Dina Levy was finishing up her speech on Thursday morning to a room of affordable housing providers.
At a networking breakfast at the Yale Club for members of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, she was talking about hiring and staffing at New York’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which she now leads.
“Normally I would open this to a Q&A,” Levy said as her speech came to a close. But instead, she wanted to do things a little differently.
HPD and the Mayor’s office are finishing up the city’s housing plan, Levy said. And now she wanted to know what the people in the room thought should be in it.
“If you don’t raise your hands I’ll call on you,” she said.
After that the answers came swiftly. Attendees brought up distressed portfolios and hikes in insurance costs.
The scene solidified in my mind that the key message of Mamdani’s campaign for public support is a simple one: I’m listening.
That was the tone the administration took with tenants at the mayor’s Rental Ripoff hearings, which started last week. Landlords were expecting — and fearing — a show trial, full of boos and jeers. But the end result was much different. Bureaucrats, including buildings commissioner Ahmed Tigani and Cea Weaver, who heads the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, sat at school desks with tenants, hoping to hear from them individually.
And this style of performative public listening was on display even before Zohran Mamdani took office. On December 15 he sat for 12 hours at the Museum of the Moving Image, as New Yorkers lined up for personal conversations with him, reminiscent of artist Marina Abramović’s 2010 installation at the MoMA.
Mamdani appears to believe that the best way to win the hearts of 8 million people is to offer each one of them a listening ear.
Now this is, of course, politics. It’s part of the art of getting buy-in.
It’s still unclear, for all their listening sessions, which constituencies Mamdani and Levy will really be listening to. Will they listen to affordable housing providers who say they can’t make ends meet, their tenants aren’t paying and construction and insurance and energy costs are killing them? Will they listen to landlords who tell them that four years of a rent freeze will have consequences for the city’s housing stock?
We’ll have to wait and see.
What we’re thinking about: You may have missed that we’ve relaunched our podcast, Deconstruct. The aim is to bring you headlines and a peek inside our newsroom. Have thoughts about what you’d like to hear about on the show? Think you might be a good guest? Drop us a line at podcasts@therealdeal.com.
A thing we’ve learned: Douglas Eisenberg, executive chairman of landlord A&E Real Estate, spent two college summers in the 1990s working for then-Mayor David Dinkins. That was an aside in this New York Times feature about Mamdani’s promises to renters.
Elsewhere in New York . . .
— Mamdani is pitching Albany on a smaller corporate tax hike that he hopes will face better odds of success. The plan would generate $1.75 billion per year, down from the $5 billion boost he campaigned on, New York Focus reported.
— The mayor’s Rental Ripoff hearings continue. The five-borough tour hit Long Island City on Thursday evening.
— The city is moving forward with a plan to in Staten Island’s Richmond Valley, SILive.com reported. The men’s shelter is expected to open in 2027. Some Staten Island officials said they would fight the project.
Residential: The top residential deal recorded Friday was $18 million for 111 West 57th Street, Unit 36. The Midtown Central condo unit is 4,500 square feet. Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing.
Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $17 million for a one-story industrial building and two adjacent lots at 147-27 Archer Avenue. The Jamaica building is 2,700 square feet.
New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $9.8 million for 85 Worth Street, Unit PH. The Tribeca condo is 2,500 square feet. Douglas Elliman’s Eklund Gomes Team has the listing.
