While New York City’s campaign finance system caps how much money people can give to campaigns, there are no limits on what corporations can give to independent influence groups, which in turn can spend as much as they want to their preferred candidates. 

Some of the most influential real estate and financial interests in the city have coalesced behind former Governor Andrew Cuomo, flooding an independent expenditure committee called Fix the City. In all, that group has amassed more than $9 million in donations — more than any individual candidate in the running is permitted to spend on the primary race if they’re participating in the public matching program.

But corporations and special interests have set their sights on City Council races as well, spending $1.7 million so far on independent expenditures to try and influence races across the city, according to campaign filings updated Tuesday. Such groups can spend unlimited sums so long as they do not coordinate with campaigns.

With the primary election coming up on June 24 and early voting starting June 14, spending is likely to accelerate. In 2021, when a majority of seats were open contests because of term limits, independent expenditure committees eventually spent $6.5 million on Council races.

Here are the biggest outside spenders so far in this year’s Council contests:

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The biggest spender on Council races thus far is a group called Affordable New York, which is exclusively funded by Airbnb. Filings with the Campaign Finance Board show the company has allotted $5 million to the project and spent $547,669 on seven Council races thus far. 

The company’s interest in municipal elections is no secret. In 2022, the City Council ed a law barring most short-term rentals and requiring hosts to with the city. Now an effort is underway to roll that law back. One bill under consideration would allow rentals in one- and two-family homes. Airbnb is spending to help reelect five of the bill’s cosponsors: Althea V. Stevens, Mercedes Narcisse, Kevin C. Riley, Selvena N. Brooks-Powers, and Oswald Feliz. The group is also spending on incumbent Amanda Farías and on behalf of Tyrell Hankerson, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’s chief of staff, who is running to replace her term-limited boss currently running for mayor. 

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In a new spending blitz reported on Tuesday, Uber sunk $392,702 on internet ads and mailers promoting eight Council candidates, including seven incumbents: Carmen de la Rosa, Eric Dinowitz, Crystal Hudson, Darlene Mealy, Julie Menin, Mercedes Narcisse and Althea Stevens. Its biggest spending, though, is in a race for an open seat in Queens currently held by term-limited Francisco Moya, covering ​​East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, LeFrak City and Corona. The ride-hailing giant has invested $102,094 to boost Yanna Henriquez, one of three leading candidates in a competitive contest there. 

The Council has made attempts to regulate the ride-share and food delivery giant in recent years, including by raising the minimum wage for drivers and app delivery workers. City Limits reported app companies have responded by restricting the number of people who can use the app at any given time, among other ways to skirt the new pay mandates. And lawmakers are mulling other reforms, including a bill that would require apps to post an option for tipping the delivery worker before a customer completes their payment, and another one that would require companies to disclose how they planned to calculate worker pay in advance. Uber is spending on ads to help promote three co-sponsors of that legislation: Hudson, Menin, Narcisse. 

Asked about the independent groups’ efforts, Jacob Hunter, Hudson’s campaign manager, said candidates had no control over outside spending but that Hudson is still committed to expanding protections for delivery workers. 

“Nothing can or will change her unwavering for the immigrant communities that comprise the for-hire vehicle and delivery worker industries,” he said. 

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New York State United Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers have amassed $1.5 million in a fund called United for NYC’s Future to candidates this election cycle. So far they have spent money on mailers and online ads in two Council races, aiming to boost incumbent Upper East Side Councilmember Julie Menin and Queens challenger Dermot Smyth. A former public school teacher turned union representative, Smyth is running for the seat spanning Maspeth, Middle Village, and Glendale against incumbent Robert Holden, a conservative “Common Sense” Democrat. 

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The fourth largest spender on Council races is former Wall Street mogul Mike Jenkins, who has sunk $218,809 into an independent group, Ending Homelessness & Building a Better NYC, promoting Wilfredo Lopez, a former legislative director for Councilmember Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) who is running in a crowded field to replace term-limited Councilmember Diana Ayala in Manhattan and The Bronx. Jenkins, one of the founders of the investment firm Jane Street Capital, is the sole contributor to the group, and has put in $1.6 million to the fund so far. Jenkins pulled a similar move back in 2022, flooding a Bronx assembly race with more than $200,000 in of candidate Emmanuel Martinez. The spending didn’t work, however and George Alvarez — who is currently representing the district in the Assembly — beat Martinez handily. 

While the motives behind Jenkins’ investment are unclear, in early May the group began posting videos on social media opposing One Fair Wage legislation, which is a nationwide effort to up the minimum wage of tipped workers to the same minimum wage as everyone else. The Council has no authority in the matter but the state legislature is considering an aligned measure. 

In addition to Lopez’s campaign, Jenkins’ PAC has also said it’s endorsing Working Families Party-backed Erycka Montoya in the crowded race to replace Moya, as well as Manhattan Council incumbents Yusef Salaam and Christopher Marte. 

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An independent expenditure committee called Jobs for New York, which is backed by many of the Real Estate Board of New York and run by people who also work for REBNY, has spent $166,323 on mailers sent to voters in two Council districts. In Brooklyn’s 38th District, spanning parts of Sunset Park, Gowanus, Park Slope, Borough Park and Dyker Heights, the group is backing challenger Ling Ye, who is attempting to oust the Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed incumbent Alexa Avilés. 

In the open race for Moya’s seat, the group is backing Shanel Thomas-Henry, who is leading a crowded field ahead of Montoya,. 

Both Avilés and Montoya have called for the Rent Guidelines Board to freeze rents for tenants in stabilized housing this year. Jobs for New York has raised $1.18 million from major New York real estate interests that include Extel, Rockrose Development, RXR, Vornado and Rudin Management. 

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The independent expenditure committee named the Coalition to Restore New York is exclusively funded by Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., committee filings show. For years urbanists have mulled ousting the infamous arena in order to fully reconstruct crumbling Penn Station wedged below it, and the next Council will consider whether or not to extend MSG’s permit to continue to host large-scale events past 2028. In 2023, the Council approved just a five-year extension of the arena’s permit, the shortest extension it had ever offered.

Now MSG is targeting three Council races, favoring Brooklyn incumbent Darlene Mealy and two newbies: Smyth for Holden’s seat in District 30 and Maya Kornberg in Brooklyn. Kornberg is attempting to oust incumbent Councilmember Shahana Hanif’s for her District 39 seat, which covers Kensington, Borough Park, Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, and Gowanus. 

Hanif, who co-chairs the Council’s Progressive Caucus, has been a critic of MSG CEO James Dolan, introducing a bill last year to ban facial recognition technology used by MSG. That measure has since stalled in committee, after heavy lobbying against it from MSG, the Daily News reported. 

Hanif is also facing the only negative campaigning reported thus far by an outside group in a Council race, from a group called Brooklyn BridgeBuilders. Thus far, the group founded by “neighbors alarmed by rising antisemitism” has spent $13,326 on attack flyers. The group have taken aim the Councilmember’s pro-Palestinian stance, drawing donations from people who include Douglas Durst of The Durst Organization, Daniel Loeb, of Third Point LLC, and Jed Walentas of Two Trees Management.

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This year, elected offices across the city are up for grabs: all 51 City Council seats, comptroller and mayor. New Yorkers in each county also have the opportunity to select their next borough president, a role that’s something like a local mini-mayor.

BPs, or “beeps” for fun, have a lot less power than the mayor, but they act as cheerleaders for their borough, and have a lot of sway over appointments to various civic boards, land use decisions, how money is allocated to community projects, and more.

“If you care about the identity and community of a borough, if you care about the resources going into your community — you’re going to care who your borough president is,” said Sharon Lee, who served as interim Queens borough president in 2020. 

We spoke to Lee and former Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer (now a Council member) about what a borough president is and why you should care — and at the end, a brief guide on who’s running for the office in each borough:

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If you care about what gets built in the city — and how — you should care about your borough president. Development, zoning, real estate — “it’s the main issue, to be honest with you,” said Brewer, especially in Manhattan.

The borough president officially weighs in on land use proposals with an advisory vote and a written decision. While their input isn’t binding, it can be quite influential to the City Council who have ultimate say.

The BP’s sway trickles down through the community boards via their appointments of those groups’ volunteer . BPs handle the community board application process, from creating the form, to interviewing, selecting and appointing candidates.

