It wasn’t quite love at first sight, but it did not take New York’s business elite long to embrace Eric Adams.
As he rose to the top of the polls in the mayor’s race in 2021 — and more traditionally business-friendly candidates sank to the bottom — the power brokers who help shape city politics looked past Mr. Adams’s previous ethical problems and backed his candidacy.
Over the nearly three years since he took office, many in the business community stuck by him as his legal troubles mounted, at least in part because of his pro-business agenda.
Now, corruption charges imperil Mr. Adams’s ability to enact any policy goals, and even threaten to end his mayoralty. And some in the business community are grappling with the responsibility they may bear for a crisis that has engulfed the city.
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire grocery store chain owner, said big business was willing to overlook Mr. Adams’s issues because he “was the best-case scenario for the business community.” That held true, he said, even as it became clear that he was surrounding himself with unqualified and in some cases unscrupulous aides and advisers.
“No matter what stupid thing the people around him did, Adams was the boss,” said Mr. Catsimatidis, who donated $2,100 to Mr. Adams’s re-election campaign, the maximum permitted, according to public records.
Now, as Mr. Adams’s prospects for re-election dim and calls for his resignation continue, business leaders are grappling with the implications for City Hall.
“What I hear is people frightened that they’ll get somebody that hates the business community,” Mr. Catsimatidis said.
Olivia Leirer, the co-executive director of New York Communities for Change, a nonprofit antipoverty group, said business leaders are in a crisis they helped to create.
“They shot themselves in the foot,” said Ms. Leirer, whose group often spars with business leaders on housing and other issues. “This makes it much harder to do business in the city, when you don’t have an effective government.”
In the days since Mr. Adams’s indictment, many business leaders have gone quiet.
The Real Estate Board of New York, the industry’s main lobbying arm, did not respond to requests for comment about the indictment. Neither did the Association for a Better New York, a business group whose members include tech firms like Amazon and major commercial developers including SL Green.
Kathryn Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group that represents some of the biggest companies in finance, real estate and management, said that business leaders’ reluctance to weigh in on the mayor’s troubles reflected a longstanding reluctance to wade into political scandal.
She said the business community should not be blamed for Mr. Adams’s current predicament because they see their responsibility as helping whomever is mayor.
Many business leaders are concerned about the “stability of the city,” she said, which creates an environment conducive for businesses to thrive. Amid a rush of resignations from high-ranking city officials, one of the goals of business leaders is making sure the people working for the administration don’t “desert ship because they think the ship is sinking,” Ms. Wylde said.
But records and interviews showed that many business leaders continued to support Mr. Adams long after federal agents seized his phone last November, and a number of his close associates’ homes were searched.
Mr. Adams’s re-election campaign raised more than $1 million in the first half of the year, more than twice his closest opponent, according to campaign finance records.
Members of the Dolan family, which owns Madison Square Garden, gave maximum donations of $2,100, for a total of $8,400 through July, the latest month data was available.
A spokeswoman for James Dolan, the chief executive of MSG Entertainment, did not respond to a request for comment.
Former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire, donated $5,000, the maximum allowed, to Mr. Adams’s legal defense fund in December.
Hal Fetner, a major real estate developer, also gave the maximum donation to Mr. Adams’s re-election campaign in July.
“I have no regrets about my past donation to the mayor’s re-election campaign,” Mr. Fetner said in a statement, adding that he will reserve judgment until after a possible trial.
An ally with issues
Not long after taking office, Mr. Adams welcomed leaders from some of the city’s most influential companies into his residence at Gracie Mansion. He also set up a weekly Friday 7:30 a.m. call with business leaders.
“There was definitely a feeling in the business community that he had the right orientation and was definitely much more receptive to hearing from us,” said Steve Rattner, chairman and chief executive of Willett Advisors LLC, the investment firm that manages the personal and philanthropic assets of Mr. Bloomberg.
Business leaders saw reasons to count Mr. Adams as an ally.
The business community just lived through eight years of Bill de Blasio — a mayor they viewed as generally hostile to their needs. In an interview, Mr. de Blasio said he could have been more “diplomatic” but cited growth in jobs and housing during his tenure that shows he was able to have success working with the business community.
