City & State New York 072720

ASIAN AMERICAN POWER

100

I AM IRON MAN John Liu is back – and crushing it

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

July 27, 2020

CONGRATULATIONS

PRESIDENT S. DAVID WU Baruch College embarks on a new era under his leadership.

S. David Wu, PhD, is the eighth

president of Baruch College and the

first Asian American to be appointed to lead a City University of New

York institution. His career in

higher education leadership spans more than 30 years at renowned public and private institutions.

He is a technology innovator and accomplished scholar in systems

engineering and operations research. president.baruch.cuny.edu

“

I see Baruch College as an exemplar of a private good—one that advances our students’ personal

and career success—and a public good, creating much needed social change, innovation, and economic

”

prosperity for our city and our world.

—S. David Wu, President

Baruch College congratulates all of the

Power of Diversity: Asian 100 honorees.

July 27, 2020

City & State New York

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EDITOR’S NOTE

JON LENTZ Editor-in-chief

Asian Americans have faced discrimination due to misplaced blame for COVID-19.

AS THE 2020 PRIMARY RESULTS continue to trickle in and individual candidates declare victory, a number of organizations and groups have been touting their contributions on the campaign trail. One remarkable outcome is the handful of state legislative candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter that notched impressive wins in state legislative races, most of them upsets.

Another progressive organization, the Working Families Party, performed particularly well, with wins downstate, but also upstate in places like Rochester.

They’re not an organized group, but Asian Americans notched some impressive wins in the June 23 primary. Jenifer Rajkumar, who posted a strong lead over Queens Assembly Member Michael Miller on Election Day, is on track to be New York City’s first South Asian member of the state Legislature. And after the absentee ballots were counted, Assembly Member Aravella Simotas conceded to Zohran Mamdani, the DSA-backed son of the director Mira Nair, who will likely make history alongside Rajkumar in November.

In this week’s magazine, we feature many of the state’s politically powerful Asian Americans – and not just those who have broken through to serve in elected office – in our inaugural Asian 100. And we profile state Sen. John Liu, a trailblazer who paved the way for many of the Asian American candidates who have been elected after him.

CONTENTS CENSUS … 8

Trump’s order could hurt NY, even if it’s overturned

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS … 10

A Supreme Court ruling could shift the balance of power

POWER OF DIVERSITY … 12

New York’s 100 most powerful Asian Americans

JOHN LIU … 14

CELESTE SLOMAN; RON ADAR/SHUTTERSTOCK

Progressive. Trailblazer. Iron man.

COMBATING HATE CRIMES … 30 Asian Americans are facing more discrimination amid the pandemic WINNERS & LOSERS … 54

Who was up and who was down last week

CityAndStateNY.com

ELECTION RESULTS TRICKLE IN

About a month after the June 23 primary, results are finally coming in for a number of close and contentious races. Many were called for insurgent

July 27, 2020

candidates like Emily Gallagher, who trailed Assembly Member Joe Lentol in Brooklyn by more than 1,700 votes before absentee ballots led to her defeat of Lentol, a veteran of nearly 50 years in the chamber.

Democratic Socialists of

America-backed Phara Souffrant Forrest and Zohran Mamdani also emerged victorious in their races against Assembly Members Walter Mosley in Brooklyn and Aravella Simotas, in Queens, respectively.

Like Gallagher, Souffrant Forrest, left, made up an election night deficit to come out on top.

Additionally, Jenifer Rajkumar defeated Assembly Member Michael Miller and Jessica González-Rojas bested Assembly Member Michael DenDekker, both in Queens. Provided they win in November – and all the insurgents are expected to – Mamdani and Rajkumar will become the first South Asian lawmakers elected in New York City. Meanwhile, New York City Council Member Ritchie Torres officially declared victory in his race for the 15th Congressional District, although that race had effectively been decided long before. And Rep. Chris Jacobs was sworn in after his special election victory in the 27th Congressional District.

CAPTAIN COOK Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds many responsibilities, and cocktail czar is just the latest. After some restaurants tried to get around new state social distancing rules requiring that alcohol only be served with food – selling $1 “Cuomo chips” for example – the state issued stricter guidance requiring more substantial food be bought with alcohol. The New York Post christened Cuomo with the apt new title, “Drinktator.”

A RARE SUMMER SESSION

“ I’m telling you in plain New York speak: It’s stupid. Don’t be stupid.

What they’re doing is stupid.”

– Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to young people recently seen congregating in large numbers in Manhattan and Queens, via The Buffalo News

“Socialism won. ” – Queens democratic socialist Assembly candidate Zohran Mamdani, who was one of a number of young insurgents who beat legislative incumbents in the Democratic primary once all votes were counted, via Twitter

State lawmakers returned to Albany – most of them doing so virtually – for a rare summer session to pass a variety of bills after the coronavirus pandemic cut session short earlier this year. Lawmakers eyed legislation both big and small, having to do with pandemic response and not. In an attempt to avoid mail-in voting mishaps like those seen during last month’s primary, they passed a bill that would give voters more time to request and receive absentee ballots. Lawmakers were also poised to enact an automatic voter registration bill that would register anyone after any interaction with the state; a similar bill was passed but recalled last session due to a significant typo.

The state Legislature also passed legislation undoing a budget provision that provided liability protections for hospitals and nursing homes for conduct relating to the pandemic.

Additionally, lawmakers passed other bills to stop courthouse arrests by immigration agents and to boost the pay and improve health benefits for airport workers.

OCCUPY CITY HALL BROKEN UP

About a month after taking up residency, occupying protesters were forced to leave City Hall Park after

ANEESH BHOOPATHY; DON POLLARD/OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR; ZOHRAN FOR ASSEMBLY; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

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July 27, 2020

police in riot gear conducted an early-morning raid of the encampment that had also begun to attract homeless folks. Protesters described it as an ambush. The Occupy City Hall movement began about a week before the city budget was due, with protesters demanding that Council members reject a budget that did not cut at least $1 million from the New York City Police Department budget. The encampment remained after the budget process as an ongoing demonstration against police brutality. By the time the sun had risen on the morning of July 23, tarps and tents had been taken down, and workers had begun removing graffiti from sidewalks and buildings.

Mayor Bill de Blasio later defended the move, saying that breaking up the encampment was a matter of public health and safety.

THE

WEEK AHEAD

City & State New York

Andrew Cuomo, the ambassador

SHELDON SILVER IS HEADED TO PRISON (FOR REAL THIS TIME)

After initially getting indicted in 2015 on corruption charges, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been sentenced to six-anda-half years in prison. This is not the first time a judge has sentenced Silver, but until now he’s managed to avoid any time behind bars.

Originally, he was meant to serve 12 years, but his first conviction was overturned and he remained a free man during the appeal.

Prosecutors retried him, found him guilty again and sentenced him to seven years in 2018. But he appealed again, and again remained free while part of the verdict was overturned.

This time, Silver’s all out of options to delay any further and is expected to surrender to federal custody by the end of August.

THURSDAY 7/30 City & State and AARP host a virtual legislative forum with Capital Region lawmakers including state Sen. Neil Breslin and Assembly Members John McDonald, Jake Ashby and Chris Tague.

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Governors typically stay close to home, but as coronavirus cases surge in many states, Gov. Andrew Cuomo kept up appearances with a trip to Georgia last week, helping him maintain his position as the unofficial Democratic leader against the pandemic policies of President Donald Trump.

“When you want to win, follow winners,” Savannah Mayor Van Johnson, a Brooklyn native, said at a roundtable discussion with Cuomo on July 20. “New York state literally went from worst to first, and they have shown the entire country, the entire world, the way to do this right.”

The ostensible purpose of the trip was to deliver personal protective equipment and some disaster management expertise, but it also allowed Cuomo to insert himself into the ongoing controversy over government face mask orders, which also happens to keep the governor in the political limelight as cases continue to decline in the Empire State. “I am still repulsed by the federal government’s failure to implement a mask order,” Cuomo told reporters during a conference call on July 21.

Some experts say such an order could save tens of thousands of lives in the coming months. While Trump has softened his stance on masks – after taking a hostile attitude toward them earlier in the pandemic – he has yet to get behind a national order, nor put political pressure on fellow Republicans

FRIDAY 7/31 The state is requiring local school districts to submit their reopening plans by the end of the month. Final decisions will be made by the state on a case-by-case basis through the following week.

like Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who has blocked local governments from instituting mask orders.

The trip was not the first time Cuomo has left the state to express solidarity with communities that he has said are harmed by Trump’s brand of politics.

This includes a 2019 trip to Puerto Rico over the Thanksgiving holiday to boost the island’s tourism prospects after Hurricane Maria struck in 2017.

In June 2019, the governor went to Israel to express solidarity in fighting anti-Semitism and to boost trade.

Cuomo has blamed Trump and other Republicans for making the pandemic worse in other ways, from holding up new federal aid for states to downplaying the severity of the crisis.

That, however, did not stop Cuomo from saying something that he has avoided saying to the media in his home state.

“It was hard,” he told Georgians of his own state’s handling of the pandemic.

“We made a lot of mistakes.”

While Cuomo has faced some criticism from local leaders for the attention he is giving to other states, the governor doesn’t often admit when he’s made a mistake. He has repeatedly asserted that he had no regrets about how the state handled nursing home deaths and other aspects of responding to the pandemic. So if an out-of-state trip is what it takes, Cuomo’s critics might want to hope he plays diplomat a little more often.

-Zach WIlliams

MONDAY 8/3 State lawmakers are holding the first of two virtual hearings on nursing home deaths during the pandemic.

The hearings will be livestreamed on the state Senate and Assembly websites.

INSIDE DOPE

Nursing home deaths have been a huge source of criticism for Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Additional revelations at the hearing could complicate his efforts to put the controversy behind him.

CUOMO’S

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NEW ENEMIES

CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

BY ANNIE MCDONOUGH

WHILE NEW YORK’S journey through the coronavirus pandemic garnered Gov. Andrew Cuomo national acclaim, his shutdown orders have also made him a slew of new enemies. “We’ve lost track of the frivolous lawsuits filed against us during this pandemic,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi said. Allow City & State to help, with this roundup of some of Cuomo’s most notable lockdown foes.

RELIGIOUS LEADERS

Orthodox Jews and Catholic priests may disagree on a lot, but nothing brings religious leaders together like a common enemy. Two upstate Catholic priests and three Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn joined forces to sue Cuomo for closing houses of worship while supporting public protests against police brutality.

GYM RATS STRIP CLUB OWNER

Strip clubs and social distancing might seem like a bad match, but that didn’t stop one Long Island club owner from suing Cuomo for closing nonessential businesses – a move the suit alleges violated the state constitution. That suit was later dropped, though it’s likely Cuomo won’t be invited to the Blush Gentlemen’s Club in Commack anytime soon.

Some New Yorkers are fed up with getting flabby. With gyms still shuttered in phase 4 of reopening, hundreds of gym owners have filed a class-action suit against Cuomo, seeking $500 million in damages. Who knows what will come of the lawsuit, but in the meantime, Cuomo might want to steer clear of mentioning that gym in the Executive Mansion.

CIVIL LIBERTIES ADVOCATES

It’s rare – though not unheard of – for civil liberties groups and gun rights advocates to agree on something. The NYCLU sued Cuomo in late May after he issued an executive order allowing people to congregate in groups up to 10 for religious gatherings or to celebrate Memorial Day weekend, arguing that easing of those restrictions should apply to other First Amendment-protected activities like protests, too. Soon after, Cuomo amended the order to allow any gathering of up to 10 people.

DEAF NEW YORKERS

While Cuomo’s star power rose during the pandemic, de Blasio’s plummeted. But even de Blasio got one thing right: having an American Sign Language interpreter on hand for press briefings.