This gives them significant power to shape the boards according to their goals, and it can have a big impact on neighborhoods. For example, as THE CITY has reported, Borough President Mark Levine has appointed many pro-housing to Manhattan’s community boards in recent years — much to the chagrin of some preservationist who have not been reappointed.

And it’s not just the community boards. BPs also appoint people to many other civic groups. “There are a number of hospital boards, library boards — all these different roles of civic engagement,” said Lee. “So discerning who are the right people to serve in those roles, and to amplify voices of all the communities, as diverse as they are, I think that’s really important.”

Borough presidents also have the time and the know-how to bring different groups together to tackle specific issues: Former Manhattan Deputy Borough President Adrian Bonilla told THE CITY in 2021 that he thought of the role as the “convener in chief.”

Brewer agrees: “You’re the convener — you’re the Manhattan person who knows all 12 [community] boards, all the neighborhoods, the problems that needed to be addressed,” she said. During her tenure, Brewer created multiple task forces: from help for struggling churches being pressured to sell real estate, to ways to improve construction safety and study small businesses. 

“We had materials or legislation that came out of every single one,” she said.

The BPs also have 5% of the city expenses budget at their disposal to fund local initiatives, like buying technology for public schools, renovating local parks or spearheading community health outreach.

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To Lee, the borough president needs to be someone you can trust to make decisions for what resources go where. 

“Knowing that resources are not unlimited and how to allocate them in the fairest way, and an equitable way, requires discernment,” she said. 

Both Lee and Brewer agreed that a good borough president prioritizes listening to their constituents. During her tenure, Brewer moved the BP’s offices to street level so people could just walk in and talk with her staff. “We did a ton of constituent work — at that time we were the only elected official in Harlem on the street, everybody else was in that tall building,” she said, referring to the state office building.

Lastly, since the BP’s role is mostly advisory, there’s a lot of flexibility in what projects they take on. “There are charter-mandated things that we have to do, but there’s also a lot of leeway in of what priorities and what agenda an individual borough president wants to take in her or his tenure,” Lee explained.

So, when voting, look for someone who has a track record of getting things done, and whose priorities align with yours. 

“People think they’re not relevant and I understand that,” said Brewer of the role. “But I can tell you, you have to fight for your borough. There is nobody else doing that fighting.”

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THE BRONX

Vanessa Gibson (D)

Vanessa Gibson was elected in 2021 as the Bronx borough president. Before that, she was a member of the State Assembly and the City Council. 

During her tenure, she’s partnered with local farmers markets to combat food insecurity, worked on maternal health and public safety initiatives, and assisted with the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory.

She’s racked up powerful endorsements so far this year: the Bronx Democratic Party, unions like 1199 and 32BJ SEIU, the Working Families Party and other elected officials in The Bronx. 

But despite being “well-liked,” as described by City Limits, she’s facing a rare competitive challenger: Rafael Salamanca.

Rafael Salamanca (D)

City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca is running to unseat Gibson, and he’s making a powerful go at it: He’s currently raised $762,724 according to Campaign Finance Board records, nearly double the amount that Gibson has (though he has fewer weighty endorsements).

He’s currently chair of the City Council’s Land Use Committee, where he sponsored a bill requiring developers looking for city subsidies to set aside 15% of units for people experiencing homelessness. 

“I’m a product of the South Bronx, I was born and raised here and I’m currently raising my 10-year-old son here,” Salamanca said in a forum at Lehman College in early May. “I run for borough president because Bronx families deserve leadership that fights for them, delivers results and ensures that our borough remains a place where Bronx residents can raise their families and thrive.”

BROOKLYN

Antonio Reynoso (D)

Antonio Reynoso was elected Brooklyn borough president in 2021. He was raised in a Dominican family on the south side of  Williamsburg where he still lives today, according to his campaign. He was previously on the City Council, where he chaired the Sanitation and Solid Waste Management Committee.

He has earned a large slate of endorsements, from elected officials like Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-NY), Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the WFP, and unions like 32BJ SEIU and the United Auto Workers.

During his tenure, Reynoso has focused on health, allocating $40 million in 2023 to build maternal health facilities in Brooklyn’s three public hospitals. He also unveiled an ambitious plan for the borough called “a proposal for a different way to manage the city,” which included adding more bike lanes and parking fees to pay for them, planting more trees, and rezoning to expand housing.

Khari Edwards (D)

Khari Edwards is the head of corporate responsibility at Ayr Wellness, a cannabis company. He lost to Reynoso in 2021, and has not held elected office before. 

Born in Crown Heights, Edwards is a community advocate, and founded the initiative to reduce gun violence “It Starts Here.” As borough president, he pledges to prioritize education and job training, focus on constituent services, and further his work to prevent gun violence. 

He’s been successfully fundraising, and with public matching funds has $469,835 in his campaign coffers. (Reynoso has $756,296, according to the last disclosure.) Edwards has also been endorsed by prominent buildings workers union DC37.

Janine Acquafredda (R)

Janine Acquafredda, a conservative candidate for borough president, is a real estate broker. She was born and raised in New York.

Acquafredda has raised a little under $4,000, and has not yet qualified for public matching funds. She says she’s focused on improving public safety, expanding opportunities for first-time homebuyers and advocating for New Yorkers who drive. 

“I’m not ashamed to say it: I have a car. And I pay for these streets,” Acquafredda said in a speech to the Brooklyn Republican Club in early May. “Why is Citi Bike — who’s actually owned by Lyft — why are they profiting off of putting their bikes in my parking spots?”

As the only Republican running in Brooklyn, Acquafredda faces no primary challenge and will be on the ballot in November.

MANHATTAN

There is no incumbent in the Manhattan race (current Borough President Mark Levine is running for comptroller), so the path is cleared for three Democratic candidates in the race.

Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D)

State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s website boasts that in the 12 years since he was first sent to Albany he has ed over 350 bills “focusing on a range of issues, including housing access, affordability, public safety, LGBTQ+ rights and education.”

He’s won the endorsements of former Manhattan borough presidents Brewer and Ruth Messinger, Manhattan Democratic Party Chair Keith L. T. Wright, Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan), and healthcare workers union 1199. Hoylman-Sigal currently has $960,906 in the bank, according to the latest campaign disclosures.

Hoylman-Sigal lives with his husband and two daughters in the West Village, and would be the first openly gay person to hold the position.

Keith Powers (D)

Keith Powers, the term-limited Council member representing parts of the east side of Manhattan, is running a campaign centered on land use policy and affordable housing. He’s a third-generation resident of Peter Cooper Village and StuyTown. 

Powers has narrowly outraised Hoylman-Sigal with $1,027,402 currently in his campaign coffers. He also boasts a large slate of endorsements including from Reps. Nydia Velasquez (D-Brooklyn) and Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan), along with union 32BJ and the Teamsters. 

“If you want big ideas and if you want common sense, then I really believe that I am your candidate for borough president,” Powers said at an uptown forum in March.

Calvin Sun (D)

Calvin Sun is an emergency medicine doctor and “lifelong New Yorker” who has not held public office before. Sun’s campaign is focused on healthcare for all, improving the cost of living and education, according to his website.

Sun has raised a large amount of money at $377,084, but significantly less than his opponents, who are currently working with around a million each.

Sun’s background in medicine, and his work on the front lines during the Covid-19 pandemic, inform his approach to policymaking. “People are forced into ERs because they can’t afford preventive care, or worse, they end up on the street, turning their housing crisis into a healthcare crisis,” he said to the Murray Hill Neighborhood Association about the importance of affordable housing, and how it relates to the migrant crisis and homelessness. 

STATEN ISLAND

Since both of these candidates are running unopposed within their parties, Staten Islanders will be able to cast their votes in the November general election.

Vito Fossella (R)

Vito Fossella is the current borough president of Staten Island. During his tenure, Fossella has sued the city to try and overturn congestion pricing, a law ed allowing non-citizens to vote in city elections, and City of Yes.

His run in 2021 was endorsed by President Donald Trump, which marked his return to politics after a drunk driving scandal in 2008 that revealed his secret second family. So far, Fossella’s campaign has $77,304 to its name, and no public matching funds.

