Goodbye to the Wild Ride That Was Eric Adams

What the hell are we going to do without Eric Adams? 

There were certainly signs that the day was coming when New Yorkers would be staring right down the barrel of the final three months of Eric Adams's political and cultural relevancy—but we here at Hell Gate never thought it would happen with such anticlimax. 

Imagining a New York City without Eric Adams has become impossible; the man is simply the embodiment of New York City in the 2020s. His political commitments shifted with the passing wind; he had an unbelievable amount of clout one day and then was historically unpopular the next; he got in a bunch of very serious-seeming legal trouble and then ended up not actually really having any legal consequences; he always had a one-liner, even as his best-laid plans went to hell around him; he raised the rent so fucking much; and he did it all as he partied in private, members-only clubs, assembling a murderers' row of unforgettable political characters. Cryptocurrency!!! This is the Eric Adams era! Or should I say, gazing to the horizon wistfully, this was the Eric Adams era.