It wasn’t until after a lawsuit from Disability Rights New York – and an order by a federal judge – that an ASL interpreter was actually added to the state’s TV broadcast.

By that point, New York was the last state to add one.

GUN RIGHTS ADVOCATES

While far from a new enemy, gun owners are pissed off at Cuomo again, but this time it’s personal. The National Rifle Association sued Cuomo in his capacity as both the governor and as a private citizen, arguing that the closure of gun stores – deemed nonessential – was a “pointless and arbitrary attack” on New Yorkers’ constitutional rights.

Another suit, filed by two men looking to purchase guns and a retailer, made similar arguments, though a federal judge tossed the complaint.

July 27, 2020

City & State New York

A Q&A with Democratic Assembly nominee

MARCELA MITAYNES

JULENOCHEK, GDVCOM, NKLRDVC, AMANI A, JUAN CI, MERKUSHEV VASILIY/SHUTTERSTOCK; MARCELA FOR NY

What was your victory like after initially trailing in election night results?

I was not expecting to get an answer on Election Day. I think that I was just preparing for what could be a long, drawn-out process. It was exciting to hear that we were slowly catching up, catching up, catching up, and then had surpassed. The election was on the 23rd and on the 29th, I went back to work full time. So I was actually on a conference call discussing how to deal with the courts opening and these impending huge evictions that are going to happen because folks don’t have money. And then

when I finished my call, my campaign manager called me and I was just shocked.

I couldn’t believe it. It was done. It was officially over, he had conceded, we had won, and then it was just amazing that we had managed to pull off such a huge upset.

And what was it like seeing your fellow democratic socialists succeed soon after you and your own legislative group expanding?

We were all on pins and needles. We have our own group chat, and were talking and trying to figure out when each one of our districts was going to start (counting ballots). I was updating them as I was

getting updates from my campaign, so we’ve been kind of doing all of this together. It was difficult because we weren’t sure what was going to happen. But we’ve been holding each other’s hands all along the way. And I think we’ve really been supportive and pushing each other. It was just exciting as one by one (we) started declaring victory, and then to think about the possibilities of what we can do once we get to Albany.

For you, as an immigrant, Indigenous Pe-

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It was just exciting as one by one (we) started declaring victory, and then to think about the possibilities of what we can do once we get to Albany. ruvian woman of color, what does it mean to have your voice represented in state government?

This is a huge victory for immigrants everywhere.

To be able to have the opportunity to be one of those changes where the government is really reflective and representative of its people is something that I don’t take lightly. And I hope that I inspire other folks to get involved as well.

Many are struggling more than ever to pay rent. What action should the state take to help them, that

would also be financially feasible?

We need a rent suspension for the duration of the pandemic and probably some time after that. What’s being proposed now is just to push the debt down the road, but that’s not really going to help anyone. We need to finish what we started last year and pass the Good Cause Eviction bill so that we can give basic tenant protections to all tenants in the state.

We need to invest in social housing. And we really need to focus on the homeless. Everyone deserves a home, especially in the middle of this pandemic.

Start hiring now on New York’s highest-quality job site!

City & State Jobs helps hundreds of job seekers and employers find the right fit every day.

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 20, 2020

LOSING

COUNT Trump’s census order could hurt New York even if it’s ruled unconstitutional

By Kay Dervishi

T

HE CENSUS HAS become one of President Donald Trump’s favorite political cudgels – and the latest way he has decided to wield it is by signing a presidential memorandum to exclude undocumented immigrants from being counted while determining congressional representation based on the 2020 Census.

The action is almost certainly unconstitutional. The 14th Amendment explicitly states that representatives will be apportioned by “counting the whole number of persons in each state,” which the courts have long interpreted to mean the count of every single

person in the state, including undocumented immigrants.

The American Civil Liberties Union has promised to sue over the order – a move certain to be replicated by other groups opposed to the move.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Jeffrey Wice, an expert in redistricting and the census. “It’s illogical. It’s highly legally suspect and just throws chaos and confusion into the picture, because we’ve never had a Democratic or Republican White House try to do these things at the 11th hour in clear violation of the Constitution.”

Given that Trump’s previous attempt to include a citizenship question on the census forms failed, it’s also impossible to get a precise number of undocumented immigrants to subtract from the decennial count. “The Commerce De-

partment will have to use estimates and guesstimates based on uneven administrative records to figure that out,” Wice said. “No one thinks it could be done accurately.”

If the action did somehow pass legal muster, it could certainly have dire implications for New York’s political representation given the comparatively high number of undocumented immigrants present in the state. Around 725,000 unauthorized immigrants were estimated to live in the state as of 2016, according to the Pew Research Center, out of New York’s population of 19 million.

A severe undercount could land New York in the worst-case scenario of losing two congressional seats.

Trump’s latest gambit could succeed in further complicating the census process – which has

JOSEPH SOHM/SHUTTERSTOCK

July 20, 2020

already been hamstrung by the coronavirus pandemic – just a few months from the presidential election and the finalizing of the census count. If the litigation around the decision continues beyond 2020, Wice said, it is possible that Trump could announce his own plan for dividing congressional seats among the states – only to later have that decision overruled in court.

Such a move would also make it difficult to figure out the timeline for New York’s redistricting process. New York state legislators took an initial step on July 23 to make a constitutional amendment changing the upcoming redistricting schedule to take into account the delayed census data among other alterations.

There is also ongoing concern that the current news cycle will make undocumented immi-

City & State New York

grants even more reluctant to fill out their census forms. Although the memo doesn’t explicitly state that undocumented residents shouldn’t be counted, census officials fear that many potential respondents may get that impression.

This is of particular concern since New York is still lagging behind its response rate from 2010. The state’s response rate is currently about 58% – almost seven percentage points below its rate during the 2010 count and below the current national average, where New York currently ranks 38th.

“When you have, as it is, a community that is scared to be counted for understandable reasons and it’s just put another barrier to counting those communities,” said Meeta Anand, a 2020 Census senior fellow at the New York Immigration Co-

alition, “and now they’re being told they don’t even count. And why would they risk it – if it’s not going to even be used?”

The timing of the announcement also comes as efforts to conduct more aggressive outreach in New York City are ramping up before the census count reaches its second phase of following up with nonrespondents starting Aug. 11. While outreach efforts were ongoing throughout the lockdown via text-banking, phone-banking and digital ads, city officials and nonprofit partners are now taking advantage of reopening to engage in more in-person activity.

To that end, New York City is hosting a “Census Week of Action” next week tied to various outreach activities, which will involve a mix of social media and digital engagement,

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as well as in-person outreach at parks, playgrounds and other busy areas. Plans to do door-knocking in areas with poorer response rates are also being revived.

“The door-knocking can’t start soon enough,” NYC Census 2020 Director Julie Menin said. “We really need that.”

And though the president’s announcement certainly hurts census outreach efforts, Anand said, it also presents an opportunity to highlight the importance of the census.

“Maybe this refocus of attention will allow us to get that response rate up and really communicate that they should be counted,” she said. “And if people are really objecting to this behavior, there’s a really simple action we can do to counteract it, which is to make sure everyone gets counted.”

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 20, 2020

‘ANCIENT’ DISPUTE, NEW LEVERAGE A Supreme Court ruling could shift the balance of power to New York’s Indigenous nations.

By Amanda Luz Henning Santiago

A

RECENT LANDMARK U.S. Supreme Court ruling could empower New York’s Indigenous nations. On July 9, the court ruled that most of eastern Oklahoma falls within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s land as previous congressionally ratified treaties between the Muscogee and the U.S.

government have stated. That precedent could mean land rights claims made by New York’s several Indigenous nations, based on treaties with the federal government, could hold more weight in future disputes between the tribes and the state.

The case originated after Jimcy McGirt, a member of the Seminole Nation in Oklahoma, was convicted of sex crimes, which occurred within the Muscogee Nation’s reservation.

McGirt argued in a lawsuit that he could not be prosecuted by the state or local law enforcement and that he could only be prosecuted by the federal government because Congress had never eradicated the Muscogee Nation’s sovereignty.

The case then went to the Supreme Court, which was put to the task of determining whether Congress’ treaty with the Indigenous nation still remained valid.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch,

July 20, 2020

City & State New York

STEVE SANCHEZ PHOTOS/SHUTTERSTOCK

Indigenous Day of Remembrance was celebrated in protest of Columbus Day last year at Columbus Circle in Manhattan.

who is known for siding with Indigenous tribes in past cases despite being a conservative appointed by President Donald Trump, was a part of the majority who ruled in favor of making the federal government stand by its original treaty between Congress and Oklahoma’s Native American tribes.

“Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law,” Gorsuch wrote

in the Supreme Court’s majority opinion. “Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word.”

McGirt’s conviction was vacated at the state level, but he can still be tried in tribal or federal court.

The case is very similar to that of the Indigenous nations in New York, in which land granted by the federal government was slowly chipped away over time by the state, local governments and non-Indigenous pri-

vate citizens, through sales that were often allegedly coerced.

The court’s ruling also affirms that state treaties made with Indigenous populations cannot be dismissed just because a state deems them to be too old. “This decision in many ways, simply follows the laws that the U.S. Supreme Court had already established,” Joel Williams, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund and a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, told City & State.

This has the potential to change the balance of power in land rights disputes between New York state and the Indigenous Six Nation Confederacy in New York, which includes the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora tribes. “(Gorsuch’s) general construct throughout the case was that once the federal government has made promises and treaties, it must keep them,” Joe Heath, general counsel for the Onondaga Nation, told NY1.

“I can tell you that, in the almost four decades since I have worked for the Onondaga, that has not been the law.”

In 1794, the Treaty of Canandaigua, which was signed by President George Washington, gave the Oneidas 300,000 acres of land in Central New York and their “free use and enjoyment” of it. However, the state continually purchased the Oneida’s land, until the tribe only had 32 acres left in 1920.

In 1997 and 1998, the Oneida purchased land in the town of Sherrill, which was within the original land allocated to the nation, and refused to pay taxes for that reason. The town of Sherrill and the Oneida entered into a dispute over whether or not the treaty still holds up, which would have kept the Oneida from paying the town’s local taxes. In 2005, the Supreme Court sided with Sherrill, denying the nation any sovereignty. In 2013, a similar argument was also rejected by the Supreme Court after the

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Onondaga Nation claimed that 11 counties within the state, including Syracuse, were illegally stolen from the tribe after it had been given the land in the late 1700s.

As recently as last year, the Seneca Nation has been battling with the state over land rights issues regarding the state’s I-90 thruway. The tribe has maintained since 1993 that the state never received proper approval to build the thruway in 1954. In an effort to protest the state’s refusal to pay millions of dollars in what the tribe considers unpaid tolls, the Senecas prevented New York from repairing the thruway, but eventually allowed it to mend the broken roadway.

Heath told City & State that the Onondaga aren’t interested in returning to the courts to argue over land, but are hoping this latest decision creates the opportunity for a fruitful discussion between the state and the nation over issues, such as the restoration of the polluted Onondaga Lake. “The Onondaga are much more in favor of diplomacy,” Heath said. “Can we now sit down with the state of New York and work together to resolve these ancient problems? That’s what I am asking the (Onondaga’s) Council to authorize me to do, and I’ve already had some preliminary discussions with the attorney general’s office.”

The nation would be interested in speaking with Gov. Andrew Cuomo as well, according to Heath, but has found him to be particularly dismissive of Indigenous issues, noting he has failed to meet with any of the six nations’ traditional chiefs since he’s been in office. “Every other governor would have met with a chief at least once a year, to maintain an open line of communication. ...