Michael Colombo (D)

Michael Colombo is a Democratic challenger for Staten Island Borough President. His priorities as borough president would be affordable housing, improving public transportation (the Staten Island buses are notoriously slow) and public health, according to his campaign website.. 

Though Colombo is a Democrat, he’s stressing his identity as a working-class Staten Islander above all. “I don’t give a damn about party politics. I care about my home. I care about our families, our neighborhoods and our future,” he said at his campaign announcement.

So far, Colombo has $67,805 in his campaign coffers, and has not been awarded any matching funds.

QUEENS

Like Fossella and Colombo, the Queens borough president candidates are not part of the June primary. They will face off in November’s general election.

Henry “Ike” Ikezi (R)

Henry Ikezi works in real estate, and says on his website that through that work he has “revitalized distressed neighborhoods, creating over 1,000 homes and improving countless lives.”

Ikezi’s top issues are job training, affordable housing and public safety with increased NYPD presence. 

He’s raised over $15,000, but is now left with only $974 after spending on fundraising and consulting services, the latest campaign finance records show. 

Donovan Richards (D)

Donovan Richards is the current borough president in Queens. In office, Richards has allocated funds to bolster hospitals, affordable housing, clean energy and local nonprofit organizations.

During his time on the City Council, where he was elected in 2013, Richards was chair of the subcommittee on zoning and franchises, where he ed a significant rezoning in the Rockaways to spur housing development. He was later chair of the committee on public safety, where he “stood up to the NYPD.”

Richards raised nearly $260,000 but seems to have spent more than $270,000, leaving his campaign currently $11,296 in the red. According to campaign disclosures, he’s paid $90,418 to Dynamic SRG, a Peekskill-based campaign consultant.

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Ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio recently agreed to pay back taxpayers $330,000 for his misuse of an NYPD detail during his ill-fated 2019 campaign for the White House, itting that he’d made a mistake and withdrawing a lawsuit fighting the demand for restitution.

The hardworking taxpayers of New York City, however, aren’t off the hook.

Public records obtained by THE CITY via Freedom of Information Law request show that the Law Department has paid out more than $284,000 to an outside firm, Clarick Gueron Reisbaum, to defend the city against de Blasio’s lawsuit, including his short-lived appeal after the case was tossed by a lower court.

Questions about who should pay for de Blasio’s presidential campaign police coverage first emerged in a 2019 article in THE CITY. Two years later, the city Department of Investigation issued a devastating report excoriating the mayor for dragging the NYPD detail across the nation during 31 campaign stops as he struggled in vain to gain traction in the presidential sweepstakes.

DOI advised the city Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) that de Blasio must pay back $319,000 for the cost of travel, lodging and meals for the cops who shadowed the mayor and his wife during his quixotic political endeavor. In June 2023, COIB ordered the now ex-mayor to cough up the $319,000, and also to pay a $155,000 fine — the first such sanction against a mayor.

De Blasio immediately sued COIB, alleging that it had no jurisdiction to tell the mayor what to do and that restricting his use of the detail effectively violated both his First Amendment free speech rights and his 14th Amendment rights to equal treatment under the law.

Entering the litigation on COIB’s behalf, Clarick Guerson Reisbaum soon responded in kind, moving to dismiss the case. Attorney Emily Reisbaum labeled the mayor’s argument as “a chilling vision of an imperial mayoralty,” arguing that the taxpayers should not foot the bill for the costs of de Blasio’s political ambitions.

This January, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shahabudden Abid Ally dismissed his suit, calling de Blasio’s arguments “remarkable” and finding that the case was “meritless.” De Blasio then filed an appeal.

On May 14, he suddenly reversed course, g off on an unprecedented settlement with COIB by withdrawing his appeal and agreeing to pay the $319,000 in restitution plus a $10,000 fine. “I made a mistake and I deeply regret it,” he said.

De Blasio did not return a call from THE CITY seeking comment.

Additional reporting by Reuven Blau

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A Brooklyn businessman served as a proxy for the government of Uzbekistan to leverage  Mayor Eric Adams’ stature as the leader of the nation’s biggest city to sanitize the regime’s tarnished image, law enforcement records reviewed by THE CITY allege. To curry the mayor’s favor, the businessman, Tolib Mansurov, allegedly arranged illegal straw donations to his mayoral campaigns.

In return, the mayor hosted a City Hall event for local Uzbek leaders, performed one of his signature flag-raising events for the Central Asian country and assisted Mansurov in his battles with the buildings department, prosecutors allege in recently unsealed documents.

Mansurov’s purported mission to influence the mayor on behalf of a foreign country mirrors other behind-the-scenes maneuvers uncovered by the FBI and the city Department of Investigation in their years-long probe of Adams’ fundraising practices. An intent, it appears, was to purchase the legitimacy of the Office of the Mayor to burnish the reputation of Uzbekistan, which has been cited for human rights violations — a similar pattern to alleged straw donations from Turkish foreign interests.

Mansurov “is connected to the government of Uzbekistan and works to influence Adams on behalf of Uzbek and Central Asian causes,” Manhattan federal prosecutors alleged in documents filed in the now-defunct corruption case against Adams. They note that during the time he was scaring up donations for Adams, Mansurov was in constant with the Uzbek mission to the United Nations.

Prosecutors also describe a foreign source for some of Mansurov’s finances, citing evidence that he’d received millions of dollars through an elaborate money-laundering scheme from a foreign entity based in Cyprus to finance his purchase of real estate in Brooklyn. Mansurov is a dual U.S. and Uzbek citizen.

Reached by phone Friday, Mansurov declined to answer THE CITY’s questions about the allegations in the government filings, stating, “I’m sorry I’m not available right now” before hanging up.

Mansurov has not been charged with a crime but has agreed to cooperate with law enforcement in the hopes of winning leniency if he is charged, the documents state. In conversations with prosecutors, Mansurov has denied the money-laundering allegations but has itted raising tens of thousands of dollars for Adams on three separate occasions, including reimbursing some of the donors to provide the mayor with illegal straw donations that the mayor’s campaign used to obtain matching funds.

In one text session in which the mayor solicited yet another round of donations for his reelection campaign, Adams gushed to Mansurov, “You have always been my strongest go to person.”

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The trend of foreign interests with dubious histories conniving to obtain from Adams was first exposed in the federal indictment of Eric Adams last fall. Manhattan federal prosecutors charged the mayor with soliciting and accepting tens of thousands of dollars in travel perks and a bevy of illegal “straw donations” for his campaigns in exchange for providing assistance to the government of Turkey.

In return, prosecutors alleged, the mayor helped the Turkish consul navigate a dispute with the Fire Department over a Midtown office tower the government was trying to open in time for a visit by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the request of Turkish officials, Adams also cut ties with a local community center perceived as opposing Erdogan, and, at their request, did not speak out on the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, the indictment alleged.

Meanwhile, Chinese community leaders have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Adams’ campaigns — including some that appear to be illegal straw donations.

Winnie Greco, for instance, was the mayor’s liaison to the Asian community before her homes were raided by the FBI last year in an ongoing probe of Adams’ fundraising activities. Greco coordinated multiple big-money fundraisers for Adams, and has in the past in her roles first as a volunteer and then as a government-paid aide to Adams steered Adams away from events honoring Taiwan, enemy to the Communist Party of China, and arranged for Adams to appear at events featuring the Chinese Consul General Sun Guoxiang, an investigation by THE CITY found.

Both Turkey and China have long been criticized for human rights violations and suppression of an independent press, as has Uzbekistan, the Central Asian country Mansurov represented in his effort to gain Adams’ , according to a 2024 report by Human Rights Watch.

Shahida Yakub, a journalist who was recently denied entry to Uzbekistan over her work critical of the regime of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, said the authorities routinely punish journalists for work the government deems subversive, including arresting bloggers and putting them in psychiatric facilities.

“If they don’t like something — criticism in particular — they’re going to go after you,” she said.

The Uzbeki effort to gain the public relations benefits of Adams’ friendship reflects a desire to present an image to the world that they embrace Western values, she said — an image that paints over the reality of censorship and anti-democratic activities.

“They’re trying to get themselves legitimacy, especially in the West,” she said. “They always want to be liked by the U.S. The mayor of New York is important.”