Business leaders saw a much more pliant partner in Mr. Adams, who publicly drew parallels between business interests and the city’s economic health. Mr. Adams met regularly with business leaders; he held news conferences to herald billion-dollar development projects and storefront restaurants; he was an ebullient booster for New York City businesses at a time when the coronavirus pandemic had laid the city low.
And he had regular conversations with Mr. Bloomberg — both a former mayor and a towering figure in the city’s business world.
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said the mayor has catered to the needs of both business leaders and the working class, by expanding affordable housing and improving public safety, among other things. “This isn’t a one or another scenario,” he said.
But there was tension. Several business leaders believed Mr. Adams did not have the right team to execute his vision. There wasn’t always follow through on the issues that came up during the weekly calls. In an effort not to embarrass the mayor, some members of the board of the Partnership for New York City, often made up of leaders of the most important industries in the city, spoke privately with Mr. Adams regarding their concerns, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
“He said, ‘I’m comfortable with who I’m comfortable with,’” Mr. Rattner said. “And that was the end of that.”
There were signs in Mr. Adams’s past that suggested his associations could lead him into trouble.
In 2009, as a state senator in charge of leading the Racing, Gaming and Wagering Committee, Mr. Adams was found by the State Inspector General to have shown “exceptionally poor judgment” in his relationships with lobbyists seeking to win a contract at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. Federal investigators did not bring charges against him.
As Brooklyn borough president in 2014, Mr. Adams was again investigated for a conflict of interest, after his staff members solicited local businesses to donate to a nonprofit that he controlled. No formal action was taken and the mayor denied wrongdoing.
John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good government group, said the business community “chose to ignore” Mr. Adams’s potential flaws.
“Maybe the package is a bit unsavory, but he’s a known quantity, and has the support of some conservative elements in New York,” Mr. Kaehny said.
A Different World
Behind the scenes, business groups are quietly working to find Mr. Adams’s replacement. Separately, Ms. Wylde met recently with Jumaane Williams, the public advocate, who would become mayor if Mr. Adams were to resign or be removed.
At the same time, the business world has been careful not to repudiate the mayor, in the event that he recovers from the indictment, said Lori Yue, an associate professor at Columbia Business School who studies the intersection of business and politics.
“The business community has to weigh the risk,” she said. “Cut ties now, or maintain them and be stigmatized later.”
But with Mr. Adams now facing a crop of left-leaning candidates looking to replace him, and the prospect of more criminal charges, some of the business world’s favored policies may be in jeopardy.
The mayor’s so-called City of Yes zoning proposals, which could enable more than 100,000 new homes to be built, could be hamstrung by emboldened opponents. The Queens Civic Congress, a network of community groups that have criticized the plan, demanded on Monday that the plans be postponed, because of the ongoing federal investigations.
The moment reflects a departure from the kind of influence Big Business once exerted on City Hall.
In 1975, with New York on the brink of bankruptcy, a group of business leaders wrested control of the city’s finances with the help of Gov. Hugh Carey. In a move widely credited with saving the city from financial ruin, the state formed an independent corporation headed by Felix Rohatyn, a prominent investment banker, to make tough fiscal decisions.
There is no such galvanizing event today, said Richard Sylla, a professor emeritus of financial history at New York University. Indeed, the business class fared well under the Adams administration, with some of the biggest wage increases in the city going to New York’s high-income earners.
“The financial community regards this as petty political corruption, not something that threatens the financial solvency of the city,” Dr. Sylla said. “It’s the sort of corruption businessmen expect public officials to engage in.”
Charles E. Phillips, the managing partner of Recognize, a private equity firm, served as the chairman of the mayoral campaign of Raymond J. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, before becoming an informal adviser to Mr. Adams.
He said the business community is worried about how the mayor’s indictment will affect the city’s “brand and reputation,” but many people are still willing to give Mr. Adams the benefit of the doubt.
“In the scheme of things, you look at flight upgrades, hotel upgrades — politicians get those all the time,” said Mr. Phillips, who is also a board member of the Partnership for the City of New York. “We’re just kind of watching it. Innocent until proven guilty. Let’s see how it happens.”
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