We would be glad to have a conversation with anybody in the state government that wants to work together to end this problem,” Heath said. The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

POWER OF DIVERSITY:

ASIAN POWER

100 THE MOST INFLUENTIAL ASIAN AMERICANS IN NEW YORK POLITICS AND POLICY.

ASIAN AMERICANS ARE a rising political force. In 2013, Grace Meng became New York’s first Asian American representative in Congress. While John Liu’s groundbreaking mayoral campaign fell short later that year, politicians of Asian descent – like Assembly Members Ron Kim and Yuh-Line Niou, state Sen. Kevin Thomas, and even Liu himself, now a state senator – have boosted representation in Albany. And many more Asian Americans are in positions of power, whether it’s running a government agency, delivering services in the nonprofit arena, or achieving change through political or policy campaigns.

Yet the battle is not over. Despite being New York’s fastest growing minority population, the disparate and diverse group remains underrepresented in elected office. They have been overlooked, perhaps most notably in the de Blasio administration’s efforts to scrap New York City’s exam for admission into elite public high schools. Many face myriad challenges as immigrants, especially those who are undocumented. And the coronavirus pandemic poses a dual threat – a grave health risk compounded by racist stereotypes and misplaced blame on Asian Americans that have spurred a dismaying increase in hate crimes.

This year, we’ve identified the power players in the Asian community who are on the front lines of these and many other battles.

We’re proud to introduce the Asian 100.

Yuh-Line Niou is one of state government’s most outspoken progressives.

July 27, 2020

1 GRACE MENG

Congress Member As New York’s first and only Asian American U.S. Congress member, Grace Meng has a support base that extends beyond her district boundaries. The Taiwanese American congresswoman is a member of the influential House Appropriations Committee, which gives her a bigger role in boosting turnout on the 2020 Census among her constituents in Queens.

She is also one of a select few vice chairs on the Democratic National Committee.

2 JOHN LIU

State Senator John Liu is often first – he was the first Asian American in the New York City Council, in a citywide post as comptroller, and in the state Senate – yet his 2013 bid to be the city’s first Asian American mayor fell short.

The Taiwanese American legislator, who chairs the New York City Education Committee, criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio’s exclusion of Asian Americans in efforts to diversify specialized high schools as “racist.”

3 CELESTE SLOMAN

As the first Asian American presidential candidate to gain national prominence, Andrew Yang shocked naysayers when he qualified for every Demoractic debate during his campaign – the only candidate of color to do so.

Yang might not have deep ties

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in New York politics just yet, but many predict the native New Yorker could capitalize on his new fame in a bid for mayor in 2021.

4 STEVEN CHOI

Executive Director New York Immigration Coalition As head of one of New York’s leading immigration advocacy groups, Steven Choi fights for the city’s more than three million immigrants.

NYIC was behind the state DREAM Act, which expands financial aid to undocumented students for college, and the “Green Light Law,” which lets undocumented immigrants obtain driver’s licenses.

When the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s move to eliminate DACA, Choi called it “a victory of people over politics.”

5 NEAL KWATRA

Founder and CEO Metropolitan Pu blic Strategies In addition to being one of the foremost Democratic strategists in the city, Neal Kwatra has been an instrumental force behind some of the biggest progressive shifts in New

York. Kwatra secured big wins promoting offshore wind development to the state, helping the hotel workers union fight for pay and health benefits, and campaigning for the “Green Light Law” with the New York Immigration Coalition.

6 RON KIM

Assembly Member Ron Kim was elected as the first and only Korean American to the state Legislature in 2012. The progressive lawmaker has supported the state’s

ANDREW YANG

Former Presidential Candidate

City & State New York

When the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration’s move to eliminate DACA, New York Immigration Coalition’s Steven Choi called it “a victory of people over politics.”

bail reforms and the decriminalization of sex work.

To protect elderly constituents in downtown Flushing, Kim introduced legislation to repeal a provision shielding nursing homes from lawsuits during the coronavirus pandemic. He ran for New York City public advocate in 2019 on a “No Amazon” line.

7 YUH-LINE NIOU

Assembly Member Since 2017, Yuh-Line Niou has been a progressive representative of the Lower East Side, earning national press for supporting Chinatown constituents affected by the pandemic.

“Government is not built for people like me,” she told Refinery29. “I think that we can change it so that it’s built for anybody to run someday.”

The legislator was endorsed

by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, helping her fend off a primary challenge.

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CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

THE

By Zach Williams

S

NEW LIU

TATE SEN. JOHN LIU has faced many obstacles, but nothing quite like the Spartan Sprint, where he races along a three-mile course through the muddy hills near Old Bethpage, on Long Island, on a nippy afternoon in November 2019. “Aroo,” he howls in the Spartan battle cry borrowed from the movie “300” to pump up his team of one nonprofit policy director, two Queens constituents and a struggling City & State journalist. Liu evidently did not come to try to win, at least judging by the way he waits for his teammates to catch up.

When he isn’t running in place, he joins them in doing sets of 10 “burpees” – a combination push-up, stand and squat – to help them get through the required punishment

The trailblazer for Asian Americans burst back into politics with a wave of progressive support. But can he make both groups happy?

for failing to complete any one of the 20 obstacles in the race. For a 53-year-old man, the legislator is having no problem outrunning younger weekend warriors. While they breathe heavily during the Sprint, Liu is getting through the spear throwing, rope climbing and scrambling under anachronistic barbed wire with relative ease. “I wouldn’t call it extreme,” he said in a later interview. “Spartan is not an endurance event. That’s just grown ups playing in the

Portraits by Winnie Au

mud and paying a lot of money to do it.”

But then a 10-rung set of monkey bars begins giving Liu a bit of trouble. It all begins well enough as he hops off the starting platform and grabs the first bar with both hands. Then he swings himself forward, misses the second rung, and slips to the ground with a groan.

It isn’t the first time he has fallen over the course of a 20-year career in politics that has included endurance sports and marathon campaigning, as he mastered coalition politics in becoming the first Asian American from New York City elected to the City Council, citywide office in New York City and the state Senate. The former New York City comptroller and 2013 mayoral candidate is the rare public official who came back with a bang after having seemingly ended his career with a whimper.

July 27, 2020

came easier in the following years. His network of political connections grew through a leadership role at the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella group of 100 community organizations. “He is carefully nurturing an image as an ‘Asian American,’” City Limits wrote as the 2001 City Council election loomed. “It’s a nebulous identity that means little to Flushing’s partisans but usefully points out what Liu is not: not foreign, and not white.” Perhaps most important, according to City Limits’ analysis of the race, was his new relationship with the Parkside Group, a consulting firm with deep ties to the Democratic Party. “Yesterday’s underdog is today’s top dog,” The New York Times wrote at the time. “(He) has won the endorsement of the county’s Democratic leadership. He has the blessings of unions, including teachers and the police.”

Harrison did not run for reelection (new term limits went into effect in 2001) and Liu would prevail in a divided Democratic primary, with the help of a $240,000 war chest. “John has the opportunity to make history by being the first Asian American candidate in New York City to win office,” Evan Stavisky of Parkside told City Limits. “But he won’t win because he is Asian American – it’s not as if people will wake up and say it’s time to elect an Asian American. John will have to build coalitions.” It also helped that he could move through the day-to-day grind of a campaign with the energy of an “Eveready Bunny,” as the Times put it. He would win the general election in a landslide.

Liu entered the council as one of 38 new members that year. He had to share the political limelight for the next 12 years with other incoming members of the City Council including future Mayor Bill de Blasio, future Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and future state Sen. Robert Jackson – not to mention a billionaire mayor who dominated the political landscape. But he still managed to raise his own profile.

“He was outspoken, knowledgeable,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor of political science at Baruch College, where Liu would later teach. “John has always represented a sort of progressive point of view.”

Liu readily admitted to the Times in 2006 that he wanted to run for higher office one day. Three years later, he took what he knew from Flushing – how to build a well-financed campaign with a solid hold on Asian American voters that could also appeal to white voters and other groups – and became the first Asian American to be elected city comptroller.

A

N OVERFLOW CROWD waiting for Liu held a variety of signs as he arrived at New York City Hall to announce his 2013 mayoral bid on St. Patrick’s Day of that year. “Ital-

City & State New York

“JOHN LIU WOULD SAY SOMETHING THAT WAS VERY PROGRESSIVE, AND IT WAS JUST MET WITH SILENCE, AND THEN BILL DE BLASIO WOULD SAY ESSENTIALLY THE SAME EXACT THING – AND IT’S LIKE, ‘OH, THAT’S FASCINATING, FOLLOW UP.’” – Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University ians for Liu,” “Women for Liu,” “Brooklyn for Liu,” “Korean Seniors for Liu” – these were the voters who had lifted Liu to the comptroller’s office four years before.

Now, he was hoping they would take him to Gracie Mansion. His effort at conveying broad support among the city’s various ethnic communities extended to the elected officials who stood next to the podium.

The newly elected City Council Member Peter Koo, a former Republican and native of mainland China, who still serves in the council as a representative from northeast Queens, stood next to then-City Council Member Charles Barron, a former member of the Harlem branch of the Black Panther Party, who now represents an Assembly district in East New York, Brooklyn.

Liu was quick to joke about how he did, and did not, look, like all the different types of people represented by the crowd.

“For those of you who don’t know, I’m not Irish,” Liu told the crowd. “My family immigrated from Taiwan … looking for the same thing countless families have – even those from Ireland.”

If Liu’s political base was not rock solid, it was at least assembled brick by brick

17

through alliances with organized labor, community groups and a left-leaning policy platform that was arguably ahead of its time. He called for the end of stop and frisk, the controversial NYPD tactic. His proposal to legalize recreational marijuana, he argued, would reduce mass incarceration while offering a new revenue stream for education. There was also a socioeconomic angle to his campaign that aimed at working-class voters of all races, including a later proposal to raise the minimum wage by $4 to $11.50 per hour. “Economic justice and equal opportunity have gone the way of checker taxis and 50-cent slices,” Liu said, at his mayoral announcement.

“These last 12 years, the rich keep getting filthy rich.” After years of business-minded centrism under Bloomberg, Liu was offering an unmistakable left turn if elected.

But there was one sign of trouble for Liu – a literal sign, the biggest one among the 12 rows of supporters. “People of honor are vilified in the news,” read the sign held high by one Black woman. “John Liu is an honorable man.”

This referred to the specter of a federal investigation hanging over Liu’s campaign, courtesy of Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time, whose investigatory sweep of city and state government targeted numerous officials. A Manhattan federal court would eventually sentence Liu’s former campaign treasurer to 10 months in prison and one of his former fundraisers to four months, for wire fraud and other crimes related to a scheme that circumvented limits on individual donations by spreading the money among various so-called straw donors, who give someone else’s money under their own names. Liu, who was never charged with any crime, has said he had no knowledge of the scheme and was unfairly targeted by federal investigators.

The city Campaign Finance Board would fine him $26,000 in 2017.

The cost to his mayoral prospects was much more immediate. “If you go after powerful politicians and corporations, they are going to come after you,” he told the crowd that day. The controversy would ultimately cost him $3.5 million in matching funds from the city, just as then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio began seizing the progressive mantle in the race with a “Tale of Two Cities” and a son whose afro became an unofficial emblem of the campaign and an icon of the city’s shifting racial landscape.

Liu ultimately came in a distant fourth place in the September Democratic primary, with just 7% of the vote. Now he was out of the job at age 46. “I don’t mean to gloat,” said Harrison, a longtime nemesis who won election that year, at age 91, as a Democratic district leader. “But I won’t say I’m not enjoying it.”

16

CityAndStateNY.com

It isn’t hard to see how his Spartan-inspired efforts are about more than staying fit. “These endurance events are not so much about physical fitness as much as mental fitness,” Liu said later.