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Mansurov’s work for the Uzbek government surfaced earlier this month in documents a judge ordered unsealed after President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice succeeded in getting the criminal case against Adams dismissed.

In the documents, prosecutors describe Mansurov as a prominent member of New York City’s Uzbek community with deep ties to the Uzbekistan regime. Throughout 2023 and into 2024 while he was raising money for Adams, he had 292 communications with a phone ed to a member of the Uzbekistan mission to the United Nations, they allege. (The mission did not respond to THE CITY’s request for comment.)

In seeking search warrants for a variety of addresses and electronic devices, prosecutors presented evidence of Mansurov’s interaction with top levels of the Uzbek government. His social media postings include references to his “dinner with Uzbek officials,” a meeting with the Minister of Natural Resources of Uzbekistan, and a photo of what appears to be a watch in a ceremonial case he got as a gift from the president of Uzbekistan. “Thank you Mr. President,” the posting states.

The records in of search warrants also outline an aggressive effort by Mansurov to lobby for City Hall’s , particularly by targeting Fred Kreizman, commissioner of the mayor’s Community Affairs Unit. Investigators documented 55 calls Mansurov made during 2023 to Kreizman’s phone.

Adams also sat for a March 2023 meeting at City Hall with Javlon Vakhabov, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the United States and Canada. Also in attendance was Edward Mermelstein, the mayor’s commissioner for international affairs, and Rana Abasova, the mayoral aide prosecutors say was instrumental in helping to orchestrate the Turkish straw donations.

They also note the interaction between City Hall and the Silk Road Foundation, a nonprofit Mansurov set up in 2023 to help migrants from Central Asian countries (including Uzbekistan) settle in the United States.

Silk Road co-hosted at least three events Adams attended, including dinners in April 2023 and March 2024 at Brooklyn restaurants to participate in the Muslim fast-breaking evening meal during Ramadan.

And Silk Road ed with the Uzbek mission to the United Nations to co-sponsor a Sept. 2, 2023, event where Adams raised the Uzbek flag at Bowling Green. Afterwards Mansurov posted a photo of himself with Adams, gushing, “Happy Uzbekistan Independence Day! Mayor Eric Adams made history by being the first to raise the Uzbek flag on Wall Street! A proud moment for NYC’s vibrant Uzbek community.”

Silk Road also co-hosted a July 2023 roundtable discussion between Adams and of the Uzbek community at City Hall. After the event an Uzbek participant praised Silk Road on social media, writing,”HISTORIC EVENT the 1st ever Uzbek community roundtable with Mayor Eric Adams took place inside City Hall. Very proud of Silk Road Foundation and Tolib Mansurov for being the leaders who really care about their community and working hard to bring resources to their people.”

Mansurov has been the recipient of millions of dollars in funds from overseas. He owns two Brooklyn-based firms, one of which was involved in the February 2024 purchase of an apartment building in Brooklyn for $13.5 million.

To purchase that property, prosecutors alleged that in 2020 Mansurov “appears to have engaged in money laundering activity” that starts in January 2020 with a deposit of $11.7 million from a Cyprus-based entity into a bank he’s a signatory on.

“Over the course of approximately the next two weeks, those funds were wired among a series of s for which Mansurov was a signatory until they were used to purchase a building in Brooklyn,” stated an FBI agent whose identity was masked in the affidavit filed to obtain a search warrant. “Based on my participation in money laundering investigations, I know that the rapid movement of large sums of money between s is indicative of an effort to conceal or disguise the nature and source of the funds.”

Mansurov’s first fundraising effort for Adams appears to have begun in December 2020 when Mohamed Bahi, then a volunteer in Adams’ 2021 campaign, reached out to Mansurov for financial help on the mayor’s run for City Hall, prosecutors say.

The solicitation took place after Adams had won the general election but before he took office. Bahi asked Mansurov to raise $10,000 for the mayor’s 2021 campaign, according to prosecutors. When Mansurov offered to write a check, Bahi explained companies can’t donate and the limit for individual donations to mayoral candidates is $2,000.

To overcome the campaign finance restrictions, Bahi instructed Mansurov to get enough of the donations within the limits to make the $10,000 goal, prosecutors say. Mansurov told law enforcement he then arranged for four of the employees of one of his companies, United Elite Group, to each make $2,000 contributions. He himself contributed another $2,000, then reimbursed each of his workers with cash, he told prosecutors.

Six months later, in mid-June 2023, Adams texted directly with Mansurov, seeking more donations for his planned 2025 re-election bid, according to the search warrant records. Mansurov told prosecutors he arranged for 10 more donations of $1,000 each, reimbursing one of the donors.

At one point in their communications, Mansurov suggested the mayor text him using Signal, an encrypted app that can automatically delete communications after a set time. Adams responded “Okay.”

It appears the mayor embraced that suggestion when, about a year later, he reached out to Mansurov via Signal asking for more donations to help him boost his claims for matching funds, the filings state. (The city Campaign Finance Board provides campaigns with $8 for every $1 candidates raise from New York City residents up to the first $250.)

What’s remarkable about the conversation between Adams and Mansurov is its timing: it took place in mid-May 2024 — months after the FBI and DOI had approached the mayor after an event near Washington Square Park and confiscated several of Adams’ electronic devices.

Using a new personal phone he obtained after his interaction with law enforcement, Adams texted Mansurov, stating, “I need a big favor.” The mayor explained that he needed to quickly get 1,000 donations of $250 each to qualify for matching funds.

He asked Mansurov to scare up 20 of these smaller donations, praising him as “my strongest go to person.”

During his discussions with prosecutors, Mansurov told prosecutors that he initially believed the mayor was seeking 20 individual donations, but in a subsequent conversation, Bahi “referred to Adams’ request as a request for $5,000,” indicating the mayor didn’t care how he got it, just that he needed it arranged in $250 chunks.

The documents do not state whether Mansurov succeeded in reaching Adams’ requested goal, although records show that Oybek Shakirov, the chief financial officer of his company, United Elite Group, made a $250 donation that June. Shakirov was also one of the employees Mansurov says he reimbursed in the 2020 straw donor scheme.

During his repeated efforts to meet the mayor’s contribution needs while seeking to gain Adams’ for his country, Mansurov at one point made a more personal request related to problems he was having with the Department of Buildings on a six-story condo he was building in Crown Heights.

At one point he connected his fundraising to his request for assistance with resolving a partial stop work order the Department of Buildings had put on his property. In a July 25, 2022, text message reviewed by law enforcement, Mansurov complained to someone whose identity was blacked out that the bank had “stopped financing our project” because of the violation.

“I’m in deep shiiiit because of it. You guys couldn’t protect me from DOB.”

That same day in a text with Bahi, he wrote, “I don’t want to hear about politicians anymore…please keep me away from all of them. No more fund risings [sic] or BS promises lol.”

Two months later, DOB issued another partial stop work order, charging that the required on-site inspector for concrete pours couldn’t produce certification of his qualification. Despite his feelings about politicians, Mansurov tried a more direct approach, texting Adams himself. In a February 5, 2023, text, Mansurov explained his DOB issues to the mayor and stated, “I need help. I never asked you or anyone for favors but I am having a hard time with DOB.” He added he’d “reached a certain limit that only you can lift.”

Mansourov added: “Please help me so I can continue giving back to the community.”

Later that day Adams responded, “Let me look into this.”

The DOB lifted most of the partial stop work order on Feb. 12. Two days later Mansurov texted the mayor again, thanking him “for your help,” writing that the DOB issue was “partially resolved” and promising “my continued .”

In June 2024, the FBI and DOI for the first time confronted Mansurov and the four straw donors. All denied the donations were reimbursed. A few days later, however, Mansurov reversed course and agreed to talk with the federal prosecutors leading the investigation of Adams.

Adams was indicted in September, and a month later prosecutors filed a criminal complaint against Bahi alleging that he’d deleted Signal from his cell phone just before the agents entered his home to seize his electronic devices.

Early this year, prosecutors announced Bahi had agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge related to the straw donor scheme. Since then, however, the Trump Justice Department got the indictment against Adams dismissed. To date, Bahi has yet to formally plead guilty to any charges.

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As governor, Andrew Cuomo was the mastermind behind an unpopular reform approved in 2012 that slashed pension benefits for future public employees and raised their retirement age at 63 — while previously hired employees could retire at 62 and teachers at 55.

