Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at the meeting between President Trump and Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion. We’ll also meet a longtime policymaker who believes the agency he now works for can help realize the mayor’s goal of making the city more affordable.
Once again, they were all smiles, at least outside Gracie Mansion. President Trump and Mayor Zohran Mamdani — polar opposites, politically and ideologically — did not say whether things had been any different inside during a conversation that touched on affordability, immigration and the prospects for a huge project to build 12,000 housing units in Queens. The mayor — a democratic socialist who has been a favorite target of Republicans, including, at times, Trump — didn’t hide his differences with the president. “The president and I have both been very frank about the many disagreements that we have,” the mayor said after Trump had left. Earlier, in the president’s presence, he described as “productive” their conversation about the deportation protections that the Trump administration recently eliminated for thousands of Haitians. The mayor said he had made the case that the Haitian community was an essential part of the city’s economy in explaining why he raised the issue of Temporary Protected Status. With the president standing next to him, Mamdani said that “we appreciate the president’s commitment to the city.” Trump said that among the 111 mayors who have governed the city before Mamdani, there were “some great ones and some not-so-great ones.” “So, hopefully, you’re going to be a great one,” the president told the mayor. A huge and complicated projectMamdani said that the city was “sincerely invested and committed” to building the Queens project, Sunnyside Yard, as an “idea.” He said the project offered “the possibility of constructing an entirely new neighborhood.” He also said that he and the president had “made an agreement” that discussions about the project would be “elevated” to include “our housing teams, our operations teams and the White House.” “I appreciate the president, his interest in this,” the mayor said. Trump called the Sunnyside Yard project “a big job” and a “very federal-oriented job.” “You’re going to need a lot of federal approvals and probably some federal money to do it,” Trump said, “but it’s always been a great location.” The president and the mansionTrump characterized his stop at Gracie Mansion as “a little bit of old home week for me.” It was not Trump’s first visit to the official residence of the city’s mayors, although it was his first as president. He went there twice when Michael Bloomberg was mayor, once for former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s wedding to Judith Nathan. Bloomberg, who was the mayor at the time, officiated. (Bloomberg did not live at Gracie Mansion — his home was a townhouse that he owned elsewhere on the Upper East Side.) The president revealed that Mamdani had debated about whether to live in Gracie Mansion after he won office — and that they had talked about it. “You were maybe having some doubts about moving in because it’s a little bit on the luxurious side,” Trump said, turning to the mayor, “and I said, ‘When you’re the mayor, you have to live there.’” WEATHER A cloudy day is ahead with a high near 66. Cloudy conditions will continue tonight with a low around 55. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Saturday (Sukkot). QUOTE OF THE DAY “I never second-guessed myself. I got the guy I wanted.” — Ernie Accorsi, who as general manager of the Giants brought quarterback Eli Manning to the team. The Giants went on to win the Super Bowl twice, with Manning as the most valuable player both times. The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. The official responsible for delivering on Mamdani’s economic development agenda
Anthony Shorris, who started a new job two weeks ago, says that Mamdani’s plan for five city-owned grocery stores does not go far enough. That’s an unusual snippet of openness, considering that Shorris now works for Mamdani as the president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Officially, it’s a nonprofit, but it’s controlled by City Hall. My colleague Dana Rubinstein says Mamdani’s predecessors have worked it “like a Swiss army knife to achieve policy goals outside of the often sclerotic city bureaucracy.” Shorris sees groceries as “a symbol for the larger issue, food affordability, which is broad and important” — and an integral part of the issue that Mamdani campaigned on last year. Shorris also says that he does not believe that “the only intervention in food” is grocery stores. “We should think of it systematically and ask the question: Where should the public intervene in the marketplace?” he said, arguing that there are levers the city could use besides the city-owned markets. Some question whether five stores in a city of more than eight million people can make a difference; others say they are an intrusion that will hurt privately owned markets in the neighborhoods where they open. Mamdani appeared inclined to deprioritize economic development when he took office, and when he finally named Shorris to the job, some business leaders saw him as a counterweight to Lina Khan, the former head of the Federal Trade Commission. Mamdani chose her to be chairwoman of the economic development corporation. “Yeah, there’s some business leaders who agree with the mayor, and others don’t,” said Shorris — who was first deputy mayor in Bill de Blasio’s first term and was the finance commissioner for the last year of Mayor Edward Koch’s third term, in the 1980s. “Sure, no kidding, I’ve been doing this for 50 years. There’s never been a mayor that they all love.” And he believes that another of Mamdani’s campaign promises — to raise the city’s minimum wage — “is the most important thing we could do.” And, as he adds, “We did it the last time I was in government,” when de Blasio was mayor. “It took hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.” It would require state approval and has so far not been a priority for Mamdani, who has focused more on winning support in Albany for the city budget and higher taxes for the rich. METROPOLITAN DIARY At the River Café
Dear Diary: I’m 90. He is 92. Our 56th wedding anniversary was coming up. It had been a tough year. Surgery. Hospitalizations. But we were both heathy by this point and ready to celebrate. For us, there is no better place to do that than the River Café, with its glorious views of the New York skyline. Our table was right at the window. Sitting nearby was a woman wearing a gorgeous necklace. She and a man I took to be her husband got up to leave before we did. He had been sitting right next to me, and I had asked him to tell his wife how stunning her necklace was and that I had been admiring it all evening. He gestured for her to came back to our table. I repeated my comments. She reached back and opened the necklace. I was delighted to be able to get a closer look. Instead, she placed it around my neck. “You are such a lovely couple,” she said. “Enjoy it.” With that, they left the restaurant. My husband and I were in shock. Later, as we were leaving, a woman approached me. “Your necklace is stunning,” she said. “I’ve been admiring it.” — Barbara McNamara Lerner Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
