuing health care, business and other fields of study.

42 BRUCE FLANZ

President and CEO Jamaic a Hospital Medic al Center One of Queens’ oldest hospitals, Jamaica Hospital has been led since 2011 by Bruce Flanz, who helped it move past a bribery scandal.

In recent months, Flanz has faced an even greater challenge, as his hospital was one of several in Queens hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Before New York’s COVID-19 outbreak, the hospital sent a team of volunteers to help earthquake victims in Puerto Rico. the Queens resident held a number of roles for Mark Green, the city’s first public advocate, and has represented dozens of city, state and federal candidates for elected office, as well as a roster of corporate and nonprofit clients.

Community College on a job training program for public housing residents.

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President; Chairman Mu ss Development

MITCHELL TAYLOR

Co-founder and CEO Urban Upbou nd Bishop Mitchell Taylor cofounded Urban Upbound in 2004 to break the cycle of poverty for low-income New Yorkers. Urban Upbound serves residents in Queens, the South Bronx and East Harlem by providing employment services and financial counseling. Recently, the organization distributed masks, opened an emergency food pantry in Long Island City and partnered with LaGuardia

41 JASON & JOSHUA MUSS

With more than 15 million square feet in its portfolio, Muss Development is one of the city’s largest real estate firms. Established in 1906 by patriarch Isaac Muss, the Forest Hills, Queens-based real

43 BERENECEA JOHNSON EANES President York College

In August, Berenecea Johnson Eanes will drop the “interim” from her title and become president of York College.

Eanes previously served as vice president for student affairs at California State University, Fullerton, and as vice president for student affairs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, another City University of New

Flanz has fac ed an even greater c hallenge, as his hospital was one of several in Qu eens hit hard by the c oronaviru s.

44 KARA HUGHES

Senior Vice President, Corporate & Legislation Kasirer As a senior vice president at Kasirer, Kara Hughes is one of the top executives at New York City’s top lobbying firm. Prior to joining Kasirer, the Queens resident served as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s acting director of city legislative affairs and as then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton’s director of economic development. Among Kasirer’s most notable clients are Northwell Health and Charter Communications.

45 JOHN “SEAN” CROWLEY

Partner Davidoff Hu tc her & Citron The brother of former Rep. Joe Crowley, John “Sean” Crowley works at a powerhouse law firm with offices in Albany, New York City and Washington, D.C. An expert in government relations and land use, he has lobbied for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and SCO Family of Services. Previously he was the managing partner of

42 CityAndStateNY.com

46 ALEX CAMARDA

Director, State Government Affairs Charter Commu nic ations Alex Camarda in March joined the telecommunications giant Charter Communications, whose Spectrum brand delivers internet and cable television to many New Yorkers – and offered free 60day service to new customers

Sateesh Nori leads the Legal Aid Society’s Queens office.

Nori has stood u p for Qu eensites in c ou rt – inc lu ding tenants who may fac e evic tion despite a moratoriu m. with K-12 or college students to assist in remote learning.

It’s the latest job for the Queens resident, who counts the good government groups Reinvent Albany and Citizens Union and the New York City Finance Department as former employers.

47 CARL GOODMAN

Executive Director Mu seu m of the Moving Image Carl Goodman has been the executive director of Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image since 2011. Under Goodman’s leadership, the museum in

2018 created a neighborhood council of local residents and representatives of community organizations to help with the museum’s decision-making processes. A the museum had to shut down temporarily as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, it has hosted a meal distribution effort and was an early voting site.

48 MARGARET HONEY

President and CEO New York Hall of Sc ienc e Leading the New York Hall of Science since 2008, Margaret Honey has promoted student achievement in STEM

subjects. The interactive science center in Flushing Meadows Corona Park has served thousands with handson learning – although it has been shut down temporarily by the coronavirus pandemic, with the goal of reopening in mid-2021. In October of last year, construction of a 300-seat pre-K center in partnership with the institution got underway.

49 JAY MARTIN

Executive Director Commu nity Hou sing Improvement Program During the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, Community Housing Improvement Program Executive Director Jay Martin has advocated for the bailout of renters and is currently calling on the federal government to assist with tenants paying their rent – warning of disastrous financial consequences if nothing is done. Martin represents nearly 4,000 property owners who operate over 400,000 units of rent-stabilized housing in New York City.

50 SATEESH NORI

Attorney-in-charge The Legal Aid Soc iety’s Qu eens Neighborhood O ffic e Sateesh Nori is a housing wonk, having served as director of housing litigation at BedfordStuyvesant Community Legal Services and as chair of the Housing Court Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Since returning to The Legal Aid Society in 2013, he has stood up for Queensites in court – including tenants who may face eviction despite a state moratorium due to COVID-19.

ALEX CAMARDA; LEGAL AID SOCIETY

Crowley, Crowley & Kaufman, a New York City Council staffer and a campaign aide to then-Rep. Thomas Manton.