Back then, Cuomo said the creation of the Tier 6 track put the state on course to save $80 billion over the next 30 years and was necessary to rein in rising pension costs.

So his declaration at a Saturday forum for mayoral candidates seeking the endorsement of the United Federation of Teachers that he now s efforts to reverse certain elements of Tier 6 — including a proposal to reduce the retirement age to 55 — raised eyebrows. 

Aligning with rival candidates Zohran Mamdani, Zellnor Myrie, Jessica Ramos, Brad Lander and Scott Stringer in stating for more generous benefits, Cuomo said change is necessary to help recruit public workers.

“The state has the funding, the pension fund threat is over — roll back Tier 6,” he said at the United Federation of Teachers mayoral candidates forum. “We have to attract the best teachers to our New York City schools.” 

It was a remarkable about-face from the former governor, whose new position moved him onto common ground with his most progressive foes in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Interest in boosting pension benefits from candidates seeking teachers union and other public worker endorsements comes as New York faces steep federal funding cuts to Medicaid and other benefit programs that could put serious strains on city and state budgets.

The next mayor would be powerless to address the pensions, which are a statewide issue. But that hasn’t stopped labor leaders from putting the mayoral hopefuls on the spot, hoping they can use their clout to influence legislators and Gov. Kathy Hochul to approve changes to the state’s pension system.

UFT president Michael Mulgrew, who co-moderated the forum and asked Cuomo about rolling back Tier 6, repeatedly made the point during the event that mayoral makes a big difference in Albany. In 2012, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg was an avid booster of Tier 6 who helped Cuomo garner to shrink benefits.

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Rank-and-file who spoke with THE CITY said they’re not buying Cuomo’s change of heart. And other labor leaders said that simply reducing the retirement age for workers doesn’t go far enough, and that workers also need relief on pension contribution payments and to be able to use overtime earnings to help set pension rates.

“No, I do not trust Cuomo at all on Tier 6 or regarding anything for that matter,” said Ryan Bruckenthal, a special education teacher in Manhattan. “He is the reason we have Tier 6, he ran the state like a dictator, and I don’t have any reason to believe that would change if he were elected mayor.”

At the UFT mayoral candidates forum, Mamdani and Myrie, who are both state lawmakers, pointed out that they themselves are in Tier 6. “It was exciting to see the man who created it, in-person,” Mamdani said of Cuomo.

The changes, enacted with bipartisan in the state legislature, were more moderate that what Cuomo, then in his first term as governor, said was necessary at a time of fiscal uncertainty and rising pension costs.

Cuomo had sought to end early retirement packages, raise the retirement age to 65 for all new hires, restrict pensions for the highest-paid employees, and to scale back retirement benefits even for newly hired law enforcement and firefighters.

In the end he compromised, raising the retirement age to 63 for new hires, banning the use of overtime pay to pad pensions, and increasing the employee contribution rates into the state pension system by three percentage points to 6% for the highest earners. The changes meant that New York City was poised to save $21 billion over the next 30 years, state and local officials said at the time, as part of the $80 billion in projected savings.

“This bold and transformational pension reform plan is a historic win for New York taxpayers and municipalities,” Cuomo said. “Without this critical reform, New Yorkers would have seen significant tax increases, as well as layoffs to teachers, firefighters and police.”

To unions and critics of Tier 6, the changes amounted to new hires working longer and contributing more to earn a reduced pension. Today, more than half of state and local government employees are in Tier 6, according to the state comptroller’s office.

In the 13 years it’s been in place, Tier 6 has saved taxpayers in state and local governments outside of New York City $1 billion annually, according to a 2021 estimate from the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative Albany-based think tank. ers of the 2012 reform say New York’s pension system is still far more generous than those other states, even for workers in Tier 6.

“It’s a little disorienting to hear Cuomo change on Tier 6 because it was his bill, he pushed hard for it to go through, he compromised and didn’t get everything he wanted, and then he bragged about it as an accomplishment,” said Bill Hammond, a senior fellow at the Empire Center.

“From my point of view, it was a good thing he did for the taxpayers of the state and I don’t think that the public employees have anything to complain about,” he added.

But its critics say the increased contribution requirements and reduced retirement benefits make it more difficult to recruit and retain new hires, especially in competitive fields like IT, cybersecurity and nursing. And the restrictions on overtime have been devastating for transit workers, said Transportation Workers Union international president John Samuelson.

“We’re forced to work thousands of overtime hours a year, in many cases, and then they tell us that we can’t pension off the money,” he said in an interview Monday. “We don’t have a choice to say, ‘No, we’re not going to do that work’ — we’re stuck with it.” 

In recent years, unions have been able to reverse some elements of Tier 6. Last year, lawmakers included several changes green-lit by unions into the state budget, including an extension until 2026 of a pandemic-era policy that excludes employees’ overtime earnings from being counted in setting their pension contribution rates.

But winning the most salient demands — reducing the retirement age, employees’ pension contributions, and changing overtime requirements — is still an uphill battle, said Henry Garrido, executive director of District Council 37, which represents many New York City municipal staff.

“If Tier 6 was such a bright spot, it wouldn’t be such a problem to try to recruit and retain so many workers,” he said.

While the next mayor has no direct control over the state pension system, he or she will have “a bully pulpit like no other” to influence local and state lawmakers and the governor on their policy goals — if they cultivate positive relationships with them, said Samuelsen.

“It’s the easiest lift in the world for any mayoral candidate in New York City to say they’re going to dramatically reverse the damage that Tier 6 did to workers, because they have every opportunity to hide behind the governor,” he said.

Asked about Cuomo’s potential motives, Samuelsen said, “He’s probably being sincere. If I was him I’d be looking to roll it back too. It’s a complete ball and chain on him.”

Others are similarly pleased with the former governor’s newfound flexibility on the issue.

“I think it’s a recognition that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place — though, I mean, this is a problem of his creation,” said Garrido. “So I’m glad to see that he saw his error of his ways, but it’s still an issue for whoever becomes the mayor, or whoever becomes and continues to become the governor of the state of New York.”

UFT who spoke with THE CITY were more skeptical of the former governor. He was the only candidate who was booed at any point during the mayoral forum. None of the dozen or so surveyed after his remarks believed he would actually work to change Tier 6.

The bottom line, said special education teacher Travis Malekpour: “He had eight years to fix this and made no effort to do so.”

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Subway and bus riders are fuming over OMNY glitches that billed them late, kept them from tapping through turnstiles — and have them enduring lengthy waits for customer service on the MTA’s new fare-payment system.

Commuters have been caught off-guard in recent weeks by bugs that, in some cases, have charges showing up days late on bank statements or creating trouble while tapping.

Vanessa Campos, 28, told THE CITY that she was charged 18 times between Monday and Tuesday despite just taking a pair of round trips between her home station in The Bronx and her job in Manhattan. 

The tip-off, she said, was her phone repeatedly vibrating after she tapped in on Monday morning at the Kingsbridge Road station to take the D train to 125th Street.

“It just kept buzzing, back to back, back to back and I’m like, ‘Ok, it’s not a text message, it’s not a call,’ and it was just a bunch of transactions,’” Campos said. “So when I went on my bank app, I saw 12 transactions from yesterday and this morning, I tapped it once and got charged for six trips.”

But MTA officials insist riders are not being charged for trips they didn’t take and instead pinned the issue on bugs that they say will be worked out — by the end of this year. 

That’s when the MetroCard goes the way of the token and is replaced by the tap-and-go fare-payment system now used by two-thirds of all New York City Transit riders.

The bugs can include delays in processing bank-card payments, which then show up in bulk on bank statements.

“We have not seen anybody overcharged,” said John McCarthy, MTA chief of policy and external relations, told THE CITY Tuesday evening on a t call with Jessie Lazarus, the transit agency’s deputy chief of commercial ventures. “What we’re seeing is delayed charges and then they come in a cluster.”

Lazarus said that ongoing upgrades to OMNY’s software could show up throughout the summer, leading to delays in processing.

The MTA’s aim, she said, is to make the OMNY system “bulletproof” by the time the agency sunsets the MetroCard and moves to full tap-and-go. But she acknowledged that riders may sometimes encounter slowdowns in $2.90-per-trip taps being processed if there are software issues.

