NYC NOW - Morning Headlines: It’s Primary Day in NYC, and Mayor Adams Drops Elizabeth Street Garden Housing Plan

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

It’s Primary Day in New York City, with voters casting ballots for mayor, public advocate, city council and more. WNYC’s Brittany Kriegstein is reporting from Brooklyn Borough Hall. Meanwhile, the Adams administration is reversing course on a controversial plan to build affordable senior housing on the Elizabeth Street Garden site. First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro says the city will pursue alternative locations instead.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, June 24th. Here's the morning headlines from Michael Hill. It's primary day in New York City on the ballot or a citywide position from mayor, public advocate, city council, and more. Polls just opened, and WNYC's Brittany, Crickstein, is at the polling site at Brooklyn Borough Hall. Brittany, what's the turnout like so far? Any voters are already online? Yes, Michael, there are quite a couple of voters out here already.

They tell me they want to beat the heat. It's already pretty toasty out here, so I can understand why. I've spoken to several of them, and they say that they're just really excited and energized about this primary. They feel like it's really important to come out today. One woman I spoke to said she was really hoping to vote for the candidate that would protect New York Sanctuary City policy. that would be Mamdani, she said. She was going to rank first. And another man said that he was looking for a candidate who has a lot of experience,

who is going to be able to stand up to President Trump. And he said, I think you know who that person is, the older candidate who's already held office in this state. So just a lot of diverse answers here. But folks are definitely excited to get out and vote this morning. It certainly sounds like it. That's WNIC's Brittany Kriegstein. On the scene there for us at Brue.

Brooklyn Borough Hall, one of the polling sites in New York City. Brittany, stay cool. Thank you so much. I'll try. All right. In other news, the Adams administration is dropping a plan to build affordable housing on the Manhattan green space known as the Elizabeth Street Garden. WNYC's Liam Quigley has more. For over a decade, the city worked on a plan to replace the Elizabeth Street Garden with more than 100 affordable apartments for seniors on the city-owned land. Earlier this year, Mayor Eric Adams supported.

an eviction order to get the garden out so that construction could begin. But that all changed in March when Randy Mastrow became first deputy mayor. Mastrow now says the city will build more units of housing elsewhere instead. Because in our city, we have to provide affordable housing. We also have to provide green space going to quality of life. Proponents of the housing plan say the reversal will only worsen the city's housing crisis. Here's that forecast. It is a hot one as Brittany referred to out there, already toasty as she's at Brooklyn Borough Hall for folks during the voting today. 80 and sunny right now, sunny and 99 for a high today, feeling hotter than that. So take care when you go out to vote.

Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. NYC Y C Y C Y C