Cuomo book has burning issue
Wrongly says Albany Rescue Mission was torched during riot
If Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo says a building burned down, does anyone need to check? Apparently, yes. Cuomo’s new book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID -19 Pandemic,” describes the tragic loss of the Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany last May amid the protests that erupted after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
“While New York City had it the worst,” Cuomo writes on page 251, “the violence and rioting spread to other cities in the state: Buffalo, Rochester and Albany, where people burned down the Capital City Rescue Mission, which provides food and services to the homeless.”
The governor’s description
is correct in every detail but one: The mission never burned down — nor was it even set on fire.
The book, released earlier this week, offers Cuomo’s account of how he and the state handled the coronavirus as New York emerged as the nation’s worst-hit hotspot last spring and summer. The governor also discusses his reaction to watching mass protests spring up in the wake of Floyd’s death.
He calls the violence and looting that spun out of some of the peaceful protests “a kick in the stomach,” and describes officials’ fears at the time that the state’s progress against the virus could, well, go up in flames.
Albany ’s first large peaceful protest against systemic racism in the wake of Floyd’s death took place on Saturday, May 30. Hours later, a far smaller protest outside the Albany Police Department’s South Station, which backs up to Arch Street, devolved into a violent confrontation that saw police vehicles pelted with rocks and protesters hit with tear gas. A handful of people eventually moved north along South Pearl Street, setting fire to an 18-wheeler.
But the mission — located across the street from the South Station parking lot and fronting onto South Pearl Street — was barely toasted.
Perry Jones, the mission’s executive director, said he was inside the building during the incident. Someone lit what police later described as an improvised gasoline incendiary on the sidewalk outside the mission, but it never touched the building. Several members of a Troy family were later arrested for their alleged roles in the incident.
“I was as close to burned down as I ever want to be,” Jones said. “(The mission) was within inches of being on fire, but thank God it wasn’t.”
The only damage the mission suffered was a single broken fence slat. Jones said staff members heard people in the crowd telling others not to throw rocks or damage the mission itself, which he believes is a testament to the work it does in the neighborhood.
The second part of Cuomo’s assertion about the mission is accurate: It serves as a lifeline to many impoverished residents in the city where the governor lives just a few blocks uphill in the Executive Mansion.
Jones said he hadn’t read the governor’s book, though he did have one of the late Gov. Mario M. Cuomo’s books. He praised the elder Cuomo, recalling a long-past Thanksgiving when Mario Cuomo brought his sons Andrew and Chris down to the mission’s former location at 50 Hudson Ave. to drop off some pies for the homeless.
“I thought that was a highlight in my time there,” Jones said.
It’s unclear exactly where the governor received information that the mission was torched. Several social media posts made the night of the violence reference rumors of the mission burning.
In a statement, Cuomo senior advisor Rich Azzopardi said the governor’s error was due to incorrect information.
“Those were the widespread reports we received from multiple sources that night,” he said. “We’re obviously happy those reports turned out to be not accurate, but there is no question there was a tremendous amount of damage to businesses and institutions the community depended on that night.”