Last week, our administration’s senior leadership came together to celebrate our historic achievements and enduring accomplishments over the past four years. Assembling this diverse and experienced team of dedicated public servants from all backgrounds and all boroughs was an accomplishment in itself.
This was the first administration to have five women deputy mayors, the first woman police commissioner — and the second woman police commissioner. We had the first Dominican deputy mayor, the first Filipino deputy mayor, the first East Indian deputy mayor, and the first Persian deputy mayor — an administration that looks like the city it serves and that has delivered for our city every single day.
I want to thank everyone who took on the task of building a better city and succeeded by every possible metric. Four years after we took office during a pandemic and a crime wave, we can say with confidence: New York City has never stood stronger than it does right now. Record jobs, record homes, record small businesses, record early childhood education enrollment, record investments in homelessness, record safety, and so much more.
The last four years have been a testament to what we can achieve when dedicated public servants work together to put sound policy into practice. These wins were the result of smart, focused leadership, common-sense thinking, and reasonable, responsible solutions.
This “radically pragmatic” approach is how you get four years of declining crime and four years of record-breaking economic expansion. It’s how you clear the way for a new generation of housing and change the conversation on homelessness and mental health. It’s how you cut the cost of childcare and increase the average New Yorker’s lifespan. It’s how you boost student test scores and keep our streets and parks clean, green, and rat-free. It’s how we Got Stuff Done and how we will leave New York safer, stronger, and more resilient than ever before.
America’s safest big city is now even safer. I am proud we leave this city with the fewest number of shootings in recorded history under our administration. Public safety was the prerequisite for prosperity, and we broke the record for the most jobs and the most small businesses in our city’s history. And then we did that again…and again…and again.
Housing had become a generational issue, holding working people back — so we took action and laid the foundation for a fairer, more affordable future. After 60 years of diversions and delay, we passed the most pro-housing legislation in the city’s history. We turned New York City into a “City of Yes,” and in the years to come, thousands of New Yorkers will move into new housing that is safe and affordable thanks to the work we did together.
We centered the needs of working people at every turn, putting $30 billion back in the pockets of working-class people with smart policies designed to have immediate impact. These included lowering the cost of subsidized childcare by more than 90 percent, wiping out medical debt, cutting taxes for low-income New Yorkers, giving 330,000 NYCHA residents free broadband internet, and more. And we did it all with sound fiscal management, leaving our city with the highest budget reserves in the history of the city.
I want to thank every public servant who worked so hard to keep New York the greatest city in the world, a city that can live up to our ideals and lift up those in need — people like my mother, Dorothy Mae Adams, a single mom who worked multiple jobs to raise her six kids. She never stopped fighting to provide her family with a better life, and, for the last four years, we have never stopped fighting to do the same for New Yorkers and their families.
Thank you to our senior leadership, the entire City Hall team, and the hundreds of thousands of city employees across all the agencies who helped make all these record achievements a reality for working-class New Yorkers. You rewrote the playbook on public safety and public spaces, education and the economy, health care, homelessness, and housing. Your work has changed our city for the better, and it will stand the test of time.
Above all, thank you to the people of New York City, for electing me to serve as your mayor. It has been the honor of a lifetime, and the work we have done together has laid the foundation for a better, safer, more affordable city going forward.
Photo: Ed Reed, Mayoral Photography Office
