One-on-one with mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa
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Republican candidate for mayor, Guardian Angels Founder Curtis Sliwa.Photo via Sliwa campaign
By Ryan Schwach
Could Queens go red?
It’s unlikely, at least if demographics, polling and conventional political wisdom is to be believed. But that is not stopping Curtis Sliwa.
Sliwa, The Brooklyn-born, red-beret wearing, eccentric founder of the Guardian Angels that is well known as one of New York’s most unconventional political figures, is once again running for mayor.
This time, he is running in a crowded field alongside Democratic Nominee Zohran Mamdani, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, sitting Mayor Eric Adams – who beat him in the 2021 general election – and prosecutor Jim Walden.
Cuomo, Adams and Walden are running on independent party lines.
Sliwa is running with the full throated backing of the city’s Republican establishment, including the county party in Queens, as well as the endorsement of the conservative Common Sense Caucus in the City Council.
He has also tried to split from Republicans on many issues, including by criticising Donald Trump, who he has said should stay out of the mayoral race. In his interview with the Eagle, Sliwa also said Trump shouldn’t duplicate what he is doing in Washington with the National Guard and local police in New York City
However, he is currently registering only 17 percent in recent polls, ahead of Adams – who is floating around 11 but behind Cuomo – who has around 24 percent in recent polls – splitting much of the conservative vote with the two independent candidates.
Mamdani still leads the pack, with 37 percent in the most recent poll.
Sliwa is running a campaign heavily centered on public safety and crime, in line with his history with the Guardian Angels, which he founded in 1979 amid high crime rates in the city’s streets and subways.
His campaign also focuses on animal rights, a close issue for the 71-year-old who is known for his collection of pet rescue cats. He will also appear on the ballot on an independent line called “Protect Animals.”
He is also focusing his campaign on affordability and combating corruption.
Besides his often controversial Guardian Angels, Sliwa has become known in the city for his eccentrically bombastic speaking style and personality as a radio host and public figure.
Now, he is trying to paint himself as a “mainstream” candidate against Mamdani’s socialist politics and Adams’ and Cuomo’s litany of controversies. That is something he may have a hard time convincing New Yorkers of, with or without his trademark beret.
In a Zoom interview with the the Eagle this week, Sliwa said he firmly believes he has the ability to turn deep blue Queens red, and also discussed his campaign and his plans for New York City ahead of the November election.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Eagle: You’ve been a public figure in New York City for decades. A lot of people had an opinion about you before you announced your mayoral run. Some have had multiple opinions about you over the years. To those New Yorkers, who is Curtis Sliwa now? Is he different from his public persona of the 80s or 90s? Is he different from the Curtis Sliwa who ran for mayor four years ago?
Sliwa: Well, clearly, the real New Yorker. I don't think even my critics would question that. You know, my bona fides, born in New York, spent my time in New York. I'll end up dying in New York. I know more about New York City than any of the candidates, in terms of the subways in all, 472 stations, 350 projects, homeless shelters, 350 communities that make up the five boroughs. So in terms of my working knowledge of the city itself as it exists, that gives me an advantage that the other candidates don't have. Because mostly they are familiar with neighborhoods that are somewhat friendly to them. They don't really venture into what would be called 'unfriendly' areas. I go into all areas, especially in the places where the only Republican they've ever seen is Abraham Lincoln on a $5 bill. Although I may not get the votes that was obvious in the first election, I get the respect for what I've done as leader of the Guardian Angels and how long I've been a figure in the history of New York City. So this time around, of course, I'm a much better candidate, having learned from the first election. That was my only election, the only time I actually ran. I've been involved in politics, both from a Democratic side and the Republican side. I was the chairman of the New York State Reform Party...But from that first election, I realized, 'okay, these, these are the areas that I did well in.' I got 28 percent of the vote. That was back then, traditional election Democratic nominee Eric Adams, we didn't know about his baggage. Curtis Sliwa the Republican, first mayoral candidate. Now, four years later, it's rare that you have four people running for the mayoralty who are as well known. Three of them who've been well known for years, and Zohran Mamdani, who's been like a phenom. Six months ago, only his constituents in Astoria knew him and his neighbors. Now the world knows Zohran Mamdani. Those three are Democrats. Zohran, obviously the most radical, but then you have Eric Adams, who's a Democrat, and still continues to say he's a Democrat, as does Cuomo, versus the one Republican. So I think that's my pathway to victory. There's four, I'm different from the other three, and that's what defines me. Now I know where I have to go to get the votes that can put me over the top. Whereas in the first race I was very much at times, having to feel my way through the process. I had to fight in a primary against Fernando Mateo. I beat him. This time around, I had no primary. All the Republicans were on board and supporting me. Now there are four candidates instead of just two.
