New York’s mayoral candidates are battling for our attention

New Yorkers go to the polls this week to vote for their mayor in an election which has become surprisingly heated. Four candidates – Andrew Yang, Maya Wiley, Eric Adams and Kathryn Garcia – are jostling it out at the top, and because of the city’s ranked-choice voting system, nobody will know for sure exactly who’s set to lead the world’s most famous city until mid-July. Who will be set to follow in the footsteps of such controversial figures as Bill de Blasio and Rudy Giuliani? Whose career will lead them to a media empire (a la Michael Bloomberg) and whose will lead them to an ill-fated press conference sandwiched in between a crematorium and an adult bookstore at Four Seasons Total Landscaping?

As with all mayoral campaigns, there have been photo moments and local controversies along the way as the diverse array of candidates battle it out for attention. During this past weekend, as campaigning came to a close, Kathryn Garcia did yoga in Times Square among Manhattanites and Maya Wiley hula-hooped outside Nagle’s Bagels, my local bagel store in Bed-Stuy. (I’m sorry to report that Nagle’s doesn’t actually have a very good rep in the area, and most people in the know go to BK Bagels or the Bagel Nest instead.)

Bed-Stuy – short for Bedford-Stuyvesant – is an up-and-coming Brooklyn neighbourhood which doesn’t usually host multiple mayoral appearances, but which became central to a few conversations during this particular race. At one point a couple of weeks ago, Eric Adams was accused by rivals of not living in New York City at all, and instead being a resident of neighbouring New Jersey. In response, he invited reporters on a tour of a modest basement apartment in Bed-Stuy which he said he lives in when he’s not sleeping at his office, though other outlets have reported that there is usually a tenant in that building. He also appears to own other buildings throughout Brooklyn that are populated with tenants. A former police officer, Adams claims that he keeps his exact whereabouts under wraps after an incident where his car was shot at with his son inside many years ago. The story became so intriguing, with so many twists and turns, that New York Magazine ran an entire feature titled “Where does Eric Adams actually live?” and local mag Gothamist referred to the Bed-Stuy tour as “surreal”.

Had he actually been a secret Jersey resident, though, Adams still might have come out better than Yang on that particular issue. An entrepreneur who stood for president in the 2020 election and lost out to Biden during the Democratic debates, Yang has always intrigued me, with his big claims about universal basic income and his tongue-in-cheek merchandise (during those Democratic debates, I bought myself a “Yang Gang” T-shirt and E got a hat with Yang’s slogan “MATH” – Make America Think Harder – emblazoned on it.)

Unfortunately, Yang also has a bit of a habit of putting his foot in his mouth when it comes to New York. A few weeks ago he was asked about the experience of riding out the pandemic in NYC and laughed at the idea that anyone with two kids would stay in a small apartment during such tumultuous months. He and his wife own a large vacation home in the idyllic upstate town of New Paltz to which they decamped for the worst of Covid. For those of us who had no choice but to bed down in tiny box-sized flats while New York was the epicentre of the virus, the comment didn’t exactly scream “relatable”.

Still, when E and I emerged into the square outside the Barclays Center to watch the Brooklyn Nets game on Saturday night and bumped headlong into the Yang van and his hype-men, we were, well, hyped. There he was, in the blue suit he’s worn to every single public appearance for at least two years, surrounded by campaigners with leaflets and microphones. Dressed in our best Brooklyn Nets merchandise, we stopped to take a photo with the help of one of Yang’s volunteers. “UBI is the future!” said E, who feels passionately about economics. “It really is, man,” said Yang, and gave him a fist-bump.

We can’t vote in New York’s mayoral elections, of course, so we’re simply hostages to whatever happens next. But now I’ve got the selfie, I’m a renewed member of the Yang Gang. Just imagine how good that’ll look framed on our wall if he becomes president in 2028.