As a trained actuary, Liu could have done well in the private sector. Instead, he has been jumping through the mud, literally and figuratively. Early in his political career, he tangled with a city political establishment that initially did not want to include him when he first ran for office. “I’ve known John for more than 20 years,” said Steven Choi, executive director of the New York immigration Coalition. “John has been a real pathfinder.” He also developed a reputation as an outspoken and tireless political operator after his 2001 election to the City Council, a reputation that would follow him to the comptroller’s office eight years later. He inveighed against what he called waste and incompetence in city government and agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Yet a federal investigation into his own political fundraising would hobble his 2013 mayoral bid.

Out of office for the first time in 12 years, Liu did not give up on politics. After falling short in a 2014 state Senate campaign, he won four years later as part of a wider backlash against former members of the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of breakaway Democrats who helped Republicans maintain control of the state Senate. Unseating state Sen. Tony Avella,

July 27, 2020

a former IDC member, was also a show of force by Asian American voters in a northeast Queens district that is moving away from being a bastion of moderate middle-class white voters. But Liu’s ability to channel Asian Americans’ push for a greater voice in city politics has, at times, undermined the progressive political identity that has made him a man of many firsts in New York politics. It leaves open the question: Can the coalition builder hold the city’s diverse constituencies together?

L

IU HAD TO SOLVE a complicated political equation when he became the first Asian American elected to the New York City Council in 2001. The community makes up a far smaller share of the city population – roughly one in nine people – than white, Black and Latino voters. Even two decades later, not a single New York City Council, state Legislature or congressional district is majority-Asian.

Rates of citizenship, and voting, are also lower among Asian Americans than other racial groups. Flushing, Queens in the late 1990s was nearly half Asian American, but only half of those people could vote, The New York Times reported at the time. Attracting a good chunk of white voters was key for any Asian American candidate in the area.

Liu had a few advantages in winning over non-Asian voters as a first-time candidate in the 1997 Democratic primary for

City Council. His experience as an immigrant (his family moved to Queens from Taiwan when he was 5 years old) had obvious appeal to Asian American voters, about 20% of the electorate at the time. Yet, the self-described “Flushing Boy” could pitch himself to white voters by noting he was named after President John F. Kennedy. As a 30-year-old manager at the global consulting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he worked after getting his bachelor’s degree in mathematical physics from Binghamton University, he raised more than $160,000 for the race.

There was one problem: White voters at the time were loyal to a local Democratic establishment that sometimes appealed to simmering racial resentments against the influx of new immigrants from Taiwan, South Korea and mainland China. “They were more like colonizers than immigrants,” then-City Council Member Julia Harrison said of her Asian constituents in 1996. “The money came first. The paupers followed, smuggled in and bilked by their own kind.”

The comments provoked outrage in the community. More than 2,000 people protested her in the streets, and she later apologized.

When all the votes were counted that year, Harrison easily won reelection – but Liu had learned that if he was going to challenge an entrenched incumbent, he would need to broaden his political base.

The pathway towards elected office be-

July 27, 2020

came easier in the following years. His network of political connections grew through a leadership role at the Queens Civic Congress, an umbrella group of 100 community organizations. “He is carefully nurturing an image as an ‘Asian American,’” City Limits wrote as the 2001 City Council election loomed. “It’s a nebulous identity that means little to Flushing’s partisans but usefully points out what Liu is not: not foreign, and not white.” Perhaps most important, according to City Limits’ analysis of the race, was his new relationship with the Parkside Group, a consulting firm with deep ties to the Democratic Party. “Yesterday’s underdog is today’s top dog,” The New York Times wrote at the time. “(He) has won the endorsement of the county’s Democratic leadership. He has the blessings of unions, including teachers and the police.”

Harrison did not run for reelection (new term limits went into effect in 2001) and Liu would prevail in a divided Democratic primary, with the help of a $240,000 war chest. “John has the opportunity to make history by being the first Asian American candidate in New York City to win office,” Evan Stavisky of Parkside told City Limits. “But he won’t win because he is Asian American – it’s not as if people will wake up and say it’s time to elect an Asian American. John will have to build coalitions.” It also helped that he could move through the day-to-day grind of a campaign with the energy of an “Eveready Bunny,” as the Times put it. He would win the general election in a landslide.

Liu entered the council as one of 38 new members that year. He had to share the political limelight for the next 12 years with other incoming members of the City Council including future Mayor Bill de Blasio, future Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and future state Sen. Robert Jackson – not to mention a billionaire mayor who dominated the political landscape. But he still managed to raise his own profile.

“He was outspoken, knowledgeable,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor of political science at Baruch College, where Liu would later teach. “John has always represented a sort of progressive point of view.”

Liu readily admitted to the Times in 2006 that he wanted to run for higher office one day. Three years later, he took what he knew from Flushing – how to build a well-financed campaign with a solid hold on Asian American voters that could also appeal to white voters and other groups – and became the first Asian American to be elected city comptroller.

A

N OVERFLOW CROWD waiting for Liu held a variety of signs as he arrived at New York City Hall to announce his 2013 mayoral bid on St. Patrick’s Day of that year. “Ital-

City & State New York

“JOHN LIU WOULD SAY SOMETHING THAT WAS VERY PROGRESSIVE, AND IT WAS JUST MET WITH SILENCE, AND THEN BILL DE BLASIO WOULD SAY ESSENTIALLY THE SAME EXACT THING – AND IT’S LIKE, ‘OH, THAT’S FASCINATING, FOLLOW UP.’” – Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University ians for Liu,” “Women for Liu,” “Brooklyn for Liu,” “Korean Seniors for Liu” – these were the voters who had lifted Liu to the comptroller’s office four years before.

Now, he was hoping they would take him to Gracie Mansion. His effort at conveying broad support among the city’s various ethnic communities extended to the elected officials who stood next to the podium.

The newly elected City Council Member Peter Koo, a former Republican and native of mainland China, who still serves in the council as a representative from northeast Queens, stood next to then-City Council Member Charles Barron, a former member of the Harlem branch of the Black Panther Party, who now represents an Assembly district in East New York, Brooklyn.

Liu was quick to joke about how he did, and did not, look, like all the different types of people represented by the crowd.

“For those of you who don’t know, I’m not Irish,” Liu told the crowd. “My family immigrated from Taiwan … looking for the same thing countless families have – even those from Ireland.”

If Liu’s political base was not rock solid, it was at least assembled brick by brick

17

through alliances with organized labor, community groups and a left-leaning policy platform that was arguably ahead of its time. He called for the end of stop and frisk, the controversial NYPD tactic. His proposal to legalize recreational marijuana, he argued, would reduce mass incarceration while offering a new revenue stream for education. There was also a socioeconomic angle to his campaign that aimed at working-class voters of all races, including a later proposal to raise the minimum wage by $4 to $11.50 per hour. “Economic justice and equal opportunity have gone the way of checker taxis and 50-cent slices,” Liu said, at his mayoral announcement.

“These last 12 years, the rich keep getting filthy rich.” After years of business-minded centrism under Bloomberg, Liu was offering an unmistakable left turn if elected.

But there was one sign of trouble for Liu – a literal sign, the biggest one among the 12 rows of supporters. “People of honor are vilified in the news,” read the sign held high by one Black woman. “John Liu is an honorable man.”

This referred to the specter of a federal investigation hanging over Liu’s campaign, courtesy of Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time, whose investigatory sweep of city and state government targeted numerous officials. A Manhattan federal court would eventually sentence Liu’s former campaign treasurer to 10 months in prison and one of his former fundraisers to four months, for wire fraud and other crimes related to a scheme that circumvented limits on individual donations by spreading the money among various so-called straw donors, who give someone else’s money under their own names. Liu, who was never charged with any crime, has said he had no knowledge of the scheme and was unfairly targeted by federal investigators.

The city Campaign Finance Board would fine him $26,000 in 2017.

The cost to his mayoral prospects was much more immediate. “If you go after powerful politicians and corporations, they are going to come after you,” he told the crowd that day. The controversy would ultimately cost him $3.5 million in matching funds from the city, just as then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio began seizing the progressive mantle in the race with a “Tale of Two Cities” and a son whose afro became an unofficial emblem of the campaign and an icon of the city’s shifting racial landscape.

Liu ultimately came in a distant fourth place in the September Democratic primary, with just 7% of the vote. Now he was out of the job at age 46. “I don’t mean to gloat,” said Harrison, a longtime nemesis who won election that year, at age 91, as a Democratic district leader. “But I won’t say I’m not enjoying it.”

18

CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

L

John Liu swings from the monkey bars during a Spartan Sprint last fall. He fell off the second rung, then started over and made it all the way across, clanging the bell at the end with his head in celebration.

IU MADE A promise years ago with his high school friends, when they were all students at the Bronx High School of Science, one of the city’s elite specialized public high schools. They would all complete an Ironman competition by age 30. “We thought that was just absolutely insane,” Liu said, more than three decades later, of their youthful vow to complete the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride and marathon that each Ironman includes.

It did not take long for life to get in the way, as mortgages, families and professional ambitions arose in the subsequent years. “I woke up one day,” Liu said in an interview. “I was like, ‘Holy shit, I’m 49.’

I contacted my friends, and none of them were even close to being ready. I had time; I wasn’t mayor of New York.” An unsuccessful 2014 bid for the Democratic nomination for a state Senate seat in eastern Queens, in which he lost to Avella by six points, punctuated his need for a change.

Despite having the backing of the Queens County Democratic establishment, Liu had not won enough of the white voters whose support he had always needed to win.

So he ran a marathon every month for eight straight months and finished his first Iron Man in 2016. He got his pilot license the following year. His weekly regimen of biking, running and push-ups continued.

It is an understandable urge, considering the social science that shows how no matter how hard they work or how much they accomplish, Asian American men are never given the attention of their white peers – a phenomenon that manifests itself in subtle ways in the alpha-dog dynamics of politics.

“Go back and watch some of those debates,” Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University, said of the 2013 mayoral campaign. “John Liu would say something that was very progressive and it was just met with silence, and then Bill de Blasio would say essentially the same exact thing – and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s fascinating, follow up.’ ... it’s almost as if no one can hear it until a white man says it.”

This fits with a wider sense of invisibility for many Asian Americans. And even when they are noticed, voters may have stereotypical assumptions. Rep. Grace

Meng recalls one constituent who complimented her on a speech in her eastern Queens district. “There was just this assumption that I could not speak English,” said Meng, whose family immigrated to the U.S. before she was born. “Some people don’t really view me as American yet.”

In the largest and most diverse cities such as New York and Los Angeles, Asian American political power may also be constrained by coming into conflict with not just whites but also Blacks and Latinos – groups with larger, more established presences in New York who may sometimes compete with newer immigrant groups for educational or professional opportunities.

“Oftentimes, what we see in New York City politics is Asian Americans (being positioned) against Black and Latinx communities, quite honestly, for the benefit of white communities,” Greer said.

The November 2014 shooting of Akai Gurley by NYPD Officer Peter Liang is a case in

point. The rookie police officer was patrolling the dark stairwell of a Brooklyn public housing project when he pulled the trigger of his already-drawn service pistol after coming across Gurley, who lived in the development.

The shooting came just a few months after the police-involved death of Eric Garner on Staten Island. While the white officers who placed Garner in an illegal chokehold did not face any criminal charges, Liang was indicted by a grand jury for manslaughter.

Liu was among the Asian American leaders who pushed the narrative that Liang was a scapegoat for the racism of white police who had aroused the ire of the nascent Black Lives Matter movement. The fact that the Police Benevolent Association, which has aggressively supported white officers accused of serious misconduct, turned its back on Liang only furthered a sense of victimhood among some Asian Americans.

Liang would eventually lose his job and be sentenced to community service. Liu would

THE LIFE 1967 AND TIMES OF LIU

1972

1996

1997

2001

Liu’s family immigrates to the United States. His father gives his three sons the names John, Robert and Edward (and changes his own name to Joseph) in honor of the Kennedy dynasty.