July 13, 2020

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THE RENT IS

TOO DAMN SINCE THE FINANCIAL CRISIS OF 2008, NYC RENTS HAVE INCREASED MUCH LESS THAN WAGES AND THE COST OF LIVING July 13, 2020

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IN POCKETS OF MANHATTAN, RENT IS A BARGAIN

by A A R O N S H O R T

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enting in New York City isn’t for the faint of heart – but there are deals to be had if you know where to look.

The average price of living in one of the most coveted counties in the world was $4,260 per month last year – no doubt a hefty sum, but one that puts all of Manhattan’s attractions within reach.

The cost of Manhattan’s market rate rentals has grown only about 10% in the volatile decade that followed the Great Recession – in 2009, the average cost of a unit was $3,877 per month – according to Miller Samuel/ Douglas Elliman rental market reports. Meanwhile, larger apartments lost their value by roughly

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Rentals in Manhattan have only increased less than 10% in the last decade.

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3% during the same period. Two-bedrooms in Manhattan, which went for $5,165 per month in 2009 were on the market for $135 less per month, at $5,030, a decade later. And units with three or more bedrooms that cost $8,117 per month in 2009 were sold for $7,897 per month, or $220 less, in 2019.

“The market has expanded over the period and then softened and began to strengthen over the last year or two,” said Jonathan Miller, whose reports analyze prices for approximately 50,000 Manhattan rentals. “It’s been up and down. These are not wild swings but it definitely has not been flat.”

Unlike sales prices for homes in Manhattan, which fell 34% from the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009, when the effects of the Lehman Brothers collapse reverberated throughout the economy, rental prices remained comparably stable as likely buyers camped out in the rental market until the economy improved.

Multiple years of rent growth occurred in the 2010s but there were modest downturns thanks to the sales market improving, which siphoned off rental demand and changes to the federal tax code which made owning a home in the New York area more expensive because it eliminated the popular State and Local Tax Deduction, Miller added.

“The sales market collapsed after Lehman and many of those people became renters,” Miller said. “That’s why you don’t have a dramatic drop in rents with a really low rental number in 2009.”

That isn’t to say renting in Manhattan is easy. New Yorkers are spending roughly 45% of their budget on housing costs – although that’s easier to handle in Manhattan where the median household income is $82,459 or about $20,000 higher than the city median, census records show.

But apartment prices hikes have been lower than the city’s cost of living increases. Consumer prices in the region rose about 16% over the same period. And salary levels for much of the city’s professional class have rebounded strongly since the depths of the downturn.

Now rents may start to fall after the economy screeched to a halt during the pandemic.

The average rental price in Manhattan in May was $4,144 per month, which was $74 cheaper or about 2% below the price a year ago, according to Miller Samuel/ Douglas Elliman reports.

Some of that dip was due to demand drying up, thanks to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s stay-athome order that closed leasing offices in midMarch and kept prospective tenants shuttered in their homes – or seeking alternative abodes outside of the city.

The volume of inventory has dropped substantially, too. There was a 71% decline in the number of new leases signed in April compared with the same month the previous year and a 62% drop in new leases in May com-

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July 13, 2020

pared with the previous year — the borough’s worst May in a decade.

“There are fewer deals happening now and deals are taking a little bit longer now,” MNS Real Estate CEO Andrew Barrocas said.

“The biggest issue right now is uncertainty – are they going back to their job in September or by January 2021? People have a lot more flexibility right now.”

With real estate offices reopening in June after three months of a pandemic-induced shutdown, future tenants might benefit from being patient.

Many tenants chose to renegotiate privately with their landlords to extend their leases several months, or let leases that ended in May or June expire while spending the summer out of the city – making it difficult to get a true picture of the demand in the rental market.

But more inventory could soon crowd the market as agents who pulled their apartment offerings in April and May start listing them this summer. That could mean additional concessions such as a free month of rent or a reduced security deposit as landlords and building owners try to make their offers competitive when supply is plentiful, brokers say.

“There’s more inventory than we expected because a number of residents opted to not

renew leases until they had some certainty when their own offices would reopen,” Melinda Sicari, an associate broker with Douglas Elliman, said. “In the next month we’ll likely see concessions across the board and I think the market will extend to the fall and early winter this year because we’ve lost the last few months.”

Even the luxury market above $6,000 a

man collapse.”

Discounts exist but it depends on the type of home and where you look. Living alone in Manhattan has become more desirable as studios and one bedrooms have gotten more desirable, but coupling up or living with roommates is getting cheaper.

Studios in the borough that cost $2,259 per month in 2009 leapt 24% to $2,810 per month by 2019. And the cost of a one-bedroom, which was $3,031 per month in 2009, rose nearly 20% to $3,625 per month in 2019, according to Miller Samuel/ Douglas Elliman market reports.

