Ours is an era that spotlights strongmen and flamboyant performers — qualities Brad Lander simply doesn’t project. Wedged between Andrew Cuomo’s brooding force and Zohran Mamdani’s magnetic persona, New York City’s comptroller often fades from view — at least until ICE agents took him into custody on Tuesday.
Yet Lander’s résumé warrants far more notice. He helped shepherd New York City’s landmark paid-sick-leave and Fair Workweek statutes, spearheaded the nation’s first minimum-wage standard for delivery workers, and championed school-integration efforts in District 15. After Signature Bank’s collapse, he mobilized the city’s pension funds to save 35,000 rent-stabilized apartments. He also pressed for the Capital Projects dashboard that now tracks the cost and timetables of the city’s infrastructure spending. When Times Opinion surveyed 15 experts about the city’s next mayor, Lander emerged as the clear favorite.
I spent a drizzle-filled Sunday tracing one of his successes with him. Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood, long synonymous with its notoriously polluted canal, has been dotted with factories and refineries for generations; as early as 1910, observers said the waterway was “almost solid” with sewage. In 2009, New York magazine dubbed Gowanus “the only underdeveloped section of brownstone Brooklyn, for good reason: The canal is disgusting.” The E.P.A. declared it a Superfund site in 2010, launching the cleanup that’s now underway.
Once the fetid stench rising from the canal finally began to recede, it was obvious Gowanus would blossom. Wedged between the pricier enclaves of Park Slope and Cobble Hill, the neighborhood already housed artists, young professionals, and public-housing residents. Zoning still favored industry, but change was inevitable—and the shape of that change mattered.
As the City Council member representing the district, Brad Lander rallied residents around a redevelopment blueprint that required at least 25 percent of new apartments to be affordable, earmarked hefty upgrades for nearby public-housing complexes, funded new storm-water infrastructure to keep sewage out of the canal, guaranteed public access along the waterfront, and reserved studios for artists.
I’ve watched plenty of “share-the-wealth” development schemes collapse into delay and infighting; this one didn’t. Today high-rises sprout in every direction. When complete, the rezoning is expected to add about 8,500 homes—more than any other corner of New York, Lander notes.
Seeing that much construction at once is rare—the last time I witnessed anything comparable was in China—and rarer still to watch the left cheer it on. Yet The Nation has hailed Gowanus as “a possible model for how New York City neighborhoods should manage growth and much-needed housing.”
Replicating Gowanus won’t be easy: few Superfund sites sit on land this valuable. Still, large-scale building unlocks prosperity that can be shared. Lander floats bolder ideas—like erecting towers atop city-owned golf courses—but most of the 500,000 units he envisions will be won through slower battles. “New York needs robust growth,” he told me. “But growth on autopilot only deepens inequality. We have to shape it.”
As city comptroller, Lander arguably understands the machinery of New York government better than anyone in the race. His civil-service reform plan begins by describing the labyrinthine hiring pipeline: would-be employees wait for an exam (which may not exist), take the test weeks later, then wait months for scores, appeals, and a certified list before agencies can even start interviews—a process that can stretch well past a year. Neither Cuomo nor Mamdani has addressed that choke point, yet it determines who keeps the city running.
Lander’s trove of detailed proposals rivals a presidential platform, but like many earnest progressives, he lacks a few signature policies that instantly convey his brand. “Build the wall” told voters who Donald Trump was. “Freeze the rent” and “fare-free buses” do the same for Zohran Mamdani. Lander offers pages of plans rather than a handful of slogans that say something about him.
Meanwhile, Cuomo’s comeback bid shows little sign of self-reflection; those who once worked with him remember a bully obsessed with payback. And Mamdani’s communication prowess raises its own question: can he translate attention into effective management of a 300,000-person city workforce, especially if Albany withholds the new taxes he needs?
Lander sits between them—armed with deep City Hall experience and a proven record of turning progressive ideals into practical results.
Leave a Comments