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- A top NYC mayoral candidate's official residence is in question following a report from Politico NY.
- Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams listed a Prospect Heights residence where he doesn't live.
- He may be sleeping in his office most of the time, which his campaign says is due to his schedule.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
A mysterious saga emerged in the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday evening, with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams's official residence coming into question.
In an investigative report, Politico NY City Hall Bureau Chief Sally Goldenberg and reporter Joe Anuta found that although Adams lists a Prospect Heights residence on official documents, he has not lived there for 10 years.
Instead, Adams appears to be spending most nights in his office, according to a series of stakeouts and intel relayed by rival campaigns to Politico.
The frontrunner – who has traded first and second place with Andrew Yang in the limited public polling thus far in the June 22 Democratic primary – announced back in March that he was living in his office to protect his family while traversing Kings County to help with pandemic relief efforts.
The Adams campaign did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, but they provided Politico with explanations on his various residences.
Adams also convened reporters on Wednesday morning to show them around the basement unit of a Bedford-Stuyvesant row house, where he insisted he lives when he's not sleeping in the office. He also grew emotional during a press conference there.
-Courtney Gross (@courtneycgross) June 9, 2021
-Jeff Coltin (@JCColtin) June 9, 2021
He has a condo right across the Hudson River in Fort Lee, N.J., but the campaign said that while his partner lives there, they have been meeting up in Manhattan while he's been running for mayor. A campaign adviser told Politico that Adams and his partner did not see each other during the height of the pandemic. He did stay there a few times as the virus waned, according to the adviser, but has not been there in months.
Adams bought the Prospect Heights co-op in 1992, but says he has not lived there in a decade despite listing it as his official residence for his mayoral run and 2017 campaign for borough president. He signed his share over to another owner, and the campaign will be updating documents accordingly, the adviser told Politico.
The Adams campaign subsequently updated city forms to include the Bedford-Stuyvesant row house that he owns, but neighbors told City Limits that they had no idea he lives on their block.
Adams rents out the Bed-Stuy units and "lives in the basement apartment but rarely sleeps there due to his hectic schedule as an elected official and a mayoral candidate," his adviser told Politico.
He didn't list rental income from the Bed-Stuy property in his tax returns, and amended them after Politico reported on it in April.
In Zoom forums for the race, most of the candidates have had a consistent background from their homes or offices, but Adams has used at least 19 different ones, according to Politico.
Rival campaigns quickly seized on the saga, with attorney and former MSNBC contributor Maya Wiley's team releasing a blunt statement.
-Katie Glueck (@katieglueck) June 8, 2021
The Adams campaign has depicted the candidate's odd sleep habits as an indicator of how hard he works for New Yorkers.
"Eric Adams works extremely hard on behalf of Brooklynites, including into the late evening and early morning hours - just as he did when he led the fight against Covid-19 at the height of the pandemic last year," campaign adviser Evan Thies said in a statement to Politico.