Prices for smaller units have continued to tick upward this spring, with a snapshot of average rental prices showing the cost of studio apartments rising to $2,844 per month and one-bedrooms costing $3,694 per month in May. Meanwhile, two-bedrooms were selling for $4,784 per month, slightly lower than last year’s averages, according to the May 2020 Miller Samuel report.

One would expect that demand would be higher for studios and one-bedrooms during a pandemic, because of a tenant’s desire to avoid contact with other people as much as possible. But brokers have been seeing increased interest in larger spaces that can house three or more people, as well as units with a home office and access to a yard – an

Prices for consumer ite m s a n d s e r v i c e s j u m p e d m o r e t h a n 1 6% between 2009 and 2018. month has softened, according to Miller. He expects prices to drop throughout the city in the second half of the year, although perhaps not as steeply as tenants would hope since the market hasn’t fully reopened.

“Rents will go down and the market will get softer because we’ve had a tremendous amount of job loss,” Miller added. “A lot of people may be disappointed that they won’t get a discount, but this isn’t 9/11 or the Leh-

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July 13, 2020

added perk in the event there is a second wave of COVID-19 and a subsequent shutdown.

“I’m seeing a large request and demand for people to live together and live in groups,” Sicari said. “They’re saving a bit of cost and they’re living with friends and I attribute that to people thinking they’re lonely or they’re going to save money and room with somebody and share utilities.”

Those looking for bargains should trek uptown. Harlem had the lowest average rents for a building with a doorman ($3,210) and without one ($3,220) in the borough last year, according to the MNS Manhattan yearend market report. The Upper East Side also continues to be a relatively affordable neighborhood with the second lowest price for a building without a doorman ($3,275) followed by the Lower East Side ($3,289), while Tribeca topped the city with an average price of $3,704 per month last year, MNS reports showed.

“The Upper East Side historically, especially east of 2nd Avenue, is a place where you can still get a deal,” Barrocas said. “It’s become more competitive now with the Q train but that’s always been an area you can

BY THE NUMBERS: THE RISING COST OF A NEW YORK CITY LIFESTYLE

Taking the subway saves you money compared with driving but there’s no such thing as free public transit. The cost of a single fare has increased from $2 in 2009 to $2.75 today, while a monthly MetroCard soared from $81 in 2009 to $127, a whopping 57% increase.

It’s not your imagination – New York City really has become a more expensive place to live.

A Russ & Daughters everything bagel with lox cream cheese is certainly delicious and worth ordering at $5 – but it costs about 45% more today than it did in 2009, when it was only $3.45.

A bacon cheeseburger at JG Melon on the Upper East Side, one of the city’s best burger taverns, cost only $9.50 in 2009 but now sets you back $13.25, a 40% increase.

Prices for consumer items and services in the New York metropolitan area jumped 16% between 2009 and 2018, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a similar jump to the rest of the nation, where prices rose 17%. But the cost of living in the New York area is far higher than it is in the rest of the country.

The region’s Consumer Price Index, which measures the average cost of household goods and services, was $273.6 – nearly 23 points higher than the CPI for the rest of the United States, BLS records show.

The numbers reflect what any New Yorker intuitively knows – that living in the city isn’t cheap.

Housing accounts for 39% of a New Yorker’s budget – higher than the 33% national average, BLS records show. Food and transportation each take up another 12% of a city household’s budget while insurance and pension costs count for 11%, followed by health care at 7%, entertainment at 5%, as well as education and other services, which account for 4%, respectively, records show.

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Even though New Yorkers spend less on transportation than people who live elsewhere (16% of their household budget) getting around the city has not gotten cheaper since the last recession.

A trip through the QueensMidtown Tunnel or over the Triborough Bridge cost $5 in 2009.

Now it sets a driver back $9.50, a 90% increase.

A glut of gourmet restaurants, fast casual spots, and upscale food trucks that have opened up in recent years have bloated household budgets. but even old standbys have marked up their menus.

Hungry pizza aficionados seeking one of the tastiest pizzas in the city at Roberta’s in Williamsburg can expect to pay $17 for a margarita pizza today, which is more than double what they would have paid when the restaurant was just starting out in 2009 – when it cost only $8.

And if you’re catching a game or a flick after dinner — when sports, the arts, and entertainment return after the pandemic — you better hit the ATM. The average price of a movie ticket in the U.S. last year was $9.16, up 22% from a decade ago when it was $7.50. But you’ll pay more in Manhattan where the average price last year was $12.59 when you included matinees, and $14.30 for a regular adult ticket at night.

Museums have raised admission fees too.

Both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art boosted suggested ticket prices from $20 to $25 over the past 10 years while the Bronx Zoo upped its entrance fee from $16 a decade ago to $22.95, a 43% increase.

But nothing has skyrocketed quite like a ticket to Madison Square Garden.

Average Knicks tickets in the 08-09 season were $70.51. A decade later they’re $128, up nearly 82%. If only the Knicks were 82 percent better.

