Eric Adams leaves City Hall with a mixed legacy

When Mayor Eric Adams announced on Sept. 28 that he would withdraw from the 2025 mayoral race, it marked the stunning political fall of a man who once seemed perfectly tailored for New York City’s post-pandemic moment.

A former NYPD captain who campaigned on restoring safety and confidence, Adams entered office in January 2022 promising to make the city “feel safe again.” In many ways, he did. But the corruption investigations that consumed his administration — and ultimately ended his re-election bid — leave behind a far more complicated legacy.

Adams’s rise reflected a city anxious about crime, weary from COVID-19, and distrustful of both political extremes. He won as a centrist Democrat who blended tough-on-crime rhetoric with populist language aimed at working-class New Yorkers. Under his leadership, shootings and murders declined from pandemic-era highs. 

For many residents in the Bronx, including those in Riverdale and Kingsbridge, that renewed sense of safety mattered. Neighborhood groups applauded his focus on public order, even as others criticized his heavy reliance on policing as the city’s cure-all. Yet the sense of stability was often overshadowed by controversy.

While Adams cultivated the image of a blue-collar mayor who rode the subway, chatted with neighbors, and took selfies on the street, his administration developed a reputation for blurred ethical lines and opaque decision-making. Federal prosecutors are now examining whether his 2021 campaign illegally accepted foreign contributions and whether city officials intervened to benefit donors and allies. Several aides have faced subpoenas or indictments. 

Though Adams has denied wrongdoing, the cloud of investigation is too heavy to ignore.

His decision to bow out of the race cements his image as a mayor who lost control of his own narrative. Adams often compared himself to everyday New Yorkers — the “blue-collar mayor” fighting bureaucratic elites — yet it was his proximity to power, not his populism, that brought him down.

Still, it would be a mistake to define his entire administration by scandal alone. Adams helped steer the city through the economic turbulence of the early 2020s, reviving tourism, stabilizing municipal finances and maintaining New York’s credit rating despite persistent fiscal strain. His attention to the Bronx was genuine — he made multiple visits to the borough, supported youth employment programs, and promoted NYPD-community engagement initiatives. For many outer-borough voters, those efforts made City Hall feel a little closer to home.

But Adams struggled to articulate a vision that extended beyond policing. His housing agenda sputtered, hindered by poor coordination with state leaders and a combative relationship with the City Council. Here in Riverdale, his proposed zoning and charter revisions have left Community Board 8 and many residents alarmed, fearing that local voices are being stripped from city planning decisions.

Perhaps the most damaging wound to his legacy is the erosion of public trust. New Yorkers have long tolerated eccentric mayors, but ethical lapses are another matter. Adams’s predecessors, from Rudy Giuliani to Bill de Blasio, left office polarizing but largely intact. Adams leaves under federal investigation, his once-promising political career clouded by suspicion and disappointment.

His tenure should serve as both warning and reminder. New York needs leaders who understand its diversity and grit — who can walk the streets and speak to every block of the city — but it also needs transparency, discipline and humility.

Adams’s early achievements in crime reduction and public reassurance showed what was possible when City Hall reconnected with ordinary New Yorkers. His downfall shows what happens when power eclipses accountability.

Eric Adams promised to make the city safe. In many ways, he did. But safety is not only about crime statistics — it is about trust in government, faith in fairness and confidence that leadership serves the public, not itself. On that score, his legacy remains unfinished.