Eagle: Digging into one of your top issues - public safety. You have proposed advocating for rolling back a number of state and city criminal justice reforms - a local ban on solitary confinement and chokeholds, state laws like Raise the Age and the Less is More Act. What’s your pitch to Albany and the City Council to hear you out on these issues?
Sliwa: In the state legislature, you don't have that kind of impact on them, because it's the state, and they control a lot of what happens in the city, unfortunately. But you can go into their districts, and especially when it comes to criminal justice, you can name and shame. When all of a sudden the cops can't do their job, or there is a series of violent crimes that are the result to raise the age, or Cuomo's no bail...which he doubled down on in the Democratic primary, then you can sort of shine a light on that individual who is an impediment in that area and trying to make it so that a cop can do their job better. The bigger issue than even the two issues that you brought up is the qualified immunity. In 2019 the City Council stripped the police of qualified immunity (Note: the Council revoked qualified immunity in 2021). All 300 civil servants have qualified immunity, including all the elected officials and their staff. That means they can't personally be sued, but cops now can be personally sued, and the state legislature passed their own qualified immunity bill, that Cuomo okayed, Adams never fought it. They didn't put up a fight, they basically rolled on it. That is the one key concern that cops tell me time and time again that prevent them from physically intervening, because they fear that whatever investment they made in a house, whatever equity they have will be ripped from them, and they're going to have to go out and get their own attorneys, which they clearly can't afford, and the PBA doesn't always supply the attorneys. So if you can do that for the men and women that we desperately need to join the police department because we don't have enough people in the police department, then I think you go a long way in addressing the other issues.
Eagle: On a similar note, you say you’ll keep Rikers open. You’ll need the City Council to work with you in order to make that happen. Also, the city has already poured billions into the construction of the four Borough Based Jails. What’s your solution there?
Sliwa: I remember when that movement first came about. It was led by then Governor Andrew Cuomo and Preet Bharara, who was a U.S. Attorney Southern District. To his credit, I was never a fan of De Blasio, he said, 'No, we need to keep Rikers Island open.' But he was overwhelmed by the opposition. They talked about these community jails that are a boondoggle. Notice, Staten Island doesn't have a community jail, but the other four boroughs do. The price has already gone beyond 2 billion per facility, and it's only going to house, you know, a few 100 inmates. And supposedly deal with those that are mentally ill. I'd say No. I am the only candidate who has not only been to Rikers Island, I've done radio programs from there. I've taught in the high school there. I've lectured there. This is back when Bernie Kerik was the commissioner of corrections for Rudy Giuliani. I've been locked up there in the days of Ed Koch, where they would lose my paperwork, ship me to Rikers Island, and then I'd be in a dormitory with 440 guys. I know what the Bing is, I know what solitary confinement is, I know what protective custody is. All of those terms I got a chance to see up front and close and personally experience some of them. Now, the problem is you have gangs that control whole tiers of Rikers Island. Half the buildings are empty. They need rehab. The biggest problem is always ventilation. It was when I first went out there, and it continues to be. There's no need to build these other facilities. Now you may say, 'Okay, we've already put in quite a bit of money. We're already in the building phase for some of these community jails.' They could be used for other needs, people who are emotionally disturbed, people who are homeless. That doesn't necessarily mean you're a criminal. So I would say if the money had to be spent because it's already been allocated and you want to build a prison, I say no, no, no, no, let it be sort of a rehab center for the emotionally disturbed. We certainly don't have enough for that, or for the homeless, which is a continuous problem here in the city, but not as a borough wide jail. If you could not make bail, if you had to be remanded to jail, now, obviously, a lot of these DAs, they never ask for bail. It's like [Manhattan DA Alvin] Bragg, and Darcel Clark up in the Bronx, they almost never asked for bail. People get remanded to the streets, but for those who do have to be assigned to Rikers Island because they've been given a year or less on their sentence, and it doesn't require them to go upstate, or they haven't been able to make bail, and they're languishing around until they have a court hearing, and then it's adjudicated. Rikers Island is the perfect place to be. Unfortunately, it's under federal receivership. Now you have citizens running it, not really correctional officers. They may be functioning as the guards, but really it is the feds who have taken over Rikers Island under Eric Adams administration, that's an embarrassment. The feds are running Rikers Island? They can't even run the MDC in Brooklyn, that federal jail is falling apart. That's a mess. So you go from bad to worse. You go from the city running Rikers Island, ineptly, to now the Feds running Rikers Island, which is a complete catastrophe.
Eagle: What do you think of the current crime trends in NYC, which appear to have begun to turn a corner in recent months.