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N ot h i n g h a s skyrocketed q u it e a s m u c h as a ticket to M a d i s o n Square Garden: up nearly 82% i n l a st d e c a d e . get a deal, and certain parts of the financial district that have 20-year-old products that haven’t been turned over.”

If you’re looking for a doorman building, Murray Hill ($4,179) is the second best bet after Harlem, followed by Midtown West ($4,284, where a spate of new buildings have come online since the end of the Bloomberg administration. On the other end of the spectrum, Soho’s doorman building rents were among the priciest in the city – at $6,356 per month in 2019.

Of course there are always the outer boroughs, which contain thousands of new apartment units that have sprung up along the East River waterfront a decade ago. Matt Villetto, executive vice president at Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, estimated that about 30 percent of target customers for luxury buildings in Williamsburg were relocating from Manhattan when he first entered the market. While now people are mostly moving from other parts of Brooklyn, all his prospective tenants are searching for a quality living space for less money.

“You go into luxury buildings like The Dime (which Villetto is marketing) which have really nicely designed apartments, great abundance of outdoor space, access to transportation and you’re paying a 15 to 20% discount to prime locations in Manhattan. That’s a good value,” Villetto said.

Yet the city’s rental market will remain unsettled as long as uncertainty over public health, the city’s economy and politics continues. That could last the rest of the year, analysts say.

“What happens with 40 million people on unemployment, what happens with COVID, do we have another wave of this, how much does the government bail out small businesses and the airline and automotive industries.

Also the election! Every election there’s a slowdown in the real estate market,” Miller said. “A lot of these are uncertainties, and people are asking those questions.”

July 13, 2020

July 13, 2020

FINANCE, REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS SAW BIG SALARY GAINS SINCE LAST RECESSION New York City has become a more expensive place to live since the start of the last recession, but the city’s professional class has more than kept pace with the cost of living.

The average salaries of New Yorkers working in the finance, real estate, insurance and legal industries have climbed more than 25% since 2009, when the country was teetering toward an economic collapse.

MIKEANDERSONMN/SHUTTERSTOCK

Those working in financial services have ridden the longest lasting bull market in history without getting tossed off. A financial services worker took home on average $335,247 last year, a 31% increase from a decade ago, when they earned $255,048 annually, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Wall Streeters experienced a steep drop in wages when the housing bubble burst, plummeting 19% from $314,689 in 2008 to $255,048 in 2009, but their salaries rebounded to pre-recession levels by 2017, BLS figures analyzed by the city comptroller showed.

The rest of the city’s FIRE economy, which includes finance, insurance, and real estate, have also bounced back from the depths of the downturn.

Insurance workers who

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earned $129,480 in 2009 wages were collecting $161,687 on average in 2019, a 25% increase. And those in the real estate industry experienced a 49% salary boost over the same period.

taken a big hit in the Great Recession and they’ve had a lot of years of real dollar losses in average wages,” Independent Budget Office senior economist David Belkin said. “Some of the growth of recession is recovering what was lost.”

Other industries have grown during the decade-long bull run. Attorneys and their staff saw their wages rise 36% from an average salary of $124,055 in 2009 to $168,750.

Another major employer that has struggled since the recession has been the health care industry.

Salaries in the health care sector have remained mostly flat, growing only about 3% from $58,189 in 2009 to $60,075 in 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But ambulatory health care within that industry fell 23% during that period, records show.

That’s because of the increased demand for home health aides who earn comparatively low wages while they work long hours.

The technology sector blossomed as start ups like Oscar Health, Compass, Dataminr, and Peloton launched in the city while Silicon Valley giants including Google, Facebook, and Amazon opened satellite offices, attracting tens of thousands of highly compensated tech workers.

Average wages for information technologies, which includes telecommunications, media, and film, were barely affected by the recession and have risen 20% since 2009.

And administrative and professional services, which support a lot of industries, are also up 20% over the same period.

But not everyone has seen a smooth recovery. Finance professionals who work in the securities sector – which includes investment banking, brokers, and hedge funds – haven’t been earning what they brought home in real wages before the recession.

Some of them embraced mortgage-backed securities which contributed to the collapse of the housing market in 2008 – and their pay suffered for it.

Bonuses were steeply cut in the aftermath of the recession and stayed flat in 2010, but have since rebounded in the latter half of the decade.

“They still have the highest average wages but they’ve

“Home health services had been a big employment growth sector within ambulatory care and within the city as a whole but that’s a pretty low-wage sector,” Belkin said. “It is an increasing share of employment which is bringing wages down.”

These gains could be easily upended if the city enters a recession spurred by the pandemic. Private sector employment fell by 851,000 in May compared with the previous year, giving the city an unemployment rate of 18.3%, state labor records show.

But COVID-19 has hit low-wage workers the hardest.

The spread of the coronavirus has decimated the city’s tourism, retail, and service industries which were temporarily forced to shutter to contain the spread of the virus. The city’s economy could quickly rev up as businesses reopen in the coming weeks, but there could still be long-term effects that reverberate through all sectors of the economy, especially if a second wave of the virus forces another shutdown this fall.