“Our goal and our North Star is kind of instant [payment] settlement,” Lazarus said.

The commuter anger over charges marks another chapter in the sluggish transition from to OMNY from MetroCard, which itself began replacing the token in 1994.

On social media, riders grumbled about payment for trips showing up while they were out of state, over being locked out for weeks from using pre-tax benefits cards that allow access to the transit system and of failing to connect to OMNY customer-service representatives through its phone line and online portal.

Several people said the customer service line routinely said there were over 100 people waiting to be helped ahead of them.

“When I call customer service, my calls are repeatedly dropped,” one rider posted to X.  

Chelsea Hall, who commutes between Elmhurst and Hudson Yards on the No. 7 line, told THE CITY that her attempts to get answers on why her pre-tax benefits card was repeatedly declined yielded nothing.

“It seems like a mess, especially since I tried to reach out to customer service and I still haven’t heard back from them over email,” Hall, 33, said. “Using the train and the bus here is the only way that most people get around, so to have to add on an extra five or 10 minutes to your commute to buy another fare card is an inconvenience and a waste of time.”

According to the MTA, pre-tax benefit cards issued by a third party are also facing similar software issues.

In an attempt to ease rider concerns, the MTA on Tuesday evening posted a notice on its app and its website warning of “tap-and-go processing delays,” and noting, “Rest assured you’re not being overcharged.”

The shift to tap-and-go technology has been plagued by numerous problems, including software issues that slowed its debut and not yet being available for use on Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. 

Parents of schoolchildren have also lodged numerous complaints about their OMNY cards, as Chalkbeat reported in February and March.

MTA officials insist the kinks will be ironed out in time for the full shift to OMNY.

“This is our system adding capacity and becoming scalable so that by the time we get to MetroCard sunset in January 2026, we’re good to go,” Lazarus said.

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A crowd of people came out in Bedford-Stuyvesant Monday to talk about a pernicious issue in the neighborhood: property fraud, deed theft and predatory real estate speculation.

THE CITY newsroom, which has completed many investigations on the topic, led a community conversation, hosted by JPMorgan Chase at their Brooklyn Community Banking Branch in Bed-Stuy, with experts who help New Yorkers grapple with the problem every day.

Marco Villegas, program officer for global philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase, said Bed-Stuy may be the epicenter of speculators trying to wrongfully get their hands on property in New York City — if not the entire United States.

The red flags for New Yorkers to watch for are numerous. Scott Kohanowski, general counsel for the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, said he’s worked with clients who have been approached by scammers through social media, family and even their church communities.

Kim Allman, interim executive director of Abode Alliance, told attendees unequivocally: find trusted legal help, and keep in mind that not all attorneys are created equal. Your uncle with a law degree doesn’t necessarily know about the complexities of estate or property law.

Attendees were invited to ask questions and share their stories in an off-the-record conversation with the ists.

The conversation was moderated by Rachel Holliday Smith, managing editor at THE CITY, which has published numerous stories about property-related fraud and patterns of real estate speculation. Those include our award-winning Deed Finders series, which documents how speculators scoop up shares from unsuspecting heirs in a scheme that’s destroying generational wealth in the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods.

More recently, THE CITY published an investigation of the secretive family who grabbed buildings from immigrant owners across Brooklyn, including the site of the beloved Sherita billboard on Atlantic Avenue.

JPMorgan Chase is a sponsor of THE CITY’s independent journalism, including this series of community conversations hosted at Chase’s community bank branches throughout New York City.

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Accessory dwelling units were among the most eagerly anticipated elements of Mayor Eric Adams’ overhaul of the city’s zoning code to spur housing production finalized late last year.

But when it comes to the newly legalized ADUs — the garage, backyard, basement and attic apartments ading one-and two-family houses — his “City of Yes” is more like the City of Not Yet.

THE CITY followed up on permits that showed five new homes under construction as part of three projects on Staten Island that include apartments in the basements, taking advantage of the new zoning code’s flexibility.

The Department of Buildings had approved all three permit applications this winter. But after THE CITY ed the department to find out more, an agency spokesperson says that all three projects are now undergoing audits.

DOB said it isn’t approving ADUs now because the laws governing ADUs and basement apartments don’t go into effect until June 16. Meanwhile, some related regulations from city agencies have yet to emerge.

Staten Island property owners and developers are eager to build ADUs, architects and expediters said — and frustrated that after the fanfare and permit approvals, the units are on hold. 

“I’m befuddled over here,” said one architect whose ADU project is the subject of an audit. “I can’t believe how this played out. It can’t be simple.”

Howard Slatkin, executive director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, chalked up the glitches with ADU permits as “the growing pains of implementation of a very large zoning change.”

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Adams touted City of Yes as a way to unleash new housing, especially in neighborhoods without many apartment buildings and that generally restricted many kinds of development. 

Elected officials representing Staten Island were staunchly opposed to the zoning change, which ushered in new housing in  neighborhoods where only one- and two-family homes had previously been permitted. ADUs open up many new possibilities: a property can accommodate multigenerational families, or allow a homeowner to rent out a space as a source of income. It’s a way of adding a bit more housing to new or existing homes.

ADUs have shown promise to boost housing elsewhere. California, for instance, has permitted over 100,000 ADUs since 2018, with nearly 68,5000 completed — ing for about 13% of all housing built in the state in that period. 

In legalizing ADUs as part of the City of Yes, New York prohibited ADUs in flood-prone areas and historic districts, as well as for rowhomes.

Before the DOB will permit ADUs, several city agencies need to make rules to regulate them. The Department of Environmental Protection, for example, has to come up with maps showing flood-prone areas so it’s clear where basement apartments can’t go. 

So how did DOB approve the permits for the three projects in Staten Island, which all included ADUs?

Each one applied for its permits through a streamlined review process, which enables applicants to self-certify that the projects comply with zoning, code and other regulations. DOB typically approves these applications within 24 hours, relying “on the integrity of the community of New York State licensed architects and engineers,” according to a spokesperson.

But upon closer look, the DOB found the three projects were not in full compliance with current regulations, and required applicants to change the filings. If they do not submit code-compliant paperwork, the department warned them, they could be faced with a stop-work order on the in-progress projects.

The architect who spoke with THE CITY was confused, since the City of Yes updated the zoning in 2024. He’d filed his application and began building without a problem. He said he didn’t realize there was more to the program before he’d be able to build a house with an ADU, and now fears getting a stop-work order. He could eliminate the ADU to comply with current regulations, or wait for the new program to take effect.

“Everything is in limbo,” the architect said. “I can’t move forward, nor can I amend my plans to go backward because that might be wasted effort.”

The architects and developers associated with the other projects declined to comment or did not return calls. All of the projects are in the construction process.

On the island’s South Shore, bordering a lush park, one of the three projects is located on a secluded street lined with stately homes on large lots. On a recent visit, the frame was nearly complete for a massive, one-family home with an ADU along with an attached one-car garage.

A construction worker at the site told THE CITY there would be a one-bedroom apartment in the basement with its own entrance on the side of the house.

Almost six miles north, in the neighborhood of Travis-Chelsea, a row of three skinny, detached homes stand where just one house had stood previously. The three homes, each with a peaked roof, match many others in the neighborhood. Plans for the new homes showed that each will include a basement apartment in addition to the main house upstairs. 

The same is true for a third project on a quiet block with many Cape-style homes in Great Kills. A foundation in progress is surrounded by green fencing.

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Despite the local resistance to City of Yes opening the doors to ADUs, Staten Island appears to be fertile ground for the small apartments. An expeditor — a professional who leads projects through the DOB’s process — told THE CITY she had heard from a few Staten Island homeowners interested in adding an ADU to their homes, and multiple architects indicated they had been fielding inquiries about ADUs from local developers ever since City of Yes ed.

“I’ve never seen news travel so fast,” a Staten Island-based architect said. “Now I can put more house on a piece of property. I don’t have to worry about providing all the parking for it.”

Under City of Yes, one- and two-family houses that add an ADU are still considered single and two-family houses — rather than new two- and three-family homes — and do not have to include additional parking. 

Chris Goldammer, a researcher developing an online zoning information platform and who alerted THE CITY to one of the permitted projects, said he’s not surprised to see ADUs pop up in Staten Island, given the space and types of houses there.