Sliwa: I love what Jessica Tish says now at all the press conferences with all these violent acts, 'it's an anomaly'. Hey lady, you've done a good job straightening up the corruption in One Police Plaza. It was a mess. You inherited a mess. A crooked police commissioner, friend of Eric Adams, Eddie Caban on the 14th floor, and Mr. Caligula himself, Jeffrey Maddrey on the 13th floor. Chief of Patrol, basically, would give a female overtime as a member of the police force or a civilian member in order to pleasurerize him. Complete disaster. [Tisch] has done a very good job straightening that out. But when she talks about crime, she's as insensitive as Eric Adams, it's a perception, a perception, a perception. No, it's not. A lot of crimes don't even get reported. I'll give you the basic crimes that people face each and every day in a borough like Queens, like mail theft. Most people live in a city where they're never subject to shootings or murders, but they are subject to assault, they are subject to rapes. They are subject to the violation of their quality of life by people who never get arrested for everything they do in doing that.
Eagle: I'm gonna turn away from public safety for a moment and look at affordability. You've talked about a plan to move away from Area Median Income. Could you talk about that a bit?
Sliwa: When you talk about affordability, what is available for people to have affordable accommodation regardless of their income level? The problem is we don't have enough available apartments that are right now on the marketplace. There's close to 100,000 available apartments right across the spectrum, and the city is the worst violator. They have 6,000 empty units in NYCHA, many of them in the housing projects, in Queens. How could you have empty apartments that the city is the landlord of at a time where the mayor and other elected officials are saying we don't have enough apartments? The City of Yes, that the mayor was able to push through the council with support of the developers and support of the far-left to be able to come in and tell you, in a residential area, we're going to put up a 40 story apartment building, no parking. We don't have to go through any zoning regulations. We don't have to meet with a local elected official, council person, we don't have to go through the Community Board. We have the ability just to do that, and that, to me, is not creating affordable housing or making it anytime soon, more available to consumers.
Eagle: Flooding is probably Queen's most persistent issue, especially as climate change exacerbates serious storms. First, how would you address the issue, and how would you manage a major flooding event as mayor?
Sliwa: Broad Channel, Howard Beach, all those areas that were built in a floodplain, you can make the argument that they should not have ever been built there, because of the floodplain, and also the fact that it's a nature preserve, But it's already been done. There is no attention. Every time there's a little spritz in Southeast Queens, where I was the other day, Rosedale, in Far Rockaway, Bayswater. All throughout those areas, and they are sort of out of sight, out of mind. The only time the politicians go out there is when there is a severe flood. Other than that, they're never out there to deal with the needs of the people. Now it's going to cost a lot of money to get them compliant, to put the sewage in and the drainage that is necessary. I am a believer in global warming and climate change. That's unusual for a Republican. We're going to end up with more and more severe rain downfall, more and more storms, squalls, super storms. South Queens, it's just not where it needs to be, even though the money after Superstorm Sandy was banked, put aside, the federal, state and local officials have been moving at a snail's pace. I would put that entire plan on steroids.it. I think the thing's about to end, but I have just a few more quick questions we can do in the gap.
Eagle: If elected, how would staff your administration. Are there any people you are eyeing for top deputy positions?
Curtis Sliwa answered this question, but due to technical difficulties it was not recorded. While he didn’t say he would explicitly appoint them to his administration if elected, Sliwa was complimentary of Queens Councilmember Bob Holden and conservative commentator Larry Kudlow. He also added he would keep Jessica Tisch as commissioner of the NYPD, despite having some disagreements.
Eagle: Who would you say your current closest advisors are on policy and political issues? You mentioned Bob Holden.
Sliwa: Without a doubt, Governor George Pataki, he's been an extraordinary mentor in terms of all issues affecting government and how to create a bipartisan feeling. Dov Hikind is my number one supporter in the Jewish community. He served in the state legislature 38 years. He served with Eric Adams when he was a state senator, he served in Albany when Cuomo was both attorney general and governor, and yet he's supporting me because he understands the inconsistencies of what they say and what they've done. I’d say those are the two key advisors I rely on quite a bit.
Eagle: Name one Queens elected official, past or present, that you admire, and why?
Sliwa: Obviously I think I have to recuse myself. If I was to say the Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, mother of my two youngest sons. This way, when I come visit my son, she won't indict me when I cross over the Queens. No, it's Bob Holden, without a doubt, even though he's term limited, I would say the other is Joanne Ariola, who is the minority leader in the City Council for the Republicans. I'd say those two. There's a whole bunch. Vickie Paladino. I'd say it's the trinity, the Troika, the trifecta. So I cannot take one above another. I would say, you got Bob Holden, you got Joann Ariola, you got Vickie Paladino. That's a lot of experience, and they've all been community organizers before they served in elected office.
