Good morning. It's Monday. We'll look at Mayor Eric Adams's first couple of days in office. We'll also look at another first Monday in January, one that was a milestone for the Brooklyn Bridge. |
 | | Dave Sanders for The New York Times |
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Mayor Eric Adams's tenure is still so new it can be counted in low single digits (days) or medium double digits (hours). But the city's problems did not take time off for the holidays. Hours after Adams took office, an off-duty police officer, sleeping in his car between shifts in Harlem, was hit by a bullet fired from a distance. Officials said it did not appear that the officer had been targeted. Nor was a suspect quickly identified. Adams went to the hospital where the officer was recovering and called gun violence "unacceptable." (The officer was released from the hospital on Sunday.) |
Adams's agenda would have been challenging without that incident or another that he witnessed in the early hours of his mayoralty — a fight on a Brooklyn street. The city's economy was struggling to regain its footing even before the recent Omicron-driven surge raised concerns about staffing shortages beyond hospitals. "You may wait longer for a D train," the subway system's Twitter account cautioned on Saturday. "We're running as much service as we can with the train crews we have available." |
But with a different mayor, there is a different relationship between City Hall and Albany. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio feuded constantly. Adams has a base of Black, Latino and moderate voters that Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to tap into as she runs for election to a full term. And she controls money that Adams needs to jump-start his agenda, which includes a $1 billion expansion of the earned-income tax credit to help moderate and low-income families. |
As my colleague Jeffery C. Mays explains, the two camps are busy politicking. With Hochul facing a contested primary, Adams is well aware that he has leverage: In November, Adams, who did not endorse anyone for comptroller or public advocate in the Democratic primary for citywide offices, said he planned to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary for governor. |
Hochul has said she will work with the mayor on revisiting the state's bail laws, with Adams suggesting that recent increases in crime could be attributed to changes in the law that ended cash bail for many low-level offenses. |
But State Senator Michael Gianaris, a sponsor of some bail reform measures, said efforts to change the bail law would "set the stage for a less than amicable relationship" with the State Legislature "right out of the box." |
For now, there are signs of coordination. Hochul and Adams have been in touch about her State of the State address, scheduled for Wednesday, and the policy proposals she has in mind. They have also reached out to business leaders, seeking guidance on the city's economic recovery. |
"They are both sensible Democrats," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, recalling that when Hochul and Adams attended the 30th anniversary of his civil rights organization at Carnegie Hall in November, the staff did not have to worry that they would cross paths, in contrast to gatherings Cuomo and de Blasio had attended. |
"I don't know if 'like' would be the right word," Sharpton said, "but I think they both know they need each other." |
On a partly sunny day, expect a chance of light snow in the morning, along with wind gusts and temps in the low 30s. The evening will be mostly clear with temperatures dropping to the mid-20s. |
In effect until Thursday (Three Kings' Day). |
On another first Monday, a first for the Brooklyn Bridge |
 | | Workers standing on the New York tower of the Brooklyn Bridge during construction in 1872.Museum of the City of New York/Talfor/Holmes/Pach/Getty Images |
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Today is the first workday of the year. Another first workday — Jan. 3, 1870, also a Monday — was the first day of construction on the Brooklyn Bridge. |
It did not get much attention. That milestone was the subject of exactly one paragraph in a newspaper — The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Whoever wrote that paragraph all but pleaded with the editors for more space. The opening line said the story "deserves more than a passing notice." |
What began on Jan. 3 was work to clear the waterfront where a caisson — one of the giant wooden boxes on which the towers were built and still rest — would be maneuvered into position and sunk. |
The Eagle predicted that Brooklynites would be able to walk across the bridge by the nation's centennial six years later. According to David McCullough's "The Great Bridge," E.F. Farrington, who held the title of master mechanic among the workers building the bridge, did indeed cross in 1876, but on Aug. 25, not July 4. A "temporary footbridge" opened in February 1877 — "a sort of hanging catwalk," McCullough called it, adding: "One reporter described proceeding along, step by step, nearly frozen with terror." |
The bridge did not open to the public for another six and a half years. |
Predictions? 'My heart sank.' |
 | | Kam Mak |
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So what about 2022? "I looked at the predictions, and my heart sank," Joanna Lee told me. |
She and her husband Ken Smith have compiled the Pocket Chinese Almanac, in English, each year since 2010. For 2022, they chose an illustration by the Brooklyn-based artist Kam Mak, who was commissioned by the United States Postal Service to design a series of stamps celebrating the Lunar New Year. They based the day-by-day forecasts in the little volume on the calculations of a geomancer, a Hong Kong architect named Warwick Wong. He carries on a tradition he learned from his grandfather, who, in turn, learned about divining trends from his ancestors. |
Will 2022 be another year when we're sick and tired of being sick and tired, to apply a famous line from the 1960s to the pandemic? Will the economic picture brighten in New York City, whose 9.4 percent unemployment rate is more than double the national percentage? |
Based on Wong's interpretation of Feb. 4, the day known as "spring comes" on the lunar calendar, 2022 will be clouded by an aura of "murder in the air," Lee said. |
"This is a year with lots of controversies and 'petty people,'" Lee said, using what she said was a Confucian term for people who pursue personal advancement rather than the common good. "The body, as in 'the world,' will be weaker this year, compared with the previous year, hence more likely to succumb to those in power." |
The pandemic "is going to be in and out, in and out, up and down, up and down," Lee said. "We are not out of trouble, it seems." |
Smith said that 2022, the Year of the Tiger, would be a year of transition. "We are leaving a 20-year period marked by speculation and volatility in fields like agriculture and real estate and entering a 20-year cycle where energy is poised to be the big thing," he said. But it was not clear what the problems would be or where the dangers lurked, only that they would come faster. "The cycles that we're used to over broad periods of time are going to be very tight and very quick," he said. |
I was returning to New York from Los Angeles last April and was eager to get through J.F.K. and away from the crowds as quickly as possible. |
I hurried to the baggage claim and maneuvered my way carefully through the other travelers to get closer to the carousel. Knowing it would be a while before my bag emerged, I prepared myself mentally for the wait. |
When the carousel finally started up, out from the chute popped my blue carry-on, first and alone, sliding down to the edge. |
I was so surprised that as I ran up and grabbed it, I shouted, "This never happens!" |
Everyone around me burst into applause. |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, David Poller and Olivia Parker contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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