Queens pols, officials flood top spots in City Hall
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Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams both have Queens roots – the two graduated from Bayside High School in the same year. Photos by Andy Kropa, Invision, AP/Adams, Facebook
By Jacob Kaye
Much of New York City’s new leadership has something in common: Queens roots.
In a matter of months, some of New York City’s most powerful elected and appointed positions have been filled by current Queens residents or by former Queens residents who cite their time in the borough as formative experiences.
Mayor Eric Adams, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and First Deputy Mayor Lorraine Grillo all either grew up or currently live in the World’s Borough.
As power in the city has slowly drifted from Manhattan into the outer boroughs over the past several years, Queens has seen itself come into a position of power as a new mayoral administration takes over for the first time in eight years, sources tell the Eagle.
Though he’s more likely to claim Brooklyn as his home, Mayor Eric Adams was raised in Southeast Queens. He often tells the story of how police officers from the 103rd Precinct arrested and beat him when he was a teen, an experience that motivated him to join the police force and start on a path that ultimately led to his mayoral election.
Speaker Adams, who represents Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village and South Ozone Park, was elected to the leadership position on Wednesday. She is the first Black woman to lead the legislative body and the first speaker from Queens since Peter Vallone, Sr., in 2001.
Leading the NYPD is new Commissioner Sewell, who was born and raised in the Queensbridge Houses and is the first Black woman to serve as the head of the NYPD. Serving as the mayor’s top advisor is Grillo, an Astoria native who was recently appointed to serve as first deputy mayor.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell is a Queens native and was first introduced as the new commissioner inside the Queensbridge Houses, where she grew up. AP Photo/Brittainy Newman
And there are others – newly elected Queens City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán is likely to serve as a leading voice for the progressive wing of the council and Queens Councilmember Joann Ariola, who leads the Queens County Republican Party, will likely serve as a leading voice in her party’s caucus.
"The road to City Hall runs through Queens,” said José Bayona, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media, who is himself a longtime Queens resident. “People from Queens sometimes feel overlooked, but that will not be the case with the Adams administration.”
“Mayor Adams is laser-focused on solving problems in every neighborhood in the city, and his high-level appointments from Queens is the latest indication of his commitment to the most diverse borough in the country,” Bayona added.
In a statement to the Eagle, Speaker Adams celebrated the influx of Queens officials in some of New York City’s top offices.
"As a lifelong Queens resident, I am excited to be a part of the borough’s presence in the highest levels of New York City government,” the speaker said. “The World’s Borough is filled with talented and committed public servants, who come from working-class communities and share a common passion for uplifting this City. I look forward to working with fellow Queens natives to move our City forward.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks, who leads the Queens Democratic Party and who was behind the push to secure the speakership for Councilmember Adams, said that it makes sense that Mayor Adams has looked to Queens for some of his top appointments.
“We’ve got such great talent in Queens and the mayor is interested in finding talent,” Meeks told the Eagle. “He's looked at, because of who he is, outer borough talent and people who could bring a different perspective to New York City politics, rather than those just from Manhattan. It’s extremely important in balancing our cities in the five boroughs.”
In part, Queens’ rise in the city can be attributed to it’s expanding electorate, according to political consultant Trip Yang.
“In terms of raw voting power, Queens is growing,” Yang told the Eagle.
While Queens has a smaller population and fewer registered voters than Brooklyn, its approximately 1,366,500 voters outnumber Manhattan’s voters.
Changes within the borough have also begun to have an impact citywide, Yang said. While in the past, the most active block of Queens voters lived in Southeast Queens, a new voting block has come to prominence in Western Queens, a change candidates running for either statewide, citywide or boroughwide office have to consider.
“If you need to get votes in Queens, you can't just go to Southeast Queens, you want to go to Western Queens, as well, particularly for progressive candidates,” said Yang, who has worked on campaigns for Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Queens City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan and Attorney General Letitia James.
Additionally, the growth of the Asian population in New York City has been especially pronounced in Queens. The borough’s Asian population sits around 706,000, growing 29 percent over the past decade and outpacing the overall Queens population’s growth of 7.8 percent, according to the 2020 Census. A bulk of the city’s Asian population resides in Queens neighborhoods including Flushing, Richmond Hill and Long Island City.
“This is very significant for Queens,” Yang said. “The rise of the Asian American and South Asian American electorate has been centered in Queens.
“[City Councilmembers] Julie Won and Linda Lee, the first-ever Korean American councilmembers, are from Queens, [Krishnan], one of the first two South Asian councilmembers is from Queens,” Yang added. “Going back a year ago, [Assemblymembers] Zohran Mamdani and Jenifer Rajkumar were the first South Asian state elected officials, both of them from Queens.”
Hank Sheinkopf, a political consultant and political science professor, sees Queens’ rise as one that is intimately linked with a rise in Brooklyn. As electoral power has somewhat shifted away from county organizations, it has been gained by a more progressive, younger population that lives in both boroughs, he said.
“For the time being, with gentrification and changing neighborhoods, the future for the city’s power centers are in Queens and in Brooklyn, together in a unified block,” Sheinkopf said.
Meeks said that regardless of the strength of the Queens Democratic Party’s influence, he’s glad officials with Queens roots are taking office.
“All of us are in this together,” Meeks said. “When you talk about the Queens Democratic Party, we are part of the Queens community, just like everyone else, and I don't like to go into those differences.”
“What [Mayor Adams] is looking for is talent, what I'm looking for is talent,” he added. “I look at the speaker of the City Council, she is full of power, and can help make a difference and bring a different perspective to the City Council as its leader, just like the mayor, who had a lot of support from Queens County because he's from Queens County.”
U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks is the leader of the Queens County Democratic Party and says that Mayor Eric Adams is doing the right thing by looking for talent in Queens. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
But how any of Queens’ representation in the new administration might translate into power will likely depend on which City Councilmembers are named to chair some of the council’s most powerful committees.
“The only way [a power shift] changes is the committee assignments in the City Council,” Sheinkopf said. “Don't look for Queens to give up important committee chairs to people from other boroughs, don't look for Brooklyn to give up any more power than it has to.”
Some believe that with Queens leaders in positions of power, residents could see issues particular to the borough more thoroughly addressed.
“When you have individuals who understand quality of life issues in Queens, infrastructure issues that we have in Queens, transportation issues that we have in Queens, they bring all of that who they are and where they came from to their respective positions to deal with the issues that we Queensites have to deal with on a regular basis,” Meeks said.
But others say an elected official’s home borough often has little effect on how they govern.
“Just because a city official was born in a particular borough, doesn't mean they focus only on
the people from that particular county,” said Jerry Goldfeder, an election attorney. “Look at Chuck Schumer. He's a Brooklyn kid, but he visits all 62 counties every year and he thinks about the people in all 62 counties.”
“I expect that all of our elected and appointed officials will think about all of the people in New York City,” he added.