Anti-Asian comments made by longtime incumbent City Council Member Julia Harrison arouse a political backlash from the growing Asian American community

Liu’s first attempt at winning elected office falls short against Harrison

After Harrison is term-limited out of office, Liu becomes the first Asian American elected to the New York City Council

Liu Chun-Yah is born in Taiwan

July 27, 2020

City & State New York

N THE MORNING of May 30, after days of protests following the death of George Floyd, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams called a press conference in Downtown Brooklyn. City Council Member Brad Lander, whose nearby district included many of the confrontations between protesters and cops, stood next to him – as did Liu. Liu’s presence in Brooklyn, 20 miles away from his own district, was the type of attention-seeking that has provoked eye rolls among some longtime political observers.

“One of the knocks on him, for as long as I can remember, going back to when he was in the City Council, was that John Liu is about John Liu,” said one Democratic strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

“Now, that’s not necessarily different than most other elected officials, right? These people have inflated egos and are self-absorbed. That’s why they’re in public office.”

In Liu’s telling, he is just a guy trying to help his city unite during tough times. “If I had a nickel for every potshot coming from unnamed sources over the years, I’d get myself an expensive manicure,” Liu later said of criticism. “It was like the city was set up for the invasion of Normandy, right here in front of Barclays,” Liu told a small gaggle of reporters before calling on de Blasio to apologize for the police response.

Perhaps Liu was trying to make amends with Black and Latino New Yorkers – or progressives of all races. If the Liang case had chipped away his base of support in the Black community, his opposition to changing the admissions examination, known as the SHSAT, for most of the city’s elite specialized high schools would create a much wider divide between Liu and some racial justice advocates. At issue is how to increase

2009

2011

2013

2014

2018

Liu’s election as city comptroller makes him the first Asian American to win citywide office

An investigation

by The New York Times reveals irregularities in Liu’s political fundraising

Liu makes an unsuccessful run for the Democratic nomination for mayor, after two of his associates were found guilty in the fundraising scandal (Liu was not charged)

A political comeback falls short when Liu loses a Democratic primary for state Senate

Liu defeats former IDC member Tony Avella and becomes one of the first two Asian Americans elected to the state Senate

O

ZACH WILLIAMS

and Rep. Grace Meng, also of Queens, are raising their political profiles. “I call John ‘Grandpa,’” said Niou, whose former boss – Kim – got his own start in politics by working for Liu. “He says, ‘I’m young. I’m young. I’m young’. (But) he did break a lot of barriers for all of us.”

the paltry number of Black and Latino students in selective public high schools without limiting opportunities for Asian Americans, another largely low-income population, who perform the best out of all racial groups on the SHSAT. Liu railed against standardized testing while running for mayor. “High-stakes tests have become problematic because they now hold such a heavy sway in determining a child’s, a teacher’s and even a school’s future,” he said in a 2013 op-ed. Yet, after the de Blasio administration proposed changing the test in 2018, Liu became one of the most vocal opponents in the state Legislature. Liu complained about the de Blasio administration’s lack of outreach to Asian Americans on the issue, and he argued for a focus instead on improving all schools – which dovetails with Liu’s work as chair of the Senate Committee on New York City Schools where he advocates for increased state funding for public schools.

But his SHSAT stance has lost him some political allies. “He lacks any principles,” said Barron, now an Assembly member, who represented Gurley’s neighborhood on the City Council. “He’s overly pragmatic.”

Nationally, the Asian American electorate has shifted leftward in recent years, after voting Republican for president until the 2008 election of Barack Obama. And Liu’s district also includes relatively conservative, predominantly white neighborhoods such as Bayside.

Some progressives say that Liu’s defense of Liang and his opposition to replacing the SHSAT demonstrate that he is too indulgent of right-leaning forces. “There are conservative elements and organizing that’s happening within the Chinese American and immigrant communities here in New York City,” said Jason Wu, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society and an organizer. “He can do better.”

Meanwhile, a new generation of Democratic Asian American elected officials, including Assembly members Yuh-Line Niou of Manhattan, Ron Kim of Queens

be the first to say that the incident marked a low point in relations between the Asian American and Black communities. “If people had been talking to each other more,” Liu said years later. “I think we could have dispelled a lot of what allowed that friction.”

19

L

IKE EVERY ELECTED OFFICIAL, Liu says his top priority is serving his constituents, a mix of Asian Americans, whites and Latinos. Yet, the legislative process itself is not what animates Liu, who has sponsored just a few bills that have passed the state Legislature since being elected in 2018.

“My role in the Legislature is not to be the one who sponsors or passes the most bills,” he said in an interview. “I played that game already a long time.”

One bill that Liu has successfully pushed through the state Senate, which passed the Assembly for years, would require more data collection by the state about the Asian American community – an effort that Cuomo argued would be too expensive when he vetoed the bill last year. Other legislation that Liu sponsored includes a law barring employers from forcing Sikhs and other minorities to cut their beards or otherwise violate their religious faith through workplace uniform rules. Another bill would allow political candidates to use their adopted English names on election ballots, after two South Asian Americans were temporarily taken off the ballot earlier this year because their English names were not their legal names.

So it is no surprise that six days after he popped up unexpectedly at a Brooklyn press conference, he joined thousands of protesters making their way through central Brooklyn. The masked lawmaker was an anonymous member of the crowd, despite his neon green tank top. When the protesters sat down on Utica Avenue, he used his bike to help block traffic. When the crowd got up and pushed onwards, the trailblazer followed.

■

20 CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

10 GIL QUINIONES

President and CEO New York Power Au thority

8 MARGARET CHIN

New York City Council Member Margaret Chin took office in 2010 as the representative of District 1 of Lower Manhattan, where she grew up in Chinatown. One recent bill from Chin, a long-time advocate of low-income housing, would let property owners defer taxes until a later date, a measure meant to ease the financial strain of the pandemic on landlords and tenants. Like many of her colleagues, Chin is termlimited in 2021.

9 PHILLIP ENG

President Long Island Rail Road Since his promotion in 2018 to lead the Long Island Rail Road, Phillip Eng has overseen several major infrastructure developments to the suburban commuter rail system.

Among the changes are the completion of the Nostrand Avenue station modernization, the ongoing Third Track project and improving on-time performance. Eng is now adapting to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, including an app that lets passengers know how crowded each car is.

The head of the nation’s largest state-owned electric utility since 2011, Gil Quiniones has focused his efforts on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Reforming the Energy Vision, an initiative to encourage the increased reliance on renewable energy use and increased efficiency in New York. Quiniones, who is of Filipino descent, previously served in the Bloomberg administration and at Con Edison, and currently sits on the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority board.

11 KEVIN THOMAS State Senator

In 2018, Kevin Thomas made history as the first Indian American elected to the state Senate, knocking out the veteran lawmaker Kemp Hannon. His election was especially significant given the predominantly white make-up of Long Island, and the Democractic legislator is now a target of Republicans trying to win back the seat. Thomas, who serves as chair of the Consumer Protection Committee, has also championed legislation promoting cricket.

12 PETER KOO

New York City Council Member Even before he was elected as representative of District 20, Peter Koo already had deep ties in his Queens community.

He served in prominent

leadership roles, including as president of the Flushing Chinese Business Association and as an advisor of the Queens General Hospital Community Advisory Board.

The “mayor of Flushing” may return to a similar role in early 2022, as he is term-limited out of office next year.

other employees. Desai also continues to advocate for debt forgiveness for drivers who are deep in debt from predatory medallion loans.

13

AI-JEN POO

BHAIRAVI DESAI

Executive Director and President New York Taxi Workers Allianc e Bhairavi Desai has been instrumental in the fight to protect New York City taxi drivers, both in the city and in Albany. In 2018, Desai and the organization won the right for thousands of ride-hailing drivers they represent to access regular unemployment insurance like

14 Co-founder and Executive Director National Domestic Workers Allianc e As head of the NDWA, which boasts more than 70 local affiliate organizations and chapters and over 200,000 members, Ai-jen Poo was the driving force behind the Domestic Worker Bills of Rights, which brought wage protections to two million home care workers in nine states including New York.

Most significantly perhaps, Poo’s work has helped dispel the stereotype of a strictly white American labor force.

Eng’s LIRR is adapting to the coronavirus pandemic, including an app that lets passengers know how crowded each car is.

Gil Quiniones leads the U.S.’s largest state electric utility.

July 27, 2020

City & State New York

Bavishi has her work cut out for her protecting all 578 miles of New York City’s shoreline, with the pandemic and heat wave.

15 WAYNE HO

EMILY COHEN; NYPA; CHINESE-AMERICAN PLANNING COUNCIL; NYC COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

President and CEO Chinese-Americ an Planning Cou nc il As head of the largest Asian American social services organization in the U.S., with 35 locations across New York City, Wayne Ho has been busy. Ho spoke out against rising hate crimes during early stages of the pandemic, was active in the state’s 2020 Census efforts, and was behind lobbying legislation to require state agencies to disaggregate data on Asian American communities – although it was vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

16 BILL CHONG

Commissioner New York City Department of You th & Commu nity Development The Summer Youth Employment Program under Bill Chong provides 75,000 of the city’s youth with minimum wage work over the season, and was a focal point this year for advocates fighting to cut the NYPD’s budget and redistribute funds to city programs. Thanks in large part to advocacy from youth organizations and activists, SYEP survived an abrupt cancellation and cuts that would have eliminated close to a third of its budget.

17 JAINEY BAVISHI

Director New York City Mayor’s O ffic e of Resilienc y Jainey Bavishi was working on disaster risk reduction in Honolulu before she was chosen to helm the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency, which spearheads the city’s safety measures against natural disasters triggered by climate change. Bavishi has her work cut out for her protecting all 578 miles of New York City’s shoreline this year with the

Carmelyn Malalis leads the NYC Commission on Human Rights.

onslaught of the coronavirus pandemic and the heat wave hitting over the summer.

21

Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination and retaliation and engages in public outreach. She is grappling with a spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans. “Unfortunately, in this time of COVID-19, it is actually being exacerbated,” she told Gothamist. “It’s increased because of some of the dangerous rhetoric around this illness.”

18

19

CARMELYN MALALIS

ANNE DEL CASTILLO

Carmelyn Malalis, who is Filipino American, battles discrimination in New York City as the leader of the Commission on Human

Anne del Castillo was first hired to handle legal affairs for the city’s entertainment agency in 2014. The Filipino American quickly rose up the ranks through her diversity initiatives, including the formation of the multimilliondollar Made in NY Women’s Film, TV and Theatre Fund.

Del Castillo took over after the departure of Julie Menin and now heads an agency which oversees a city sector with an economic output of $104 billion.

Chair and Commissioner New York City Commission on Hu man Rights

Commissioner New York City Mayor’s O ffic e of Media & Entertainment

20 KIM PEGULA

Owner and President Bu ffalo Bills Kim Pegula became president of the Buffalo Bills in 2018, becoming the first woman to hold the official title in NFL history. Pegula, who has been lauded for her efforts to increase women’s visibility, also has served on the Super Bowl Committee and the National Football League Foundation board.

She and her husband, Terry Pegula, have explored the possibility of a new stadium in Buffalo, but have put the matter on hold.

S. David Wu is CUNY’s first Asian American president.

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July 27, 2020

Bharara was unceremoniously fired

by President Donald Trump in 2017 but continues to be an outspoken critic against the administration’s discriminative policies. navigate a path forward. The new post is a homecoming of sorts for Wu, who earlier came to New York from Taiwan as an international student.

JO-ANN YOO

Executive Director Asian Americ an Federation Jo-Ann Yoo’s leadership at the helm of the Asian American Federation, which works with dozens of nonprofits that represent and support the pan-Asian community, has cemented the AAF as one of the leading organizations advocating for business development and other rights for Asian Americans. Yoo, who joined the organization nine years ago and took the top spot in 2014, also worked for Asian Americans for Equality and the New York Immigration Coalition.

