Harlem celebrates Benjamin’s appointment as lt. governor
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Governor Kathy Hochul offi cially
announced she will appoint Harlem
State Senator Brian Benjamin
to be her number two as Lieutenant Governor
at a rally in the uptown Manhattan
neighborhood Thursday, Aug. 26.
“I am so delighted to announce my
partner — and the word partner means
something to me — we’ll work side by
side in the trenches,” Hochul said outside
the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Offi ce
Building on 125th Street. “So I’m going
to be out there championing our policies
and our administration’s agenda in every
corner of the state with a real focus on New
York City.”
Benjamin will offi cially be sworn in after
Labor Day for the second-ranking offi ce
of the state’s executive branch, taking over
the position held by Hochul before she
ascended to governor following Andrew
Cuomo’s resignation earlier this week.
The delay is so a special election for his
vacated seat will coincide with the November
general election, according to Hochul.
Benjamin served in the state legislature
for four years and unsuccessfully ran for
city comptroller this year, and the lawmaker
heaped praise on his new boss.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul raises arms with her choice for lieutenant
governor, State Senator Brian Benjamin, and is joined by Rev. Al Sharpton and
activist Hazel Dukes in Harlem on Aug. 26.
“I’ve got very big shoes to fi ll,” said Benjamin,
“because there’s been no lieutenant
governor who has traveled this state — all
62 counties, working hard — there’s no one
more ready to be governor right now than
Lieutenant Governor — I’m sorry — the
Governor Kathy Hochul.”
The lieutenant governor is a largely
ceremonial role with few powers, but Benjamin
would be fi rst in line of succession
REUTERS
for governor.
Benjamin said his priorities in offi ce are
gun violence, homelessness, affordable
housing, and the recent surge of COVID-19
driven by the highly-contagious Delta
variant.
He also reiterated priorities announced
by Hochul during her fi rst days in offi ce,
such as getting lagging state relief funds out
to New Yorkers in need.
“We got to make sure that our renters
and landlords and workers, who have been
hurting because of COVID, get the relief
that’s already here for them to receive,” the
pol said.
The Democrat was elected to the state’s
upper legislative chamber in 2017, representing
East Harlem and the Upper West
Side.
Hochul, who’s from Buffalo, had announced
earlier that she intended to tap
a downstate legislator and a person of
color, which will likely boost her election
chances with crucial voting blocks in the
Five Boroughs to keep her offi ce next year.
Benjamin is the second Black lieutenant
governor after David Paterson, who
also became Governor after Eliot Spitzer
resigned in disgrace in 2008.
A son of a Caribbean immigrant mother,
Benjamin worked as an investment banker
for Morgan Stanley prior to public offi ce,
and the Manhattanite said he never imagined
rising to the statewide leadership job,
adding he wanted to help young people
from his native Harlem.
“I never in a million years would’ve
imagined I would be standing here as the
lieutenant governor for the State of New
York,” he said.
Sliwa condemns latest gun violence in Manhattan
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Acting as both the Republican
mayoral nominee and head of the
Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa
condemned a recent act of gun violence
in Manhattan Valley while vowing to send
his liege of volunteer patrollers to the
neighborhood.
Sliwa spoke on Aug. 31 in front of a
nail salon near the corner of West 105th
Street and Columbus Avenue, not too far
from where two men had been shot and
wounded the previous evening.
Police sources said a 45-year-old man
took a bullet to his chest and an 81-yearold
man had been shot in the right foot
while standing in front of the location at
about 6:36 p.m. on Aug. 30. EMS rushed
both victims to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s
Hospital, where they are recovering from
their injuries.
Detectives are now looking for the
shooter, described by the NYPD as a Black
man in his 20s who was seen fl eeing on foot
after the gunfi re.
Sliwa came to the Upper West Side
neighborhood after being informed of the
shooting by one of his long-time friends,
Carmen Quinones, president of the
Guardian Angels founder and Republican candidate for mayor Curtis Sliwa
speaks at a press conference in Manhattan Valley on Aug. 31, 2021.
Frederick Douglass Tenants Association,
which represents some 3,000 residents
living at the public housing complex just
down the block from the shooting scene.
He relayed some of the details that
Quinones provided him of the shooting,
describing a dramatic scene in which the
gunman began fi ring shots from a deli
across the street from the nail salon, sending
people running for cover.
PHOTO VIA FACEBOOK/CURTISLIWA
“An 81-year-old man who sits outside there
daily wound up getting shot, the intended
target was shot,” said Sliwa, referring to the
45-year-old man wounded in the shooting.
Police sources, however, would not confi rm
or deny to amNewYork Metro if the shooter
had targeted the 45-year-old man.
“This is a situation we see over and over
and over again in the City of New York,”
Sliwa said.
He then turned his fury against the termlimited
incumbent mayor, Bill de Blasio,
who’s not on the ballot in November. Sliwa
did not mention his actual opponent in the
Nov. 2 general election, Brooklyn Borough
President and Democratic nominee Eric
Adams, a former police offi cer.
“The men and women of this (the 24th)
precinct care, but unfortunately, this
mayor, Bill de Blasio, has asked them to
stand down,” Sliwa alleged. “They’re reactive,
not proactive.”
While pledging to “quadruple” the
number of his Guardian Angels in the
Upper West Side area, Sliwa also vowed
to respond with the NYPD to shootings
should he be elected mayor. But he also
remarked, “When I’m mayor, situations
like this are not going to take place.”
Quinones, who made a failed bid for
the 7th City Council District seat in the
June Democratic primary, said the issue of
public safety near the Frederick Douglass
Houses wasn’t a matter of politics, but life
and death.
“This is about human life, and my kids
are dying at record numbers,” she claimed.
“Our seniors are being held hostage in their
homes, scared to come out to even get a
loaf of bread.”
Schneps Mediia September 2, 2021 3