Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York City, is grappling with concerns that he may not live in the city in which he wants to be mayor. Indeed, he may not live in the state of New York at all.
Politico reported on Tuesday that Adams, who spent 22 years with the NYPD, has several addresses associated with his name, one of which is in New Jersey. According to Politico, Adams “owns a three-unit rowhouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and a co-op in Fort Lee, N.J. that he bought with his partner.” In 1992, he co-purchased a co-op in Prospect Heights, but he has said he hasn’t lived there in 10 years and no longer has an ownership stake in the property; however, he included this address on the registration forms for his current mayoral campaign as well as his 2017 borough president campaign. The Bed-Stuy property was added to the 2021 campaign form, Politico reported.
Oddly, Adams contributed to Staten Island Assemblyman Charles Fall last summer using his Prospect Place address, though the property was occupied by another resident at the time. Campaign adviser Evan Thies told Politico that the campaign would be amending documents that still list the Prospect Place address.
Adams held a press conference on Wednesday to address the reports questioning his residency, which he conducted from in front of his Bed-Stuy property that he called “my primary residence.”
“This is my block, my neighbors,” he said, according to CNN. “I’m proud to be a resident of Bed-Stuy.”
As Politico reported, however, official records and media reports seem to dispute Adams’ claims about living in this property:
For starters, Adams is registered to vote on the first floor of 936 Lafayette Ave., yet a tenant who has lived there for years is listed under the same unit in multiple documents obtained by POLITICO. And last month, the publication City Limits reported that most of Adams’ neighbors did not know he lived on their block, or that he is running for mayor.
To further confuse matters, Adams’ voter registration form shows a change of address in January — the day after a Daily News article questioned why the Bed-Stuy property was not registered with the city’s housing agency as required. Thies said the change was a clerical update to a previous address, and that Adams has been registered to vote in Bed-Stuy since 2017. He added that the property has been registered with the city, though the agency’s website still indicates it has not.
He also said Adams lives in the basement apartment but rarely sleeps there due to his hectic schedule as an elected official and a mayoral candidate. The confusion over who occupies the first floor likely stems from a recent renovation that led to a change in the unit numbers, Thies said.
Adams seems to mostly sleep in Borough Hall, in his office, Politico noted.