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legalnotices@cityandstateny.com Notice of Formation of JB Capstone Enterprises, LLC, filed with SSNY on 2/4/14. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 12 East 37th St, 2nd Floor, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 5hndred Autohaus, LLC filed with SSNY on March 3, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 615 Manor rd, Staten Island, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of AR Practice Management Firm, LLC filed with SSNY on March 5, 2020. Office: NY Dutchess County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 59 Hudson Heights Drive, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of formation of MikeGeez Fitness Boutique, LLC. Filed with SSNY Richmond County on 1/20/2020. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it ay be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 4131 Hylan Blvd, SI, NY 10308.

Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

App. for Auth. (LLC) Solid & Striped LLC. App. for Auth. filed w/ the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/1/20. LLC formed in DE on 6/7/12. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 529 W. 20th St., #7E, NY, NY 10011, registered agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: All lawful purposes.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of limited liability company (LLC). Name: MO WELLNESS FOUNDATION, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 04/01/2020. Office location: Bronx County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to: MAURICE HURD 3410 DE REIMER AVE APT 7J BRONX, NY 10475. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 37 Saw Mill LLC . Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 06/8/2020. Office Location 205 S. Riverside Ave, Croton on Hudson NY 10520 (Westchester County). SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to: 205 S. Riverside Ave, Croton on Hudson NY 10520. Purpose: any lawful activity.

July 13, 2020

Notice of Formation of Halo Architecture PLLC filed with SSNY on 02/04/2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to address:2744 Hylan Blvd Suite #155 Staten Island, NY 10306. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Numeracy I, LLC filed with SSNY on May 5, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 12 E 97th St., 3L, New York, NY. 10029. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Matine Group, LLC filed with SSNY on February 21, 2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 8 Melba Street, Staten Island, NY 10314. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Bridge Rockaway L.P. Certificate filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/27/20. Duration: 04/24/2180. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Bridge Rockaway, L.P. c/o The Bridge, Inc., 290 Lenox Ave., 3rd Fl., NY, NY 10027. Name/ address of each genl. ptr. available from SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of SAFDEYE CITADEL PARTNERS LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 05/28/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Malone Services, LLC dba Purely Clean S e r vices filed with SSNY on May 15, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 31 Parcot Ave. New Rochelle, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of formation of Gabby Produce LLC, a domestic LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on February 12, 2020. Office: Bronx County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 4316 Boyd Avenue, Bronx, NY 10466. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

ZNK, LLC Art. of Org filed with the SSNY on 4/17/20.

Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 47 E 30th St., Apt. 5, New York, NY 10016. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 4/14/2020. Office location: Westchester County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 23 Chase Ave White Plains NY 10606.

Notice of Formation of J.S.Cambareri, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of UPLIFT DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 77 W. 24th St., Apt 22B, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act.

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Notice of Formation 98th Ave Realty LLC Arts of Org filed by the Department of State of New York on: 03/04/2020 Office loc: Kings County Purpose: Any and all lawful activities SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: c/o Chaim Schweid 1440 55th Street Brooklyn, NY 11219 BRINDICATE CAPITAL, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 11/09/2010. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, P.O. Box 131, Bronx, NY 10453-0131.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of JOB Special, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/18/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, 163 W. 74th St., NY, NY 10023.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of BENLAB Realty, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/18/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, 163 W. 74th St., NY, NY 10023. Purpose: any lawful activities.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1324118 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 83-38 WOODHAVEN BLVD. GLENDALE, NY 11385 QUEENS COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. 8338 WOODHAVEN REST INC

Notice is hereby given that a license number 1325068 for a beer and wine, license has been applied for by 230 Varick Taco Bell LLC. to sell beer and wine at retail in a restaurant under the Alcoholic Beverage Control law at 230 Varick Street, New York NY 10014 for on premises consumption NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1329262 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 18 GREENWICH AVE NEW YORK, NY 10011. NEW YORK COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. 18 GREENWICH AVENUE LLC. Notice of Formation of D & D Jones Enterprises LLC filed with NYSDOS on February, 4, 2020 Office: Westchester County. D & D Jones Enterprises LLC designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. D & D Jones Enterprises LLC shall mail copy of process to LLC: 140 Bellamy Loop, 11D, Bronx, NY 10475. Purpose: Same name usage.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Chu, Lund & Peng LLP. Filed with SSNY: 6/8/20. Office: NY Co. SSNY desig. as agent for process & shall mail to: 333 E 49th St, No 1L, New York, NY 10017. Principal place of business: same as process mail-to.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of THE REV OPS SHOP, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 6/1/2020.

Office location: RICHMOND County. SSNY is designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC at: Mikhail Grinberg, 226 Slater Boulevard, Staten Island, NY 10305.

