Interview: Mayoral Candidate Zellnor Myrie Says ‘We Want a City that is Safe and Affordable’

Belaaz spoke with mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie, who has served as State Senator of Brooklyn’s 20th District since 2019. The District includes large parts of Crown Heights and Lefferts Gardens, as well as parts of Kensington, Sunset Park, Park Slope and South Slope.

Myrie has not broken through double digits in recent polling, but he says it’s too early to see who will ultimately pull ahead in this year’s mayoral race.

His campaign is built on expanding housing and public safety; concerns shared by voters citywide as rent prices increase and crime continues to plague subways and city streets.

Myrie has also been reaching out to the Jewish community in his campaign, visiting sites such as Satmar Matzah Bakery in Williamsburg and Bobover Cheder in Boro Park.

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Can you tell me a little bit about your background and what led you to want to run for mayor?

I was born and raised in the city. In fact, I grew up between Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens. I went to PS 161 in Crown Heights for the first eight years of my education, right next door to Bais Rivkah. That upbringing, in a community where many families came from other countries to New York City for opportunity, is exactly my story. Both of my parents came from Costa Rica to work in factories, to make money to send back home, and to find opportunity here. They sent me to public schools where I could ultimately go to Fordham University for undergrad. I went to Brooklyn Tech for high school, and then Cornell for law school. I became a lawyer, worked for a prestigious law firm, and then I ran for State Senate to represent the very communities I was born and raised in.

I think that aspiration for opportunity is shared by so many New Yorkers, both those who are already here and those who choose to come here. The reason I’m running for mayor is to restore that sense of opportunity. We have never been a city where we can guarantee an outcome, but it used to be a pretty sure bet that you would have a fighting chance. That is what I am fighting for right now. My wife and I went to the same elementary school in Crown Heights, and we want to put down roots in that same neighborhood, but the cost of a home feels out of reach. The cost of childcare feels out of reach, and we feel less safe on our subways and streets than we have in years past.

So I’m running for mayor because I want everyone to feel safe in our subways and on our streets. I want everyone to have an opportunity to afford a place to stay, and I want our families to have an opportunity here to be able to afford childcare and have after-school programs for all. That is why I am running. I’m proud of the record I’ve had in the State Senate, fighting for my district and fighting for New Yorkers, and I want to bring that same fight to City Hall.

What’s your plan to make housing more affordable and to provide safety?

One of the really enlightening components of me running for mayor has been that our priorities—making this a city that is affordable and safe—have also been the priorities of most New Yorkers that I talk to. We are a diverse and complicated bunch, but at bottom, we want a city that is safe and affordable.

Let me talk about public safety for a minute. We have to return our police headcount to what it was pre-pandemic. We saw the lowest crime rates in our city’s history then, and I think we need to return to that police headcount. We also have to restore the personnel in our office to prevent hate crimes, because we have seen that office be underfunded and understaffed, while at the same time seeing an alarming rise in antisemitism that we have to tackle head-on. I think it’s important also to ensure that we are expanding a curriculum that educates all New Yorkers about the rich Jewish history we have, not just here in New York City, but throughout the world. And I don’t just want it to be for a certain segment of our young people; I advocate for kindergarten through 12th grade to have that curriculum and education.

I think it’s also important that we be just as invested in solving crimes. It is important that people see that the system works—that if you are a victim or a survivor of a crime, there will be an effort to solve it. So I’ve put forward a proposal to solve every shooting in this city. I want to ensure that there is trust between the community and law enforcement. So that is something that is really important.

On the cost of housing: if we do not build more housing, the cost will remain high and continue to climb. We have to build more, and we have to do it everywhere, and we have to do it quickly. That is why I have a bold plan to deliver 1 million homes over the next 10 years. I want to ensure that everyone has an affordable place to stay in the city, but also that we provide paths to homeownership. This is important not just from the beginning of that spectrum, but also if you already own, you need protections as well. That’s why I have been invested in the state legislature in putting through protections for foreclosure prevention and ensuring that we have the resources so folks can get that help. I would like to do that as well from City Hall.

Right, so you mentioned getting more cops on the beat and restoring the police force to what it was pre-pandemic. NYPD officers report that they don’t feel backed by City Hall. They report that they’re not paid enough, and they feel there’s a high level of scrutiny, especially because of certain political elements. What sort of things would you do to restore faith in NYPD officers so they should want to come back and join the force?

I think it’s important for us to begin by saying very clearly that they are needed. I’m born and raised in the city, and my mom, when I was very young, was robbed at gunpoint when I was with her in an elevator. Her worldview on public safety is informed by that experience. When my mom sees more police officers, she feels safer. That is the experience of many New Yorkers, and that is the worldview that many New Yorkers hold. I think it’s important for us to say that and to communicate that they are needed.
I also think it’s important—and this is what I’ve heard from officers themselves—that if anyone steps over the line, of course, there should be accountability, because they want this system to be viewed by the public as one that is fair.

The overwhelming majority of police officers wake up every single day, put on the uniform, and do an incredibly dangerous job because they want to keep people safe. We have a healthy number of police officers who are from New York City, who grew up in the city, who are part of long traditions in their family of being in law enforcement, and who want to keep us safe. I think it’s important that City Hall signal that we have their back.

