An atypically easygoing Apollo Theater crowd greeted Mayor Eric Adams and company for his State of the City address on Thursday, Jan. 9.
“Don’t listen to the noise, don’t listen to the rhetoric,” said Adams in his address, “the state of our city is strong.”
Throughout his speech, he focused on his humble roots and reflected on the hardships his mother faced raising him and his siblings. Adams also reiterated how he was a “blue collar mayor,” with unions including 32BJ SEIU present.
Interfaith prayers kicked things off, largely beckoning various higher powers for a strong 2025 for New York City. But politics remained present, with Rabbi Binyamin Krause calling for the return of the Oct. 7 hostages, consistent with the mayor’s continued support for Israel.
The religious blessings were followed by singers and groups performing several national anthems, including the Harlem Fellowship Choir.
The Grand Street Campus Drumlins and Dance Squad also took to the aisles dazzling audiences with percussive flair.
Personal video testimonies pitched Adams’ New York City as “safer and more affordable” for families. They featured the likes of a parent benefiting from pre-K and 3K programming, a medical worker talking about post-COVID medical breakthroughs and a Black NYPD officer from Bed-Stuy‘s 79th precinct pushing back on community members calling him a “sell-out.”
Electeds like City Comptroller Brad Lander, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, Senator Cordell Cleare, Councilmember Yusef Salaam, and Public Advocated Jumaane Williams were also in attendance.
Adams came out to Curtis Mayfield’s ”Move on Up” instead of his usual theme music of Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind.” He welcomed the audience to the “Heart of Harlem” and reflected on the history of Black American migration’s role in the neighborhood.
City of Yes “for families” was announced by Adams, centering his pro-development plan on keeping New Yorkers in the city after they become parents.
Amsterdam News Staff
Despite the warmth and celebration on the inside of The Apollo, outside was marked with barricades and protests across the street. Members of organizations like The People’s Plan NYC, Make The Road, Freedom Agenda, Shut Rikers, New York Communities for Change, and several others screamed their damnations of Adams and his leadership of the city over the last three years.
“We’ve seen policies like stop and frisk come back. We’ve seen an increase of Latino and Black people in Rikers Island, and we’ve seen an increase in youth arrests,” said Ashley Santiago, who’s with Freedom Agenda.
RELATED: PHOTOS: Mayor Adams faces protestors in Harlem at State of the City Address
Damaso Reyes photos/video
Edafe Okporo, a City Council District 7 Candidate, railed against Adams over public safety and affordability issues. “In the last three years, Mayor Adams has increased the budget for the NYPD, but not for community safety like mental health and mobile intensive vans that work. We need to actually make New York affordable for families,” said Okporo at the protest.
Meanwhile other protesters, including Dr. Steven B. Auerbach, took issue with Adams’s ongoing legal troubles. “I’m out here today because Mayor Adams is not only thoroughly corrupt himself and so many individuals of his administration. The police are here, they should be arresting him and sending him to jail,” said Auerbach. “Also his inhumane and unnecessary policies against all persons living in New York, be they immigrant or nonimmigrant, Black or white.”
As Adams touts himself as a mayor for “working families,” the progressive New York Working Families Party (NYWFP) disputed the assertion.
“Eric Adams has been three years in office making it harder for working families in New York City,” said NYWFP co-director Jasmine Gripper over the phone. “He’s the mayor who closed our libraries and didn’t have them open seven days a week, and we were thankful for the Council for fighting against that. He’s the mayor who tried to cut back and roll back 3-K and again, the city council had to fight him tooth-and-nail to get some of that restored. His Rent Guidelines Board [appointees have] raised rents on New Yorkers and adding to the affordability crisis in New York City.
“Great now that Eric Adams realizes working families are the heartbeat of the city and should be a priority, but it’s a little bit too late.He’s already shown us who he truly cares about. And it’s not the working families of New York who have felt left behind and left out of his policy proposals.”
Theodore Moore, Executive Director of ALIGN, added in a statement: “Today at the Apollo, Mayor Adams took a bow for making NYC the best place to raise a family — but it was just another performance from that famed stage. Adams acknowledged our cost-of-living crisis, promising money in New Yorkers’ pockets, with no plan to raise wages for more than a few. He guaranteed a first-rate public education, but our public schools remain unhealthy, under-resourced learning environments particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. And as we emerge from the worst drought our City has ever seen while across the country, Los Angeles burns, our climate crisis was a mere footnote in his vision for the decades to come.”
As the city faces continued public safety anxieties, Adams mentioned an incoming influx of police on the trains. He also mentioned the upcoming Brigadier General Charles Young baseball field in Harlem spearheaded by deputy mayor Chauncey Parker as an upstream crime deterrent.
Adams addressed the city’s homeless population with safe haven programs, which offer more flexible restrictions compared to traditional shelters. He announced a new program for expecting parents in the shelter system to obtain permanent housing before their children are born.
Sharing the sidewalk were protesters from the Sergeant’s Benevolent Association (SBA), the union representing NYPD sergeants who were upset over ongoing contract negotiations. Adams promised the SBA a resolution during his speech.