Can Mayor Eric Adams reverse the rot in New York City?

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab, AP Images

Until a few years ago, Eric Adams was a cop carrying a service revolver. Now that he’s New York’s 110th mayor, he has a secret weapon.

Swagger.

It’s obvious in his frequent, confident smile; it expresses itself in the flamboyant cut of his clothes; and it works its way into speech that’s heavy on colorful aphorisms and wordplay.

“I will never forget that my glory is not my story,” he said shortly after taking office. “I only had a badge as a cop because my mom used a rag and a mop to create a better future for me.”

The bonhomie is very different from the dogmatic tone adopted by his predecessor, Bill de Blasio.

But eight months into his term as mayor, Eric Adams needs all the swagger he can lay his hands on. The city is still recovering from a brutal encounter with Covid that led to a cycle of lockdowns and restrictions. Two years ago, the world was shocked by footage of tony designer stores in Midtown Manhattan boarded up during the George Floyd riots.

New Yorkers are now watching a near-daily dose of videos of people being randomly punched on trains, assaulted in buildings, and shot at on streets. When everyone is a photographer, the recent rise of store robberies in broad daylight and “smash and grabs” along busy streets has led to an overall feeling of lawlessness.

Mayors get judged by whether the garbage gets collected or the streets are plowed, but when crime rates tick up, it crowds out every other concern.

As an ex-cop, Adams was elected to restore a sense of safety to a city buffeted by a violent crime wave. But since coming to office, major crime has jumped by 36 percent compared to last year.

That grim number is making itself felt in polling across the city. A Siena poll taken before the start of summer found that 76 percent of New Yorkers are anxious they will be the victim of a crime while out and about in the city. A 56 percent majority says the Big Apple is headed in the wrong direction.

As for appraisals of the mayor himself, the results are mixed. His job approval rating is below 30 percent, with 64 percent considering his performance fair or poor.

As he sips water from a glass emblazoned with the city seal, Eric Adams seems unworried by these perceptions. He thinks New York’s human capital will see it through the latest downturn, and the city will bounce back.

“I believe,” he says, “that in order to solve a problem, you have to see yourself through a problem, and not believe that where you are is who you are. Sometimes people are pessimistic with my optimistic view of where we’re going.”

Wordplay — sometimes glib-sounding — is part of what makes Adams tick, but there’s an impression that the mayor sometimes uses his verbal dexterity to duck and weave to avoid tough questions.

Eric Adams disagrees. “When a mayor has swagger,” he said days after taking office, “the city has swagger.”