Read the full article here.

By Miranda Lu and Tsehai Alfred

Mayor Eric Adams hosted a community conversation at the Manhattanville Community Center on Monday, the latest in a series of public meetings offering residents and community stakeholders the opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with the administration.

Along with a panel of other officials, Adams spoke to a full room of community members on questions spanning a range of issues affecting West Harlem and New York City as a whole, including the citywide trash containerization rollout, influx of people seeking asylum, and safety concerns in New York City Housing Authority complexes.

To begin the event, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind”—the mayor’s frequently used press walkout song—blasted from the loudspeakers. Fred Kreizman, commissioner of the mayor’s community affairs unit, then introduced a panel of city officials that included District 7 City Council member Shaun Abreu, CC ’14, and Maria Torres-Springer, deputy mayor of housing, economic development, and workforce.

Abreu thanked the mayor and city officials for coming and highlighted the “exciting investments” that the administration is continuing to bring to West Harlem: an $18 million investment in Morningside Park—which would be used to build accessible stairs on the northern side of the park—$27 million to Taystee Lab to fund life sciences research, and $5 million to rat mitigation zones.