“Staten Island will be a big driver of it. Manhattan will be basically zero,” he said. “ADUs will basically fit into the most suburban neighborhoods.”

Meanwhile, the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development is standing up a loan program to help about 35 lower-income homeowners afford to add ADUs to their properties. HPD officials said more than 2,800 households across all boroughs — mostly from Staten Island, Queens and The Bronx — expressed interest in the program. HPD has yet to make any loans, but plans to start this year, according to a spokesperson.

It remains to be seen if ADUs will, following California’s lead, become a meaningful piece of New York City’s housing stock.

“This is an important moment,” said Marcel Negret, director of land use at the Regional Plan Association. “These first years will determine whether the framework, as is, works or doesn’t — and you need to rethink or make tweaks to it — and whether ADUs have a future in New York City or not.”

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Over the past four years, an unlikely alliance of advocates for people behind bars and former Department of Correction commissioners ed forces to urge the federal judge overseeing Rikers Island to appoint an outsider to run it. 

They argued that it is impossible to turn around the beleaguered department without giving the person in charge more power to make sweeping changes. 

Last Tuesday, Laura Taylor Swain, the chief district judge for Manhattan federal court, ruled that she will soon appoint an independent “remediation manager” to enact stalled reforms. Swain specifically said she wasn’t appointing a so-called receiver with nearly endless power, as many had suggested for years. 

Nonetheless, the Legal Aid Society, which brought the so-called Nunez case that led to a consent decree in 2015 mandating reforms, hailed the decision and went as far to refer to the new role as a receiver. 

But multiple former Department of Correction top officials and government insiders cautioned that Swain’s ruling leaves open one major question: who has ultimate authority">15-page report, the oversight agency recommended that DOC appoint a “Director of Workplace Safety” to keep track of possible abuses and to develop “clear safety protocols.” 

City correction officers have what’s described as “unlimited sick time” and can take off for weeks or months if necessary. The setup is to allow officers injured on the job time to recuperate. DOC is supposed to keep close track of the officers out but the department’s investigators have gotten overwhelmed in recent years with up to 1,000 calling out sick in 2022.

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This story was produced in conjunction with the NYCity News Service and with the of the Equity Through Data Project at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.

Drivers heading to LaGuardia Airport or CitiField may not know it, but they could face greater concerns than missing their flight or the first pitch.

On a single stretch of highway in Queens — where the Grand Central Parkway meets the Whitestone Expressway near the Mets’ stadium — seven parts of roadway or ramps were deemed in poor condition last year, according to an NYCity News Service analysis of state bridge inspection data.

These are far from isolated issues. Despite increased spending for aging infrastructure, 118 sections of New York City bridges were found by inspectors to be in poor condition in 2024, slightly more than the previous year. That represents nearly 8% of bridge segments citywide — and almost one-fifth of the total roadway of all the city’s bridges, our analysis found.  

Meanwhile, experts say tens of billions of dollars in repairs are needed as uncertainty stemming from the Trump istration’s battles with the state over congestion pricing and more leaves long-term plans for fixes in flux. 

Most of New York’s bridges do not traverse water. A bridge may be an over or raised roadway, and can go over another road, railway or bike path. By this definition, there are nearly 1,500 bridges across the five boroughs, our analysis found.

These spans, cumulatively, carry hundreds of thousands of vehicles daily. 

The list includes parts of some of the city’s most iconic roadways: ramps that feed into the Brooklyn Bridge and George Washington Bridge and clusters along major highways like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Harlem River Drive and the Grand Central Parkway. 

According to federal standards, bridges determined to be in “poor condition” suffer from “advanced” deterioration. Transportation officials emphasized that findings of bridges in “poor condition” do not mean the spans are unsafe and should be closed, but rather that they need repairs or modifications. Officials also noted that the state and city are pouring billions into bridges.

“New York has one of the most aggressive road and bridge renewal programs in the United States and is investing more in the modernization of its transportation infrastructure than at any other point in the state’s history,” said Rolando Infante, a spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation. He added that the state capital plan adopted in 2022 includes $6.1 billion for local governments statewide “to renew and modernize bridges and pavements.”

The NYCity News Service’s findings come as President Donald Trump wages a pitched war against Gov. Kathy Hochul over congestion pricing in Manhattan — potentially zapping billions from the MTA, which operates some key local spans, including the Robert F. Kennedy and Verrazzano-Narrows bridges. Washington officials are also threatening to withhold federal highway funds that could include bridge repair money. The White House has also taken transportation-related shots at New York over everything from the state of the subways to the future of Penn Station. 

Biden-era infrastructure funds that make it to the city could help with repairs, but aren’t enough, experts say. A 2024 report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that the city was billions behind in federal funding for needed bridge maintenance alone. 

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave New York State’s bridges a C-minus on its 2022 report card assessing span conditions locally. The group’s latest national report, released in March, graded the country’s bridges a C overall but didn’t focus on individual states. 

Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board in March called for spans across the nation — including the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges — to be inspected for risk of collapse after an errant container ship took down Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge last year.

The crash of a high-masted Mexican naval ship into the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge on  Saturday night, killing two crew , offered a stark reminder of the potential for accidents involving local spans.

Worries about the city’s aging spans are not idle problems: Portions of 11 city-owned bridges were at least partially closed in 2023 due to structural problems necessitating repairs. One span on that list — the W. 155th Street pedestrian bridge — is slated for demolition in 2030, records show.

This past summer, the Third Avenue Bridge connecting Manhattan and The Bronx got stuck after opening for water traffic during one of the year’s hottest days. Firefighters sprayed the structure with cool water to help it finally close. 

To pinpoint local spans in poor condition, the NYCity News Service looked at federally mandated state bridge inspection data released annually. Our reporters also scoured other public records and talked to engineers. Among our findings:

• State inspectors cited segments of two spans for troubling erosion below the waterline: part of the Harlem River Drive just north of the Macombs Dam Bridge at 155th Street, and a section of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. The segments are part of bridges otherwise in “fair condition,” records show.

• The percentage of New York bridges found to be in poor condition has declined modestly over the last decade. Still, the city bridges rank below the national average, inspection records show. 

• The average age of a bridge in New York City is nearly 70. The vast majority were built when the standard expected lifespan was 50 years. For the most part, the older the bridge, the more likely it is to do poorly in inspections. 

• Increased truck weights are taking a toll on city spans built decades ago for lighter vehicles, experts say. 

• Experts fear that climate change — especially increased heat and flooding — will bring new challenges for New York’s heavily burdened transportation infrastructure.

Spanning the Nation 3e215s

Federal law requires state inspectors to examine most bridges every two years. Some are reviewed annually. About 5% of the nation’s bridges are allowed to go four years between inspections, depending on the age of the spans and other factors. 

Inspectors examine dozens of aspects of each bridge, grading them based on in-person observations. They pay special attention to three crucial areas: the deck, superstructure and substructure. If any of these are considered to be in poor condition, then the bridge itself is deemed in poor shape.

The deck is the road you drive or walk on. 

The substructure is what holds the bridge up — the columns that extend down to the ground or water, called piers, and how the bridge attaches to the land on each end, called abutments.

The superstructure helps directly hold the deck. 

Engineer Brian Keierleber explained it this way: The substructure is the footing that holds up the bridge. The superstructure carries the weight of the road and vehicles from one column to the next — for example, steel beams that extend across the underside of the bridge roadway.

These are graded on a scale of 1 to 9. A score of 4 or less translates to a “poor” mark.

All bridge inspections are filed to the Federal Highway istration, which compiles a nationwide database. The NYCity News Service analyzed that data, and cross-referenced key findings with reports produced by the city, state and engineers.

When a bridge inspector finds a critical issue that requires prompt action, the official can use a color-coded system to flag and alert bridge owners to spur a response. Red — the most critical level — indicates that immediate action is needed to solve “potentially hazardous structural conditions.” 

Some 407 red flags were issued statewide in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the most recent data published by the state shows. 

A freedom of information request filed by the NYCity News Service reveals that between September 2022 and December 2024 inspectors issued 145 red flags for bridges in the city, encoming spans in every borough except for Staten Island. In the most recent instance covered by the records, inspectors on Dec. 12 red-flagged the 124-year-old Grand Street Bridge going over Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, citing girders with rust and cracks.