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July 13, 2020

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY CASE NUMBER: 2:19-CV-8550 NOTICE TO ABSENT DEFENDANTS (PUBLICATION) TO: 7 MONKEYS LLC.; KYO CHEOL HWANG; A HYON YEOM You are hereby summoned and required to served upon Martone & Uhlmann, A Professional Corporation, attorneys for Plaintiff, whose address is 777 Passaic Ave, Ste 535, Clifton, NJ 07012, an answer to the Complaint in a civil action in which UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is Plaintiff and 7 MONKEYS LLC.; KYO CHEOL HWANG; A HYON YEOM are Defendants, pending in the United States District Court within twenty-one (21) days after June 22, 2020 not counting the date of publication or if published after June 22, 2020, twenty-one (21) days from the date of such publication. You shall file your answer and proof of service in duplicate with the Clerk of the United States District Court, Martin Luther King Building & U.S. Courthouse, 50 Walnut Street, Newark, NJ 07102, in accordance with the rules governing the courts. You must also send a copy of your answer to plaintiff’s attorney whose name and address appears above, or to plaintiff, if no attorney is named above. A telephone call will not protect your rights; you must file and serve a written answer if you want the court to hear your defense.

If you do not file and serve a written answer or motion within 21 days, the court may enter a judgment against you for the relief plaintiff demands, plus interest and costs of suit.

The action has been instituted by the USA for the purpose of collecting the amount due under a promissory note dated January 21, 2011 executed by Defendant KYO CHEOL HWANG as Managing member of 7 Monkeys LLC, in the sum of $100,000.00.

Defendant, 7 Monkeys LLC is joined as a party defendant to this action because this company borrowed under the Note.

Defendant, KYO CHEOL HWANG and A HYON YEOM are joined as party defendants to this action because they signed a personal guarantee.

Since the current whereabouts of 7 MONKEYS LLC.; KYO CHEOL HWANG; AND A HYON YEOM ARE UNKNOWN, The Court by order dated June 22, 2020 Ordered Notice should be served upon you via publication Dated: June 22, 2020 /s/ Clerk of the United States District Court, District of New Jersey

134 Reade St. LLC filed w/ SSNY on 2/3/06. Office: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent for process & shall mail to: 34 W 32nd St., #1610, New York, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful.

Notice of Formation of Nisbett and Sons LLC filed with SSNY on March 09, 2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC:933 LINCOLN PLACE BROOKLYN, NY 11213. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Beloved Creations, LLC., Articles of Organization were filed with the SSNY on June 25, 2020. Office: Bronx County. SSNY has been designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 941 Hoe Avenue, Ste. 3, Bronx, New York 10459.

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Notice of Formation of Appassionata, LLC filed with SSNY on April 15, 2020. Office: NY County.

LegalZoom designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. LegalZoom shall mail copy of process to LLC: 401 Schenectady Ave, 4b, Brooklyn, NY 11213. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of VARICK STREET REALTY, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/23/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/20/20. Princ. office of LLC: 180 Varick St., #816, NY, NY 10014.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, 820 N. French St., 4th Fl., Wilmington, DE 19801. Purpose: Real estate broker.

Notice of formation of A n n e s e P T. S e r v i c e s , LLC, a domestic LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on June 29, 2020. Office location: Richmond County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 27 Portage Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10314. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Castlemore Holdings MIMA, LLC. Filed with SSNY: 4/21/20. Office: NY Co. SSNY desig. as agent for process & shall mail to: Juntao Yan, 450 W 42nd Street #45Q, New York, NY 10036.

Principal office: same address. Purpose: any lawful activity.

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Notice of Qualification of TRAVEL LEADERS GROUP HOLDINGS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/18/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/20/16.

Princ. office of LLC: 1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St. Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Travel agency related services.

Notice of Qualification of SLB CAPITAL ADVISORS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/17/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/28/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 634 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108.

DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Enchantress Beauty LLC filed with SSNY on June 17, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY Yokayra Rojas agent of Enchantress Beauty LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Enchantress Beauty LLC: 451w 166th street apt 4B, New York, NY 10032. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 491 QUINCY STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

PUBLIC NOTICE AT&T proposes to modify an existing facility (new tip heights 80’) on the building at 56 Henry Street, New York, NY (20201160).

Interested parties may contact Scott Horn (856-8091202) (1012 Industrial Dr., West Berlin, NJ 08091) with comments regarding potential effects on historic properties.

Notice of Formation of COLONIAL VILLAGE PRESERVATION, L.P. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/22/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LP: 60 Columbus Circle, 19th Fl., NY, NY 10023. Latest date on which the LP may dissolve is 12/31/2119. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM Notice is hereby given that a license, serial number 1328765 for On-Premises Liquor License has been applied for by OMAKASE LLC (DBA: IKEBANAZEN) to sell beer, liquor and/or wine at retail in a restaurant under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 401 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, New York County for on premises consumption.