22 S. DAVID WU

President Baru c h College S. David Wu, who came on as Baruch College’s president in July, is CUNY’s first Asian American president. Wu, who previously served as provost and executive vice president of George Mason University, quickly convened a task force at Baruch to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and

FRANK WU

President Qu eens College The CUNY school announced in March that Frank Wu, who serves as distinguished law professor at California’s Hastings College and taught at Howard University for a decade, would become the new president of Queens College, the first person of Asian descent to head the 83-year-old institution. Wu is a civil rights activist and the author of “Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.”

24 PETER TU

Executive Director Flu shing Chinese Bu siness Assoc iation As head of the influential Flushing Chinese Business Association, Peter Tu has deep ties with business leaders in Queens’ robust Asian American community and at City Hall. Most recently, Tu put out a joint op-ed with Queens Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Grech voicing support for the Flushing waterfront development, which is the subject of a lawsuit against the Department of City Planning.

25 VISHAAN CHAKRABARTI

Founder and Creative Director Prac tic e for Arc hitec tu re and Urbanism In the Bloomberg administration, Vishaan Chakrabarti worked on such high-profile projects as Hudson Yards, the High Line and rebuilding the street grid at the World Trade Center site after 9/11. He has since worked on Brooklyn’s Domino Sugar Refinery and is now behind a $5.4 billion Sunnyside Yard plan, which envisions 12,000 affordable housing units and 60 acres of parks and public infrastructure atop the train yard.

26 PREET BHARARA

Former U.S. Attorney As the Manhattan U.S. attorney, Preet Bharara secured high-profile convictions against state officials like former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former state Senate Majority

Leader Dean Skelos, earning him the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street.” Bharara was unceremoniously fired by President Donald Trump in 2017 but continues to be an outspoken critic against the administration’s discriminative policies through his popular podcast, “Stay Tuned With Preet.”

27 JOHN PARK

Executive Director MinKwon Center for Commu nity Ac tion John Park heads the Flushingbased MinKwon Center for Community Action, which provides community services and civic support to the neighborhood’s Korean American residents, including those who are undocumented.

Park had another busy year, keeping residents informed through voter guides for the New York primaries, distributing pandemic relief for residents in need, and filing a joint lawsuit with other local organizations against the Department of City Planning over a Flushing waterfront development.

ASIAN AMERICAN FEDERATION; BARUCH COLLEGE

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ongratulate WeWe are arehonored honored to congratulate to congratulate

sian Power City City && State’s State’s 100 2020 2020 Asian Asian PowerPower 100 100

wn Angela including including Sung Google’s Google’s Pinsky ownown Angela Angela Sung Pinsky Sung Pinsky We are honored to congratulate City & State’s 2020 Asian Power 100 including Google’s own Angela Sung Pinsky

Archana Jayaram

Queens College congratulates the incoming Class of 2024!

as

Learn more about our nationally recognized

Congratulations to

Honored by City and State

One of the 100 Most Powerful Asian Americans

undergraduate and graduate programs.

www.qc.cuny.edu

As the Chief Operating Officer of The Legal Aid Society, Archana Jayaram has brought her leadership, dedication and extraordinary talents to transform how we serve our staff, our clients and our communities. Archana is an inspiration to all of us and we join in this well-deserved recognition of her contributions to The Legal Aid Society and the communities we serve.

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7/23/20 10:13 AM

Faiza Saeed is presiding partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

July 27, 2020

30 IBRAHIM KHAN

Chief of Staff O ffic e of the New York State Attorney General Ibrahim Khan holds considerable sway as righthand man to state Attorney General Letitia James, who Khan has worked under since her tenure as New York City’s public advocate.

The office has repeatedly made headlines since James took office, from the multiple legal actions against the president to probes into the city’s seizure of property from Black residents and reported violence against protesters

by New York City Police Department officers.

Margaret Fung’s litigation led to New York City’s first fully translated Chineselanguage ballots.

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MARGARET FUNG

FAIZA SAEED

Co-founder and Executive Director Asian Americ an Legal Defense and Edu c ation Fu nd Margaret Fung, who heads the Asian American civil rights group AALDEF, has used her legal expertise on behalf New York City’s Chinese American community. Fung was cocounsel in Chinese Staff v.

City of New York, in which the state’s highest court ruled new developments that may affect low-income tenants and small businesses are subject to review under environmental laws.

Fung’s litigation also led to New York City’s first fully-translated Chinese-language ballots.

Presiding Partner Cravath, Swaine & Moore In addition to her role as presiding partner at one of New York City’s most elite law firms, Faiza Saeed serves as an adviser and board member for multiple organizations, including New York-Presbyterian, the Partnership for New York City and the March of Dimes’ New York chapter. Saeed has also worked on closing various high-profile corporate deals such as Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

31 PAT WANG

President and CEO Healthfirst Pat Wang’s career focused on reshaping health insurance for low-income New Yorkers. Since taking the reins at Healthfirst in 2008, membership grew nearly 200% within a decade. The company now provides health insurance for 1.4 million New Yorkers, making it the largest nonprofit health insurer in the state. Wang also is a member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and board member of America’s Health Insurance Plans.

32 THOMAS CHAN

Chief of Management Analysis & Planning New York City Polic e Department Thomas Chan was the first Asian American appointed as commander in the NYPD and

is now the highest-ranking uniformed officer of Asian descent in the force. Chan is part of the newly formed Asian American Police Executives Council geared toward increasing Asian American visibility and leadership in the department. Last year, Chan was transferred from his post as transportation bureau chief after public criticism over his response to the growing cyclist deaths.

33 LINDA CHEN

Chief Academic Officer New York City Department of Edu c ation As the chief academic officer for the New York City Department of Education, Linda Chen oversees instructional support for the largest and one of the most diverse public school systems in the nation. The former Manhattan school principal, who has held key roles in the school systems in Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia, has been dealing directly with a number of hot-button issues, from standardized testing to remote learning during the coronavirus pandemic.

34 DEAN CHANG

Deputy Metro Editor/Politics The New York Times Dean Chang worked the metro desk for several years at the New York Daily News before moving on to The New York Times. In 2014, the University at Albany SUNY graduate was named print editor for the Times’ metro section, and the following year he became deputy metro editor, making sure the newspaper’s reporters have their finger on what’s going on at City Hall and in Albany.

CRAVATH SWAINE MOORE; JEFF HARRIS; BSE GLOBAL

24 CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

35 SATJEET KAUR

Executive Director The Sikh Coalition Satjeet Kaur heads the Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh advocacy organization in the country. Kaur was crucial to its growth in New York and nationwide while managing branding and fundraising efforts previously as senior director of development and finance. The coalition’s New York chapter secured a legislative win in 2019 with the passage of a state law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees due to their religious attire or facial hair.

36 CHUNG SETO

Democratic Strategist Chung Seto holds strong ties in both local and national politics as former executive director of the New York State Democratic Committee and as a former spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor under then-President Bill Clinton. She

City & State New York

Tsai made news with his statement supporting the peaceful protests against police brutality centered around the Barclays Center, which he owns. has worked on the campaigns of many of New York’s top politicos, most notably John Liu’s historic campaign for mayor in 2013 and for former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields.

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SHERRY CHAN

Sherry Chan is only the fifth chief actuary in New York City’s history – and the first Asian American to fill the position.

She has the responsibility for managing the 10% of the multibillion-dollar city budget that relates to annual pensions for nearly 800,000 active and inactive workers and other beneficiaries. As such, Chan is also the highest-ranked Asian American administration official in the city.

Chung Seto worked on the campaigns of top electeds.

an assistant prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and deputy general counsel at the New York City Department of Small Business Services, making him a leading expert in New York’s development.

40 ANITA GUNDANNA & VANESSA LEUNG

Co-Executive Directors Coalition for Asian Americ an Children+Families

37 Chief Actuary New York City O ffic e of the Ac tu ary

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JOSEPH TSAI

Owner Barc lay’s Center and Brooklyn Nets Joseph Tsai is best known for the successful e-commerce company he co-founded, Alibaba. But the Taiwan-born Canadian businessman’s influence extends to New York since he became the sole owner of the Brooklyn Nets – and the Barclays Center – last year, making him one of the world’s richest sports team owners. Tsai made news recently with his statement supporting the peaceful protests against police brutality centered around his Brooklyn sports venue.

39 CARL HUM

General Counsel Real Estate Board of New York Carl Hum joined the Real Estate Board of New York, a leading trade group, in 2015, bringing policy expertise in property development from former posts in the Bloomberg administration and at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. Hum also was

As co-directors of the Coalition for Asian American Children+Families, or CACF, Anita Gundanna and Vanessa Leung bring insight to reforms around the city’s education system. Most notably, the coalition released a 2018 report which found the city’s Specialized High School Admissions Tests, or SHSAT, reinforced inequity in public schools for all minority students including Asian Americans. Leung is a member of the New York City Panel for Educational Policy.

41 DENNY CHIN

Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Denny Chin presided over the infamous Ponzi scheme court case involving Bernie Madoff, who cheated thousands of his clients out of $65 billion. Chin sentenced the con man to 150 years in jail after he pleaded guilty in 2009, calling Madoff’s crime “extraordinarily evil.”

The judge was awarded the Honorable Harold Baer Jr. Award from the Network of Bar Leaders for his trailblazing leadership earlier this year.

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John Wang

ALBANY 146 State Street, Albany, NY 12207 518-462-4620

THE UNITED DEMOCRATIC ORGANIZATION - salutes -

VIRGINIA M. KEE

for empowering Asian Americans in politics for ďŹ fty years

- and congratulates CHUNG SETO & JENNY LOW

July 27, 2020

42 ALEXANDER WANG

Executive Director New York State Democ ratic Committee Alexander Wang played a key role in the fall of 2018 in helping elect the statewide Democratic slate of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Letitia James, who won the race to be state attorney general.

The following spring, Wang was hired to run the state Democratic Party, taking the reins at time when the Democratic Party is on the rise in New York.

City & State New York

Alexander Wang runs the state Democratic Party.

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Islander outreach for Stacey Abrams’ much-publicized run for governor of Georgia and served as the associate director for global gender and policy at the U.S. branch of the Save the Children Fund.

44 YUME KITASEI

Director of City Legislative Affairs New York City Mayor’s O ffic e Yume Kitasei has worked at the New York City mayor’s office for about four years now serving in various posts. Kitasei started in city government as the chief of staff to City Council Member Margaret Chin and later served as deputy chief of staff to First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan before being appointed to her current post under Mayor Bill de Blasio last December.

45 43 GRACE CHOI

NETWORK OF KOREAN AMERICAN LEADERS; DANIEL PROSKY

Director of Policy New York City Mayor’s O ffic e Before serving as director of policy under Mayor Bill de Blasio, Grace Choi was a policy advisor for the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration.

More recently, the Korean American was the director of Asian American and Pacific

ANTHONY SHIH

President United Hospital Fu nd Over the past three years, Anthony Shih has led United Hospital Fund’s efforts to improve New Yorkers’ access to the state’s health care system through public health data and research carried out by the independent nonprofit.

Shih held similar leadership roles previously at the New York Academy of Medicine and The Commonwealth Fund, where he oversaw all program and research activities at the foundation.

Emily Ngo’s award-winning work has brought her to the forefront of both national and local politics.

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ANGELA SUNG PINSKY

EMILY NGO

Angela Sung Pinsky has worked in New York City government for over a decade. Before moving to Google, Sung Pinsky ran the Association for a Better New York, a civic group with a $1.8 million budget. She previously worked under two mayoral administrations in the economic development sector and at the Real Estate Board of New York. She is also a member of the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

Before joining NY1, Emily Ngo covered politics for New York City outlets including Newsday, amNewYork and the New York Post. Ngo’s awardwinning work has brought her to the forefront of both national and local politics, from covering legislation in City Hall to following candidates for state and local office on the campaign trail. In recent weeks, she has reported on voter disenfranchisement and the push to defund the police.