It’s important that we also give them the respect of having a dignified profession and lifestyle. If we are spending over a billion dollars in overtime because we do not have enough personnel, how do we think that’s going to make the officer feel who does not get to see their family, who walks into the precinct thinking that they’re going to have an eight-to-nine-hour shift, and that has now become a 14-to-15-hour shift? They’re not showing up as their best selves at hour 14, 15, or 16. They too want to see their families. They too want an affordable place to stay in the city. They too want childcare that is accessible and affordable. So we have to take care of the entirety of the profession, and I think it’s important to have that early on. That’s the type of mayor that I plan to be. And I think that New Yorkers are smart enough to hold the two ideas together: that we need police officers in our ecosystem, and we need responsible policy.

It sounds pretty bold to want to build 1 million housing units, how will you manage that?

It’s an excellent question. The 1 million is broken down into 700,000 new units that I want to create, and I want to preserve another 300,000. In that creation of 700,000, that equates to about 70,000 a year. And it sounds like a big number, but we used to do this back in the 1920s and 1930s. People forget that we built the Empire State Building in 13 months, and we did that 100 years ago. We used to do big things in this city. I believe that we can still do those big things.

Here’s how: We have commercial real estate space that can be converted to residential. I think that we need to expedite that process and loosen any restrictions that are preventing us from getting to that end. There are already places in our city with a high density, like Midtown, that I believe can be made more dense thanks to the work that we’ve done in the state legislature to increase the capacity to build. There are industrial areas in this city that are sandwiched between residential neighborhoods that no longer serve the purpose of that industry and could be converted to residential. I would like to see those conversions done on a citywide basis. We have public land across the city, whether it be schools, empty lots, or our public housing, that can be used for mixed-income development that will allow for us to get to that number. I am under no illusion that this is going to be easy. There will be challenges.

Anything that is worth it in this city is worth us giving it our best effort, and it is why I have centered housing in my campaign, so that when we win, we can have a political mandate to get it done.

The political landscape is quite different between Albany’s statewide politics and NYC’s citywide politics. So how do you plan on making the paradigm shift?

Part of the reason that I’m really excited to be putting that vision forward for New York City is because I don’t just come at this as a political candidate. I’m a New Yorker. I’m born and raised here, but I still take the trains every day. I’m still walking the streets. I’m still interacting with my constituents. I have student loans. I’m trying to figure out homeownership. I’m going through the struggle in the same way that many New Yorkers are. So I’m familiar with what our needs are.

The responsibility at the state level is to represent your district and to do what’s in the best interest for the entire state. But I have been fighting for New York City since day one of my job in the State Senate. I represent the very neighborhoods that I was born and raised in, where my teachers are, where my friends and neighbors are. Those interests—keeping the public safe, fighting for affordable housing, focusing on the kitchen table issues, and how you’re going to make my life materially better—that has been my focus since I’ve been in the State Senate, and that is going to be my focus as the next mayor.

What’s your message to the Jewish community in particular?

We are at a really scary time for many Jewish New Yorkers. We have seen an alarming rise in antisemitism, and we have seen, in some instances, a failure to call out what we are seeing with our own eyes. I want to be the mayor where every Jewish New Yorker feels safe being who they are and who God has made them to be. But it’s not just about antisemitism; it is about making their lives better every single day. And Jewish New Yorkers, like most New Yorkers, care about affordability. They care about public safety. They want to know that the mayor is waking up every single day fighting for them and their families. And that is the kind of mayor that I want to be, because it’s the right thing to do. But it is also who I’ve been as a state senator. I represent an incredibly beautiful and diverse Jewish community in the state. It is what I have been around for my entire life, and it has made me, I think, particularly sensitive to ensuring that we are meeting the needs of this community.

I have to say that there are leaders who have come before this community and have said the right thing during election time, like Andrew Cuomo, but when things were more challenging during COVID, they turned their backs on this community, ostracized this community, and did things not in partnership with, but against this community. And that is not the kind of mayor that I am going to be. I want to work in partnership. I want to ensure, even when we disagree, because it’s fundamentally New York to have some disagreements, that we will be working in partnership to ensure that we’re getting to the best outcomes that the community needs. That is the type of leader that I have been; that is the type of leader that I will be from City Hall.

How do you feel about your numbers in the polling? What’s your strategy to win, given that frontrunners like Cuomo and others are ahead in polling? What’s your strategy to turn that tide?

This is still early. For those of us who consume politics on a daily basis, we’ve been grappling with this race for quite some time, but the everyday voter is just starting to tune in. That is why we went up on TV a couple of weeks ago to introduce ourselves to a lot of voters. It’s why I’ve been making my way all around the city, talking to every community here and listening to folks. It is why I’m excited to receive contributions from every city council district across the city, every community board district across the city, and why I think we’re really positioned to take off when people are paying attention. We have raised enough money to get our vision out to voters in this last stretch. And I think that as folks start paying attention, start tuning in, and start examining the records of the people who are putting themselves before you, I think we’re well-positioned to get across the finish line strong.