Though very rare, bridges do fail. The Schoharie Creek Bridge in upstate New York collapsed in 1987, killing 10 people. The bridge was about 30 years old. In 1989, a 500-pound slab of concrete sheared off the FDR Drive and killed a driver. 

In 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people. The bridge had been classified as structurally deficient.

Bridges can also fall apart from accidents as in the case of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, which killed six bridge workers when a container ship hit the substructure.

‘Kicking the Can’ z2zu

Near LaGuardia Airport and CitiField, a portion of a bridge that goes over the Flushing Bay Promenade is one of the busiest stretches of any span in poor condition citywide: Interstate 678, on a stretch commonly known as the Whitestone Expressway, carries about 180,000 vehicles daily, according to state records.

Under federal guidelines, a “poor condition” finding suggests the bridge’s ability to handle its usual amount of traffic may be “jeopardized.” That could include cracking or when a bridge’s structure weakens or when pieces of concrete break away, exposing reinforcing steel.

State, city and federal officials declined to answer repeated direct questions on the timing for any repairs to these sections of bridges near LaGuardia and CitiField. 

They are owned and managed by the state Department of Transportation which, along with the city Transportation Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, operate most of New York’s bridges. 

In 2023, the state DOT awarded a contract to repair other nearby portions of bridges along the Grand Central Parkway, between Commonwealth Avenue and Union Turnpike, budget documents show. 

Fixing bridges is expensive: It’s going to cost over $73 million to repair four overes along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last summer. Building the new Kosciuszko Bridge, which opened ahead of schedule in 2019, ran up to $873 million. 

State Senator John Liu (D-Queens), a former City Council transportation committee chair and past city comptroller, said years of neglect contributed to the current state of local bridges. 

“There was a lot of kicking the can,” Liu said. 

Repairs for old and heavily used thoroughfares can be tricky to manage, he added. 

“The Van Wyck has been under construction the entire duration of my life,” the 58-year-old senator said, referring to a section of I-678 that runs from Queens to The Bronx. “And I expect that to be the case under the duration of my great grandchildren[s’ lives] as well.”

Across the country, 6.8% of the nation’s more than 600,000 bridges are in poor condition, translating to about 42,000 spans. In New York City, the figure is nearly 8%. The spans found to be in poor condition cover slightly more than 19% of the total roadway of all the city’s bridges, our analysis found.

This marks an improvement from 2014 when the percentage of city bridges deemed “structurally deficient,” the terminology used at the time, was 10%.

Overall, the state is moving in the right direction, said engineer Sreenivas Alampalli, co-author of the 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) bridge report  that gave New York’s bridges a C-minus grade. 

“Lately, ‘preservation first’ is a focus for the DOT,” said Alampalli, who was also a contributor to the state’s bridge inspection manual. 

Uncertain Road for Repairs pe3f

Funding for bridge repair comes from a patchwork tangle of intertwined federal, state and city sources — all threatening to come apart under new pressures from Washington. Federal transportation officials did not respond to requests for comment.

The Biden istration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure upgrades, including $550 billion for bridges. That represented the nation’s largest dedicated bridge investment in 50 years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The act provides New York State with $38.1 billion, according to the state comptroller’s office. The state’s 2023 budget included a record high nearly $33 billion five-year spending plan for the state Department of Transportation and local roads. 

However, according to the state comptroller’s analysis of national data, the amount needed to fix all bridges across New York State is over $70 billion. The repair cost for city-owned bridges in New York City alone exceeds $19 billion, according to the analysis. And those represent less than half of the spans across the five boroughs.

The federal legislation’s Bridge Formula Program kicks in $2 billion for New York’s bridges over five years, and a pot of $9.6 billion in grants for rehabilitation of at-risk bridges includes $22.6 million for New York, according to the state comptroller.

The federal money is pooled with other resources for infrastructure upgrades, noted Anil Agrawal, a civil engineering professor at the City College of New York. 

But it may not be enough, Agrawal added: “$1.2 trillion dollars for all the infrastructure in the country is like pennies.”

In 2024, according to Hochul’s office, 904 of New York City’s bridges were rehabilitated, repaired or improved, and 54 miles of the city’s highway and road lanes were repaved. These projects were a part of a $2.9 billion statewide effort by the state transportation and thruway departments.

According to the Mayor’s Ten-Year Capital Strategy, the city DOT is planning over $16 billion in bridge repair, replacement and rehabilitation projects. It’s unclear how much of these funds are tied up with federal dollars. 

The city Department of Transportation did not respond to requests for comment.

Scouring a Menace 5a5s46

While it can take years to get funding and make repairs, the weather’s toll on bridges is increasingly swift and devastating, heightening concerns as climate change brings more and fiercer storms.

This past summer, over 600 bridges across North Carolina were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Helene, necessitating $6 billion in repairs.

The underwater erosion of pilings around a bridge’s foundations is known as “scour” — and it’s a leading cause of highway bridge failures in the U.S. 

Two segments of bridges in New York have a critical scour rating: a section of the Harlem River Drive just north of the Macombs Dam Bridge at 155th Street in Manhattan, and a part of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, near Jacob Riis Park in  Brooklyn.

Both segments earned a scour rating of three, meaning the bridge foundations were determined to be “unstable for assessed or calculated scour conditions”. Nevertheless, according to the data, the crossings are considered to be in “fair condition” overall. 

It’s unclear when repairs are on tap for the Harlem River Drive section. The MTA has earmarked $50 million for work in the Hodges bridge in its 2025-2029 capital plan. Funding for the capital plan was included in the state budget agreement announced in late April.

“Additional repairs will be programmed into future capital plans as part of the overall strategy to address structural repair needs throughout the system,” Laura Cala-Rauch, an MTA spokesperson wrote in an email.

Age and Weight Take a Toll 1z662e

Most city bridges have been around longer than most New Yorkers. The average bridge in the city was built in 1956. 

Among the oldest is the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883. One part of the bridge, along with a ramp leading to it, is in poor condition, inspection records show.

Overall, the older a bridge is, the more likely it is to be in poor condition, according to a 2023 analysis by DiNapoli’s office. Many older bridges are far past the average 50-year life for which they were designed, according to a state Department of Transportation report. 

Our analysis showed the same: All but three of the 118 bridge sections found in poor condition were built before 1975.

The city DOT owns or manages nearly 600 of the almost 1,500 bridge segments across New York City. Statewide, local governments own about half of all bridges. 

Of the 118 portions of bridges in poor condition, New York City owns 64 of them, the NYCity News Service’s analysis shows. Most of the others are owned by the MTA and the state.

Meanwhile, increasingly heavy trucks are taxing the city’s aging, heavily trafficked spans.  

Some bridges, like parts of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, were originally designed for trucks carrying a maximum of 72,000 pounds. Now, according to federal standards, highways and bridges are built to handle trucks at 80,000 pounds — the equivalent of 40 tons each. 

According to a 2020 federal study, 11% of the trucks that used the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from October 2019 to Jan 2020 were overweight.

Statewide data suggests this is a growing problem: Around 16% of the trucks weighed in New York State received overweight citations in 2023, compared to 11% in 2019.

Every extra pound a vehicle is overweight can cause exponentially more damage, according to Michel Ghosn, a professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York. Over time, a high volume of truck traffic could slowly weaken a bridge, Ghosn said.

The city plans to fix the cantilevered stretch of the BQE between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Downtown Brooklyn, a project that could extend into the early 2030s.

A stretch of the BQE, over Flushing Avenue near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, carries nearly 138,000 vehicles daily, and 13% are trucks. Every day around 140,000 vehicles use the on-ramp to the Cross Bronx Expressway from Sheridan Boulevard — and 16% of those are trucks. Both segments are among the 118 segments citywide tagged as in poor condition.

New York City is deploying new technology to help spot overweight trucks. In a July press release, the city said its weigh-in-motion system installed along the BQE in 2023, has decreased the amount of overweight trucks by 64%.

Meanwhile, 30 city-owned bridges were load posted in 2022, meaning that heavier vehicles were further restricted from using those spans. Signs inform motorists of the weight limits.

Additional reporting by Ray DePaul, NYCity News Service

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