Senior Government Affairs Manager Google

Politics Reporter Spec tru m News NY1

28 CityAndStateNY.com

HERSH PAREKH

Director of Government and Community Relations Port Au thority of New York and New Jersey A long-time Queens resident and the son of Indian immigrants, Hersh Parekh was formerly a regional representative for his home borough and also as downstate New York regional director for Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Now Parekh has moved on to spearhead the Port Authority’s government and community relations. He also has plenty of political experience, having served as a district leader and on several campaigns.

49 AMIT SINGH BAGGA

Deputy Director NYC Censu s 2 02 0 Before taking on the role of the deputy director for New York City’s ambitious census outreach efforts this year, Amit Singh Bagga served in multiple government

Hersh Parekh runs community relations at the Port Authority.

As a self-described Queer Desi, Bagga made sure the city’s census outreach also reached the LGBTQ community. positions in the de Blasio administration. As a selfdescribed Queer Desi, Bagga made sure the city’s outreach also reached the LGBTQ community – including making an appearance at the Bushwig Pride Festival and penning a compelling op-ed promoting participation in the survey.

Jersey, New England and eastern Canada. The union is politically active, recently joining a renewed call to raises taxes on the wealthy.

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ZARA NASIR

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HAE-LIN CHOI

Deputy Director of Community Organizing and Public Advocacy New York City AntiViolenc e Projec t

Hae-Lin Choi has organized for the influential communications workers union for more than a decade, rising to take over as director of its legislative efforts last year. The Communications Workers of America District 1 Union represents 150,000 workers working under the largest telecommunication companies in New York, New

Zara Nasir made headlines as one of the lead organizers behind City Hall staff’s groundbreaking unionization efforts that got underway last fall and hit a key milestone in January. She has since left City Hall and now uses their organizing skills and policy know-how to support the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which provides support and services for LGBTQ and HIV-affected survivors of hate crimes and various forms of violence.

New York State Legislative and Political Director Commu nic ation Workers of Americ a Distric t 1

52 SAPNA PALLA & BRIAN SONG

Partners Wiggin and Dana; Baker & Hostetler The Asian American Bar Association’s mission is to ensure “the meaningful participation of AsianAmericans in the legal profession.” It has made strides under Sapna Palla, a partner at Wiggin and Dana LLP, who is the president for the 2020-2021 term, and under her immediate predecessor, Brian Song, a partner at the top law firm Baker & Hostetler LLP. The organization recently surpassed 1,400 paid members.

53 JAYASRI GANAPATHY

President Sou th Asian Bar Assoc iation of New York When she was installed as president of New York’s South Asian Bar Association in January, Jayasri Ganapathy was already helping drafts laws as legislative counsel in the New York City Council.

Ganapathy was formerly an associate at Israel, Israel & Purdy LLP, where she worked on litigating cases for nofault reimbursement of health care providers. She has also volunteered at the Asian American Legal Defense Fund as part of its Young Professionals Committee.

PORT AUTHORITY; JAY MCCLINTON/DOS OJOS MEDIA; ADAM FREDERICKS

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July 27, 2020

July 27, 2020

City & State New York

Kelsey Louie leads the first HIV/AIDS health care provider.

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MY CHI TO

Executive Deputy Superintendent, Insurance Division New York State Department of Financ ial Servic es My Chi To is an esteemed lawyer and partner at Debevoise & Plimpton, where she advises clients on complex restructurings and bankruptcies. Described as a “solutions-oriented lawyer” – and the recipient of the prestigious Kathryn R. Heidt Memorial Award from the American Bar Association – it’s no surprise To was chosen as the state’s new insurance regulator by the Superintendent of Financial Services late last year.

55 NELSON CHAI

Chief Financial Officer Uber Nelson Chai has deep ties in New York’s finance circles with prior leadership posts at Merrill Lynch and NYSE Euronext, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. Since 2018, Chai has overseen the finances and assets of New York-based ride-share company Uber, which is perennially at or near the top of the list for lobbying expenditures in the state.

56 SHARON LEE

Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee has carved an impressive career working up the ranks of local government.

Lee first served under nowstate Sen. John Liu during his days as New York City

Comptroller, then was tapped to be communications director for Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, under whom she was eventually promoted to deputy president. When Katz transitioned to become Queens District Attorney, Lee became acting president – the first Asian American to hold a borough-wide office.

57 WELLINGTON CHEN

Executive Director Chinatown Partnership Wellington Chen has headed the Chinatown Partnership, a startup initiative, since 2006, when the organization was first formed to help rebuild Chinatown’s economy in the wake of 9/11. During the coronavirus pandemic, Chen has been busy coordinating with other agencies like Chinatown NYC and Chinatown BID and Small Business Services to safely reopen the neighborhood’s businesses.

Chen has been busy coordinating with other agencies like the Chinatown BID and Small Business Services to safely reopen the neighborhood’s businesses.

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KELSEY LOUIE

MICHELLE KIM

CEO Gay Men’s Health Crisis As head of GMHC, Kelsey Louie leads the world’s first HIV/AIDS health care provider and prevention services, serving 13,000 people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS in New York City. Louie’s past positions include leadership roles at Harlem United Community AIDS Center, Inc., where he oversaw the agency’s $42 million budget.

In 2014, Louie was appointed to Gov. Cuomo’s task force to end the state’s AIDS epidemic by 2020.

Director of Legislation O ffic e of the New York City Pu blic Advoc ate Michelle Kim is part of New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ core team and works with the public advocate in crafting a progressive legislative agenda centered on supporting the city’s most vulnerable communities.

Kim, who received a master’s in international affairs from Columbia University, previously served in the California state Senate as a legislative aide, and was a graduate consultant for UNICEF.

30 CityAndStateNY.com

July 20, 2020

NOPEACE IN CHINATOWN New York City has been slow to respond to a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes.

By Kay Dervishi

R

ACISM AND DISCRIMINATION against New York City’s Asian community proliferated well before the coronavirus outbreak reached a fever pitch in the city and state.

Businesses in Chinatown saw declines in customers starting as early as January because of fears of the virus, which initially emerged in China. A man assaulted an East Asian woman wearing a mask in a subway station, referring to her as diseased, a month before the city saw its first confirmed coronavirus case. Reports and complaints about attacks and ongoing bias toward Asian people and Asian Americans continued for months, though reported hate crimes have recently declined.

Despite the surge in racist behavior targeting Asian people, the City Council entirely defunded a $1 million initiative to prevent hate crimes.

The program allowed various nonprofit organizations to take reports of hate crimes from residents who might not otherwise feel comfortable calling the police. It also funded organizations to provide education and outreach on what resources were available.

“We helped educate the community about some of the remedies that were there,” said Steven Choi, executive direc-

tor of the New York Immigration Coalition, which received money through the initiative.

“We helped to highlight and provide avenues for folks who are victims of hate crimes.”

Deborah Lauter, executive director of the city Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes, which was created last year, also expressed disappointment at the program’s elimination.

“It’s definitely going to hurt our efforts overall,” she said.

Alexander Rosemberg, deputy regional director for New York and New Jersey at the Anti-Defamation League, also

said it was difficult to evaluate the program’s success given how little time it was in place.

“I don’t feel that you can tell what the full effects of the policy are after only a year and a half of having been implemented, especially when so much of it was preventative,” he said.

Having organizations informally compile reports of hate crimes and bias incidents can also play a big role filling in a knowledge gap for officials, particularly given the underreporting of such crimes to police. More than half of all hate crimes committed between

2004 and 2015 weren’t reported to law enforcement, according to a 2017 report by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

“It helps us get a sense of what the real numbers are much better,” Lauter said. “If we know 10 calls are going to (an) organization, then we can try to figure out, why is this group being targeted? What kind of resources are there?”

Although the NYPD reports only two anti-Asian hate crimes occurring from January through early June, the department reported 20 other hate crimes fueled by the coronavi-

July 20, 2020

City & State New York

PHILIP LANGE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Despite the surge in attacks targeting Asian people after racists incorrectly blamed them for bringing the coronavirus to the U.S., the City Council entirely defunded a $1 million initiative to prevent hate crimes. Chinatown businesses saw a drop in customers as early as January.

rus, the second-highest category behind anti-Semitism.

About 37% of all 389 coronavirus-related incidents reported to the city Commission on Human Rights from February to the end of May involved anti-Asian sentiment. The 145 complaints also represent a tenfold increase in anti-Asian complaints filed compared to the same period last year, which had only 12. This encompasses many bias incidents that don’t necessarily rise the level of a hate crime, such as being called a racial slur.

The Commission on Human

Rights also responds to other discriminatory behavior, such as landlords kicking out Asian residents they accuse of having the coronavirus. The Asian American Federation, which represents nonprofits supporting the Asian community, has also collected 371 of its own reports of bias incidents from January through July 15.

And as lockdown restrictions are lifted and more businesses reopen, city officials are already fearing a resurgence in hate crimes and other discriminatory behavior as residents come into contact with one another

more often. Overall, hate crimes were down by 34% as of late May compared with the same period last year, according to Mark Molinari, the NYPD deputy inspector and commanding officer of the Hate Crime Task Force.

Other crimes were also down because of the stay-at-home order earlier this year.

“I worry as we go into the long hot summer, where we generally see an increase, because there’s been so much tension and community unrest, it could manifest into hate violence,” Lauter said. “How to approach it is a real challenge.”

New York’s law enforcement does have some advantages in its strategy for investigating hate crimes, however. “They have the best approach for dealing with hate crimes that I found,” said Jeannine Bell, an expert on policing and hate crimes with the Indiana University Maurer School of Law. “Specialized detective units work best,” she said. “Anyone who knows about hate crimes will tell you that.” These specialized units have more experience with hate crimes, know what evidence to collect for successful prosecution and are given the authority to investigate.

The degree to which that investigation can happen, however, is limited by how many victims report the crime. Victims may not trust police. Some may be worried about being scrutinized on their immigration status. Others may simply be ashamed or embarrassed.

“A lot of the Asian Americans, we come from countries where action with law enforcement is something really scary and dangerous,” said Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the Asian American Federation.

“So people avoid law enforcement altogether.”

City officials have hosted virtual town halls in partnership with Asian community leaders

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and launched an ad campaign in various languages to inform New Yorkers – particularly those of Asian or Pacific Islander descent – on what resources are available to them if they face hate. “Very much at top of mind for me is always thinking about, would my parents, would my relatives be reporting these incidents?” said Carmelyn Malalis, commissioner of the city Commission on Human Rights. “How do we make it more likely that they would?” She said the commission won’t send information they receive to the NYPD without the victim’s approval, for example, and the city won’t ask about anyone’s immigration status.

But for some Asian American leaders, the city’s initiatives came to fruition too slowly. Though the city had some in-person programs tackling anti-Asian sentiment beginning in February, some more coordinated efforts took shape later in the year. The Commission on Human Rights formed a team focused on coronavirus-related discrimination in late April and launched an ad campaign in late May. “Why wasn’t that a plan already, right, because we were already seeing things happening in January, February, even before the lockdown,” Yoo said.

There are other preventive actions the city has taken. A curriculum has been developed to teach public school students about racism and hate, though evaluating the outcomes of such efforts takes time and may be difficult to measure. But the city has also worked with the Center for Anti-Violence Education, an organization based in Brooklyn, to conduct eight training sessions to teach about 250 people how to intervene as a bystander witnessing hateful behavior. But even that approach is controversial, Bell said, given that there have been cases where bystanders can be hurt while intervening. Two men in Portland, Oregon, were stabbed to death in 2017 after standing up to a man yelling anti-Muslim comments at train passengers, for example. “Prevention is a really hard issue with respect to hate crimes,” Bell said.

