Eric Adams at 100 days: Great talk, but NYC needs results

Under Eric Adams, New York City is — in some ways — moving in the right direction. But the mayor needs to move a lot faster. Matthew McDermott

Sunday marks Mayor Eric Adams’ 100th day in office. The man who wants to give New York back its swagger is saying (and in some cases doing) most of the right things.

On crime, in particular, he’s hit back at Albany’s inadequate fixes in the state budget as leaving “more to be done” (an understatement) and pointed out the ugly fact that when crime goes up “the overwhelming number of the victims are black and brown.”

Beyond pushing for changes to the no-bail and Raise the Age laws, he’s launched a return to policing “quality of life” offenses as well as deploying anti-gun squads. And he’s sent out social-services units to try to get the homeless occupying our transit system the help they need.

But those homeless-outreach teams lack major manpower, and the anti-gun units can’t go truly undercover. And crime continues to climb.

On COVID, our mayor loves to remind us — correctly — that for kids in the pandemic “the safest place to be is in school.” He rightly refused to cave to teachers unions on Omicron closures and most mask-mandate clawbacks. But he still, insanely, has refused to unmask the youngest kids in the public schools, though their COVID risk is effectively zero.

And while he’s said of our hollowed-out business districts, “I have to get people back in their offices,” he still hasn’t lifted the city’s absurd private-sector vaccine mandate — except for athletes and entertainers.

Women protest Mayor Eric Adams’ vaccine policies in Times Square on April 8, 2022.

Robert Miller

You can’t build an economic comeback around Kyrie Irving, Mr. Mayor.

Admittedly, Adams came into office facing some major headwinds. COVID, and the lingering malaise from New York’s overreaction to it. Not to mention the overall dysfunction left behind by his utterly unlamented predecessor, Bill de Blasio.

But mayors are judged on results, and Adams has yet to make the kind of progress New York needs. Being better than de Blasio — as he unquestionably is — isn’t remotely enough.

His words around crime policy could be a motto for his administration: “You’re going to hate me now, but you’re going to love me later.” It’s a claim that he’s no run-of-the-mill political panderer.

Shootings continue to surge in the Big Apple while Mayor Eric Adams demands Albany’s lawmakers to reverse bail reform.

Robert Mecea

And, yes, beneficial policies can be unpopular. But his core policies — getting serious on crime, demanding excellence in education, etc. — are popular except with the far left and the special interests. And nothing but surrender will appease them; he needs to find a way to mobilize his popular support to beat back the nay-sayers.

In the end, the measure of his success will be sinking crime, rising employment rates and the end — not just for the elite — of our last, pointless COVID rules.

Under Adams, New York is — in some ways — moving in the right direction. But the mayor needs to move a lot faster.

Otherwise, he might find himself with a city so swagger-free it’s unrecognizable.