Since leaving office, Eric Adams has been busy. He recently told the Real Deal that he'd be working as a "business development consultant" for several "real estate-related technology companies," selling things like rebar, wellness tech, and fire retardant all over the world. He told the outlet that he closed 80 percent of the pitches he's made.
This past weekend, Adams was in Wisconsin Rapids—population 18,654—trying to convince residents that they should allow a real estate developer to build a data center in the heart of their town.
A video taken on Saturday afternoon shows Adams in sales pitch mode at the Wisconsin Rapids municipal library, as he's heckled and shouted down by community members who are opposed to the data center, which is being proposed by the The PNK Group.
"One of my colleagues sent me a post that says, 'A high profile person is coming to your town,' and I said, 'Who's that?'" Adams begins. "Let me tell you something: My name is Eric Adams," he continues, as the boos begin to rain down. "I grew up in a small area in Queens, a young man, dyslexic. I'm not high-profile."
"You belong in prison!" one attendee shouts. "You're here to steal our water!" yells another.
"I just want to share one story with you," Adams says later, before launching into an anecdote about how artificial intelligence helped a friend identify her breast cancer diagnosis.
A person in the crowd responds: "Is this story true?"
On Sunday, Hell Gate spoke to local residents opposed to the data center in Wisconsin Rapids, who revealed that over the past few months, they've been mystified by the appearance of the former mayor of New York City in central Wisconsin.
"Our whole town does not want him here at all," Kaitlyn Federwitz, of the community group South Wood County Neighbors for Responsible Development, told us.
The proposed location of the data center is adjacent to the Wisconsin River, on 209 acres that used to house the city's paper mill, a longtime driver of its local economy, which shut down in 2020.
"We want our resources to be properly safeguarded, our farmers to be protected, our waterways protected," said Federwitz. "When the mill closed, we lost 900 jobs. We're aware we need jobs and industry in our city but we're not willing to accept that a data center is the answer to that problem."