Mayor Eric Adams, facing a major crisis that is worsening by the day, quickly appointed a new schools chancellor on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the abrupt resignation of David C. Banks, his longtime friend.
A top deputy of Mr. Banks’s, Melissa Aviles-Ramos, will take over in January, after Mr. Banks’s resignation takes effect. Ms. Aviles-Ramos, who previously served as Mr. Banks’s chief of staff and is close with the outgoing chancellor, is relatively unknown outside the Education Department.
The immediacy of the appointment seemed intended to project stability amid the chaos engulfing Mr. Adams’s administration, as it confronts at least four federal corruption inquiries and a flurry of resignations among senior officials.
The setting of Wednesday’s news conference also seemed intended to show continuity: It was held at the Bronx high school that Mr. Banks founded several decades ago, and school superintendents and other senior education officials were summoned to attend as a demonstration of support and strength.
But it is anything but business at usual at City Hall.
Mr. Adams, a Democrat who is running for re-election next year, has faced growing calls to resign. He has insisted that he is staying put.
“I’m stepping up, not stepping down,” the mayor said at a news conference on Tuesday. “I have a city to run that I will continue to run.”
Over the last 13 days, Mr. Adams has accepted one resignation after another. His police commissioner Edward A. Caban, stepped down, as did the city’s top lawyer, Lisa Zornberg, and the city’s health commissioner, Ashwin Vasan.
The mayor’s prospects of winning re-election next year — and even possibly serving out the remainder of his term — appear to be narrowing every day.
His critics have taken notice.
“This sudden and unexpected announcement raises questions about the continued viability of this mayoralty,” State Senator John C. Liu said in a statement after Mr. Banks’s resignation, adding ominously: “Heaven help our city.”
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a prominent progressive Democrat, said on Tuesday that she was considering calling on Mr. Adams to resign, telling the news outlet Semafor: “We all should be getting to a point of whether this mayor can actually reasonably continue to serve the city of New York and staff his administration.”
Already, six state and city lawmakers have called on Mr. Adams to resign. Other leaders, including some of the candidates challenging him in next year’s Democratic primary, have said they have lost confidence in his ability to manage the city.
While the mayor and Mr. Banks were careful to use the word “retire” rather than “resign” in their public statements, in private conversations with reporters, representatives for both men are not bothering to claim that the move was part of some preordained plan.
Earlier this month, as Mr. Banks was preparing for another school year, federal agents showed up around dawn at the home he shares with his fiancée, Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, and seized their phones. Mr. Banks’s two younger brothers, Philip B. Banks III, the deputy mayor for public safety, and Terence Banks, also had their phones seized.
The chancellor has grown increasingly alarmed about what he perceives as the chaos at City Hall, according to people with direct knowledge of his thinking, and the phone seizures have made him question the value of remaining in his post.
Tension between Mr. Banks and Mr. Adams has been growing for months over divergent messaging on hot-button issues, including the city’s ability to integrate migrant students into schools and the availability of prekindergarten seats.
Mr. Banks’s sudden announcement caught even senior leadership at the Education Department off guard on Tuesday, according to multiple employees.
For Mr. Banks — who has spent much of the last 30 years publicly and privately saying that the chancellorship was his dream job — to abruptly announce his resignation less than three weeks into the school year highlights the depth of the instability at City Hall.
Mr. Adams has relied on a small circle of advisers to keep things running as the investigations have swirled around his administration. His weekly news conference on Tuesday featured a shrinking dais of top officials who are staying put, at least for now — and who are not under investigation.
The mayor commended two deputy mayors, Maria Torres-Springer and Anne Williams-Isom, for continuing to focus on housing and the migrant crisis. He insisted that he was optimistic about the future despite the gathering storm clouds.
“I love every day being the mayor of the city of New York, changing the lives of New Yorkers and everything that comes with it,” he said. “I am more excited now being mayor than I was when I took my oath of office in the beginning.”
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