Queens pol: Adams’ screed ‘disturbing’
A Queens pol was a lone voice of outrage in City Hall on Tuesday over Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams' racially charged remarks about gentrification.
“They are disturbing,” Democratic City Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz said of Adams' Monday exhortation for gentrifiers to “Go back to Iowa! You go back to Ohio!”
“We're going through a lot of anti-Semitism right now and this only kind of helps it along,” she added.
The region has been reeling from a string of anti-Semitic attacks, including a violent Chanukah rampage in Rockland County.
Adams on Monday went on a tirade against gentrification, telling attendees of the National Action Network's Martin Luther King Day celebration in Harlem, “Folks are not only hijacking your apartments and displacing your living arrangements; they displace your conversations and said that things that are important to you are no longer important.” Adams is widely expected to run for mayor in 2021.
Koslowitz stopped short of calling the remarks racist, but said, “If [I] wanted to move to, let's say, Bed-Stuy or Jamaica in Queens, I can't? Because of the color of my skin?”
Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo (D-Brooklyn) and Councilman Daneek Miller (D-Queens) took a positive view of Adams' remarks.
“If the statement that he made opens up the door to constructive conversation, I think that's really important and valuable,” Cumbo said. “I don't think its constructive to focus on whose side are you on or what do you think of this statement?”
“It is incumbent upon us to have a real conversation that we have not had, and hopefully this gets us to the point that we can talk about” gentrification, Miller said.
Most other pols sought to keep p their distance from the Adams controversy. Council Speaker Corey Johnson (DManhattan) and city Comptroller Scott Stringer, who are expected to run for mayor, both declined to comment Tuesday. Those pols who would sound off on Adams' rant mostly echoed Mayor de Blasio's response Monday. “It's not my impression he said it the right way,” Hizzoner told NY1. “The underlying frustration he's speaking to, though, is real.”
“I don't think [Adams] feels that he doesn't welcome people that come from different parts of the county,” said Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan), co-chairman of the Council's Black, Latino and Asian Caucus.
“His message was, there are individuals that … come without taking into consideration that we need to share our city and state.”
“Eric was pressing on a nerve that many New Yorkers feel because of the fact that they see their rents rising and other social pressures, but I think his comments are misdirected,” said Councilman Rafael Espinal (D-Brooklyn).
“I understand why he said that,” said Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson (D-Bronx). “I would not have said it in that manner.”
It remains to be seen how Adams' remarks will affect his mayoral odds.
“If this is how he feels, it's questionable,” Koslowitz said of Adams' suitability as the city's top elected official.