Sunday edition: Our shining best

Cuomo enters the race after what felt like a lifetime of speculation #115

We know the feeling

On Saturday, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo finally made his run for mayor official with a 17-minute video shot mostly from inside an apartment or office. Although technically under the 40-minutes to qualify for an Oscar short, I don’t think it will win any awards. The point from the drummed-out former governor is clear — New York City is a mess, and I am the one who can clean it up. And here are stock photos of emotionally-disturbed people, FDR, JFK, Mario Cuomo and Barack Obama.

I don’t know if his announcement about entering the race on the five-year anniversary of New York’s first COVID case was intentional, but it did strike something inside of me. Cuomo is tied to the pandemic in so many ways, his rise and his fall. His daily briefings — which unlike Bill de Blasio’s were at the time he said they would be — offered a deep level of comfort and consistency to so many New Yorkers. But he also ordered nursing homes to accept all medically stable people, even those with the virus, and then his administration significant undercounted the deaths inside these facilities. (There’s also the accusations of sexual harassment from 11 women, which he has denied.)

I think about COVID when I think about Cuomo, especially details I discovered while reporting this long investigative story I worked on while at The Wall Street Journal.

We’ll see between now and June how Cuomo messages his plans for the city. He has a rally this afternoon at the Carpenters Union headquarters, and many more endorsements and, hopefully, forums and more public conversations. I look forward to speaking with him on our FAQ podcast — and on everyone hearing from him.

Our full story on his run, a brutal New York Post editorial about him, the Democrats scrambling to stop it, a column on which Andrew Cuomo you can remember.

Other interesting stories
Adrienne Adams might run for mayor. Maybe. [THE CITY]
The correction officer strike [THE CITY]
The mayor continues to defend Tim Pearson [THE CITY]

LISTEN

I enjoyed going on Errol Louis’s podcast [YOU DECIDE]
We also spoke with candidate Whitney Tilson [FAQ]
And I explained what’s going on with Mayor Adams on Today, Explained [VOX]

Five years ago this week a source texted me with a weird tip: “Billy Idol will be at City Hall tomorrow.”

I didn’t believe this councilmember (sorry!) until I ran into someone who worked for then-Mayor Bill de Blasio hours later on an uptown 6 train. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this,” she said (my favorite) “but Billy Idol is coming to City Hall tomorrow to talk about new restrictions on idling.” (Get it?)

It was Feb. 26, 2020. We didn’t really have any idea what was going to happen in the next few weeks, how our lives would change forever.

We only knew that Billy Idol was coming to our place of work the next day, a noble citywide initiative built around a pun. And he did arrive, down the City Hall steps with “White Wedding” playing over the speakers. “Billy Never Idles” chants broke out. I rushed to make a joke about how much “Mony Mony” this whole thing would cost the city. I snagged a t-shirt.

It was the last normal day I felt for a very long time. As COVID came and spread through the city, killing thousands of people, the “Billy Never Idles” billboard along the LIE remained for longer than it was probably supposed to. There he was, arms folded, that famous scowl on his face, wearing a black t-shirt with the logo on the arm.

At some point before COVID really came down on us I gave my t-shirt away to a colleague who was leaving our team. I regretted it as I drove through the city during the deadliest days, a souvenir from the time before.

I recently found it again on eBay, way too big for me and now stored in my t-shirt bins as part of the special “New York City tragedies” collection (alongside the 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy t-shirts – a special category that not everybody understands.)

I didn’t want to let this week go by without marking it, especially as we head into March and I think about the last five years that don’t feel like it at all. Maybe one day I’ll frame the t-shirt and hang it up somewhere, a remembrance of the day that was remarkable for many reasons.

Thanks for reading!