OMAKASE LLC Notice of Formation of 493 QUINCY STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

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Notice of Qualification of DV7 US ACADEMY HOLDINGS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/24/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/17/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served.

DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

PUBLIC NOTICE Cellco Partnership and its controlled affiliates doing business as Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless) proposes to collocate wireless communications antennas at a top height of 72 feet on a 76-foot rooftop at the approx. vicinity of 101 West 142nd Street, New York, New York County, NY 10030. Public comments regarding potential effects from this site on historic properties may be submitted within 30 days from the date of this publication to: Trileaf Corp, Laura Elston, l.elston@trileaf.com, 1395 South Marietta Parkway, Building 400, Suite 209, Marietta, GA 30067, 678653-8673 PUBLIC NOTICE AT&T proposes to modify an existing facility (new tip heights 18.5’ & 69’) on the building at 88 Bleecker Street, New York, NY (20200954).

Interested parties may contact Scott Horn (856-8091202) (1012 Industrial Dr., West Berlin, NJ 08091) with comments regarding potential effects on historic properties.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

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CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

PUBLIC NOTICE AT&T proposes to modify an existing facility (tip heights 79’) on the building at 136 10th Ave, New York, NY (20201200).

Interested parties may contact Scott Horn (856809-1202) (1012 Industrial Dr., West Berlin, NJ 08091) with comments regarding potential effects on historic properties.

Notice of Form. of OTTER CREEK SOLAR, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/09/20.

Office location: Lewis.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 5 Spruce Circle, Westfield, Massachusetts, 01085.

Any lawful purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of 489 QUINCY STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DAJL LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 247 Seeley St, Brooklyn, New York, 11218. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DREAM MEDICAL, PLLC.Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/01/20.

Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served.SSNY mail process to 201 E 65th St, New York, New York, 10065.Any lawful purpose.

July 13, 2020

Notice of Formation of GANG GRAFFITI LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/15/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 365 Sackman Street, Apt. 10d, Brooklyn, New York, 11212. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 423 HEBERTON AVE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 429 Clove Road, Staten Island, New York, 10310. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of LAKE RECOVERY SERVICES LLC. Arts .Of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/18/20.Office location:Fulton SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.SSNY mail process to Po Box 270, Northville, New York, 12134. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of MR. MOOSKI LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/11/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 605 Third Avenue, 34th Floor, New York, New York, 10158.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 429 CLOVE ROAD LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 429 Clove Road, Staten Island, New York, 10310.

Any lawful purpose.

Highlands Investments LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the Secretary of State (“SSNY”) on 4/8/20. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

The address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon it is: 385 1st ave, Apt 3B, New York, NY, 10010. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of PREMIER ELECTRICAL SERVICES, LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/25/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 882 3rd Ave, 8th Floor, Brooklyn, New York, 11232. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 366 Manhattan Avenue, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 15/11/20. Office location: Kings.

LLC formed in VA on 06/26/2014. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 7288 Hanover Green Drive Mechanicsville, Virginia, 23111. Arts. of Org. filed with VA SOS. 1111 East Broad Street, 4th Floor, Richmond, Virginia 23219. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 125 HANCOCK STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 1375 BROADWAY PROPERTY INVESTORS V, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20. Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 01/15/20.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 15 North Mill Street Nyack, New York, 10960.

Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg.

Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 1375 BROADWAY HOLDINGS V, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20.

Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 01/15/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 15 North Mill Street Nyack, New York, 10960.

Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg.

Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of RITA’S ROYAL LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/22/20. Office location: Clinton SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 23 Cedarwood Ln, Plattsburgh, New York, 12901.

Any lawful purpose.Any lawful purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 23 MENAHAN LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike, Suite 302 Wilmignton, Delaware, 19801. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of NY Avenue 724 LLC filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on February 4, 2020. Office: Kings County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 1430 Pitkin Ave, Brooklyn NY 11233.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qual. of SKW - B 33 WEST 9TH STREET PORTFOLIO, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/03/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 05/28/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice Of Formation of AMH Asset Management LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/30/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 10 East 39th St, 12th Fl, New York, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Qual. of 111 WALL FEE HOLDINGS LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/06/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 07/01/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 733 Third Avenue, 12th Floor New York, New York, 10017. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of formation of UPLIFT DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 77 W. 24th St., Apt 22B, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of UPLIFT DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 77 W. 24th St., Apt 22B, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act.

INTEGRATIVE WELLNESS NURSE PRACTITIONER IN PSYCHIATRY PLLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/13/20. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the PLLC, 509 East 78th Street, Apartment 5G, New York, NY 10075. Purpose: For the practice of the profession of Nurse Practitioner In Psychiatry.

Notice of Formation of My Interview Advisor, LLC filed with SSNY on 06/30/2020. Office: Westchester County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 9 Little John Place, White Plains, NY 10605. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of SILVERSTEIN MANAGER LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/06/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/02/20. Princ. office of LLC: 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St., NY, NY 10007.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of SHINE CAPITAL, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/06/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/07/19. NYS fictitious name: SHINE PARTNERS LLC. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 200 Hicks St., Apt. 6S, Brooklyn, NY 11201. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

July 13, 2020

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

Formation of Marine Capital Management LLC filed with the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/16/2020.

Office loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

The address SSNY shall mail process to Thomas G. Shugrue, 353 W. 56th St., #3M, New York, NY 10019. The LLC is to be managed by one or more managers.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of New Brooks Media, LLC filed with SSNY on July 1, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 387 Park Ave South, 5th floor, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

LEGALNOTICES@CITYANDSTATENY.COM

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

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July 13, 2020

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Comptroller David Pirozzi, Business & Operations Manager Patrea Patterson, Administrative Assistant Lauren Mauro

Who was up and who was down last week

CREATIVE Art Director Andrew Horton, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton

LOSERS

DIGITAL Project Manager Michael Filippi, Digital Content Manager Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, Digital Marketing Strategist Caitlin Dorman, Web/Email Strategist Isabel Beebe

DONALD TRUMP Teflon Don isn’t holding up like he used to. TikTok teens ruined his comeback rally. His poll numbers are getting downright Carteresque.

His niece is spilling the beans. His hometown just painted “Black Lives Matter” on Fifth Avenue! You know things are really going badly when even the beer-loving Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is ruling against him. No, we can’t see his tax returns quite yet – but the losses are nonetheless piling up just a few months before Election Day.

THE BEST OF THE REST

THE REST OF THE WORST

ANDREW ANSBRO & BENNY BOSCIO

ANDY KING

What do George Gresham and Michael Mulgrew have in common? Alliteration!

We’re not saying that’s why Andrew Ansbro and Benny Boscio seized control of two powerful labor unions in the state, but a catchy name can’t hurt when the rank and file cast their votes.

DAVID SOARES

The incumbent Albany district attorney has been criticized for becoming far less progressive since taking office, but he won his high-profile battle with progressive Matthew Toporowski.

Even a global pandemic can’t slow the scandals surrounding New York City Council Member Andy King. A former staffer sued, saying she was retaliated against ]for cooperating in a City Council investigation against him. (And he tried to delay another probe by opposing holding a disciplinary hearing via Zoom.)

PETER MORRISEY & ED NEWMAN

The gun sellers filed a Second Amendment lawsuit against the state’s sweeping coronavirus restrictions, but a federal judge shot down their case.

WINNERS & LOSERS is published every Friday morning in City & State’s First Read email.

Sign up for the email, cast your vote and see who won at cityandstateny.com.

ADVERTISING Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@ cityandstateny.com, Account/Business Development Executive Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com, Vice President, Advertising and Client Relations Danielle Koza dkoza@cityandstateny.com, Sales Associate Cydney McQuillan-Grace cydney@cityandstateny.com, Legal Advertising Executive Shakirah Gittens legalnotices@ cityandstateny.com, Sales Assistant Zimam Alemenew EVENTS events@cityandstateny.com Sales Director Lissa Blake, Events Manager Alexis Arsenault, Event Coordinator Amanda Cortez

Vol. 9 Issue 26 July 13, 2020 HEROES OF THE CORONA CRISIS

JESSICA RAMOS IS HERE TO KICK ASS SHE'S ALL

OUT OF

BUBBLEGUM

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

POLITICAL ROYALTY IN QUEENS

July 13, 2020

Cover photography Sean Pressley

CITY & STATE NEW YORK (ISSN 2474-4107) is published weekly, 48 times a year except for the four weeks containing New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas by City & State NY, LLC, 61 Broadway, Suite 1315, New York, NY 10006-2763. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices.

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KEVIN P. COUGHLIN/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR; EVAN EL-AMIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

CY VANCE From initially passing on prosecuting Harvey Weinstein to reportedly overruling staff on potential fraud charges against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. is headed into a reelection year with many progressive foes. Yet Vance will be able to campaign as “the guy who got Trump’s tax returns,” thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Vance’s move to charge the Central Park Karen could also garner some favor among lefty Democrats. At least among those with a short memory.

OUR PICK

OUR PICK

WINNERS

Being the public advocate in New York City doesn’t come with the built-in powers of other offices, but if nothing else, it can serve as a stepping stone. While the current occupant is testing his office’s influence, his two most recent predecessors have risen in the chain of command – and are now at odds with each other over the policing practices of the NYPD. This Winners & Losers features other politicos who are on the rise – or on the losing end of high-profile battles.

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Editor-in-Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Senior Editor Ben Adler badler@cityandstateny.com, Special Projects Editor Alice Popovici, Deputy Editor Eric Holmberg, Senior Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Zach Williams zwilliams@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Rebecca C. Lewis rlewis@cityandstateny.com, Tech & Policy Reporter Annie McDonough amcdonough@ cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Kay Dervishi, Associate Copy Editor Holly Pretsky

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