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July 27, 2020

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documenting the long history of Chinese immigration in the United States. Maasbach showed steadfast leadership after a five-alarm fire in January threatened to wipe out the museum’s archive of 85,000 irreplaceable artifacts, and has successfully secured $80 million in capital funding from the city for the museum’s restoration.

JEFFREY LEE

Principal Capalino+Company Prior to joining Capalino+Company, one of the top lobbying firms in New York City, Jeffrey Lee managed the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s tax-exempt bond financing program, overseeing $1.5 billion in transactions. Lee has also spearheaded several economic development programs, including the Neighborhood Credit Fund, which supports local businesses by improving access to loans and credit lines to help them expand their business and create jobs.

JENNIFER SUN & THOMAS YU Co-Executive Directors Asian Americ ans for Equ ality

NIKETA SHETH

CEO Womankind

Jeffrey Lee is a principal at top lobbying firm Capalino+Company.

Maasbach showed steadfast leadership after a fire threatened to wipe out the museum’s archive of 85,000 artifacts.

Sun and Yu co-head AAFE, one of the leading advocates for issues impacting Asian American communities in New York with a focus on the economic development of Chinatown. They also organized a Queens borough president candidate forum ahead of the New York primary with APA Voice, a coalition of 20 nonprofits dedicated to engaging Asian American voters. “Asian voices do matter and Asian voices do count,” Sun said at the forum.

pharmaceutical sector, is no stranger to government work: She previously served in various roles in the administrations of Gov. Mario Cuomo and Mayor David Dinkins. In addition to being on the board of NYC Health + Hospitals, Kawatra currently serves as senior vice president of corporate affairs at Inheris Biopharma, Inc.

York. He was a key figure in the New York branch’s formation, and in recent years has initiated new collaborations with community organizations like the Asia Society. In 2017, he orchestrated the bank’s collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, making it the first Chinese company to present a landmark exhibition at the Met.

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ANITA KAWATRA

CHENGYUE JIAO

NANCY YAO MAASBACH

Anita Kawatra, who has worked more than 12 years on communications and government affairs in the

Chengyue Jiao is a vital part of the China Merchant Bank’s enduring presence in New

As president of MOCA, Nancy Yao Maasbach heads this storied institution dedicated to

Board Member NYC Health + Hospitals

General Manager China Merc hant Bank, New York Branc h

President Mu seu m of Chinese Americ a

As head of Womankind (formerly the New York Asian Women’s Center), Niketa Sheth runs emergency shelters and other supportive services for survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence in New York. Sheth’s organization is also part of the steering committee of the #DecrimNY coalition supporting legislation to decriminalize sex work in the state. She is also a member of the board of directors of the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault.

66 WEI BO

New York Executive Chief Representative Fosu n International Wei Bo has overseen multiple real estate projects in New York City carried out by Fosun International Limited, a multinational company involved in real estate, health care, wealth management and beyond based in Shanghai, over the last seven years.

Among the company’s most recent property developments is the 53-story Madison House which bills itself as the tallest condominium building north of Madison Square Park.

LEIGH BECKETT; SPENCER GALLOP; COMMUNITIES UNITED FOR POLICE REFORM

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City & State New York

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SAM CHANG

JOHN ALBERT

ARCHANA JAYARAM

Sam Chang created the Long Island-based McSam Hotel Group in 2001 and quickly built a reputation developing hotels in Midtown geared toward New York City’s budget travelers. The company was scrutinized in 2014 after the death of one of its construction workers spawned renewed concerns over building code violations in New York City. Chang’s most recent development is a 974-room hotel at 150 West 48th Street.

John Albert is a veteran lobbyist at Bolton-St. Johns, which does extensive work in the nonprofit and business sectors. The Queensbred attorney successfully advocated for legislation related to anti-stalking and anti-hate crimes, and notably secured approvals for major upgrades to the borough’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on behalf of the United States Tennis Association.

Before becoming COO to the oldest and largest provider of legal aid in the country, Archana Jayaram built a career in city government.

Jayaram’s past titles include deputy commissioner at New York City’s Department of Buildings and associate commissioner of programs at the Department of Correction, where Jayaram launched the Individualized Correction Achievement Network to help the reentry of formerly incarcerated people back into society.

Founder and Chair Mc Sam Hotel Grou p

Counsel Bolton-St. Johns

A survivor and vocal advocate, Shandra Woworuntu has worked with lawmakers in Albany to pass anti-human trafficking bills.

Archana Jayaram is chief operating officer of Legal Aid Society.

Chief Operating Officer Legal Aid Soc iety

69 JOO-HYUN KANG

Director Commu nities United for Polic e Reform Joo-Hyun Kang is a longtime organizer in New York City.

Kang was a program director at Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, and was the first staff member and director of the Audre Lorde Project.

Kang’s work with CPR, which encompasses over 60 organizational members from every borough, was at the forefront of the city’s successful 50-a repeal following the growing movement against police brutality.

70 ANDREA JUNG

President and CEO Grameen Americ a From 1999 until 2012, Andrea Jung served as the first woman CEO and chair of Avon Products, Inc. Jung continues to blaze a trail for women in business as head of Grameen America, which has invested more than $870 million in womenowned businesses around the U.S. Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently appointed Jung to serve on his Committee for the Advancement of Women in Leadership in Financial Services.

72 WENDY CAI-LEE

President and CEO Piermont Bank Wendy Cai-Lee has more than 20 years of experience in financial services, most recently as executive VP at East West Bank, where she was instrumental in growing the bank’s total assets from $22 billion to $36 billion. Now Cai-Lee is disrupting the New York banking industry as head of Piermont Bank, which became the first independent de novo bank charter approved for New York State in the last decade.

73 SHANDRA WOWORUNTU

Founder and Vice President Mentari USA A survivor and vocal advocate, Shandra Woworuntu has worked with lawmakers in Albany to pass anti-human trafficking bills that support the safety and rehabilitation of survivors, frequently traveling

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74 TIM WU

Professor Colu mbia Law Sc hool Tim Wu is a law professor, tech policy expert, and published author. Wu’s past stints include posts at the Federal Trade Commission and on the White House National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, but Wu is mostly known as the person who coined the term “net neutrality,” a principle grounded in the equal treatment of all internet parties by internet service providers.

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76 HENRY CHEN

President SO MO S Commu nity Care Henry Chen is a primary care physician who has practiced in New York City for more than 20 years. Before Chen became president of SOMOS Community Care – the city’s only physician-led network, with over 2,500 providers serving patients all over the city – he served as president of the Association of Chinese American Physicians and founded the Chinese Community Accountable Care Organization, where he still serves as CEO.

77 JOHN WANG

Founder and President Asian Americ an Bu siness Development Center John Wang founded the AABDC in 1994 as a way to promote Asian American

This father-daughter duo has weathered the worst together after their familyrun Chinatown bank, which has operated for 35 years, was embroiled in a fiveyear lawsuit against the government in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The Sung family’s case – and their subsequent acquittal – was the subject of a 2016 documentary, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” later nominated for an Oscar.

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SANDEEP MATHRANI

AMOL SARVA

Sandeep Mathrani is a veteran of New York real estate who is best known for his expertise turning around commercial properties caught in financial trouble. Mathrani was the head honcho of General Growth Properties, then the secondlargest shopping center owner in the U.S., before being poached to helm the nearly bankrupt WeWork in February.

Observers predict Mathrani will work his magic once more at the troubled commercial real estate company.

Amol Sarva has a lengthy resume as a co-founder of multiple startups, including Virgin Mobile USA and Peek.

But Sarva’s most notable venture as of late is Knotel, the flexible office space company that is similar to WeWork but serves larger clients. The company made waves after it closed on a $400 million fundraising round last year.

But like other real estate companie

CEO WeWork

Tim Wu is mostly known as the person who coined the term “net neutrality.”

THOMAS SUNG AND JILL SUNG Chairman; CEO Abac u s Federal Savings Bank

businesses in the state. The center has since become the foremost promoter of Asian American businesses both in New York and across the United States. For the past 20 years, the AABDC has hosted an annual business summit and, with the rise of the global economy, established its first overseas affiliate office in Beijing.

Tim Wu is a Columbia Law professor and tech expert.

Co-founder and CEO Knotel

80 TRIP YANG

Political Consultant Trip Yang has secured wins for many progressive candidates during his career as a consultant. Yang was political director for New York and Massachusetts to Bernie Sanders during the senator’s presidential run and worked with local candidates like Letitia James and Eric Gonzalez in their successful bids for Attorney General and Brooklyn District Attorney, respectively. Yang was recently campaign manager for Jumaane Williams in his successful bid to become New York City Public Advocate.

TIM WU; KNOTEL

the globe as a speaker on women’s empowerment.

In 2014, the Indonesian American co-founded Mentari, a Queens-based nonprofit supporting the rehabilitation and professional development of survivors through cooking classes. Ninety-three percent of the program’s clients have gone on to secure jobs as culinary professionals.

July 27, 2020

AS WE CONGRATULATE DR. CHEN FOR HIS ACHIEVEMENT, WE KNOW THERE IS A LONG ROAD AHEAD. WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO LOOK AT OUR STATE OF CHINESE HEALTH REPORT AT

SOMOSNYHEALTH.ORG

“As an immigrant doctor who serves immigrant communities, I’m grateful to be recognized for the work that all SOMOS doctors do every day to combat the health crises and disparities facing the Asian community in our city. I share this distinction with SOMOS doctors across the network and the families we care for.”

— Dr. Henry Chen, President of SOMOS.

833.SOMOSNY | SOMOSNYHEALTH.ORG

Ali Rashid leads the American Pakistani Advocacy Group.

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NAUREEN AKHTER

Deputy District Director O ffic e of U.S. Rep. Alexandria O c asioCortez Naureen Akhter’s organizing prowess came to light during her run as Alexandria OcasioCortez’s campaign director of organizing for AOC’s upset victory over incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley two years ago.

Akhter, who was promoted to deputy district director after the 2018 election, is also the co-founder of the newly formed Muslims For Progress and the Bangladeshi Americans For Political Progress, both based in New York.

82 MANMEET KAUR

Founder and CEO City Health Works Since launching City Health Works in Harlem in 2013, Manmeet Kaur has moved the needle in health education and service by working with local health workers to engage with patients to better understand their long-term conditions. The health care provider has raised more than $6 million from foundations like the Helmsley Charitable Trust and Mount Sinai, and earned $2 million in revenue from health system partnerships.

83 JUSTIN YU

Chair New York Chinese Chamber O f Commerc e Justin Yu has formed deep connections in Manhattan’s Chinatown ever since he moved from Queens to the Manhattan neighborhood

in 1977. Yu spent 25 years as a journalist, covering immigration issues for World Journal Daily, the largest Chinese newspaper in North America. He was formerly head of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and serves on the board of multiple other Asian American organizations.

84 PAUL MAK

President and CEO Brooklyn ChineseAmeric an Assoc iation As founder and leader of the BCAA since its inception more than 30 years ago, Paul Mak has longstanding ties to the city’s Chinese American community, particularly around Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, which has the secondlargest Chinese American population in New York City, behind only Flushing. Mak has worked with a number of legislators on local initiatives, such as Asian American outreach during the 2020 Census.

85 ELIZABETH OUYANG

Human Rights Attorney Elizabeth OuYang has been a civil rights attorney and ardent advocate for the city’s Asian American communities for over 20 years. OuYang works as a consultant for various nonprofits, including the New York Community Trust and the New York Immigration Coalition, where OuYang provided pro bono

services for Muslim and South Asian New Yorkers affected by discriminatory post-9/11 government policies.

86 ALI RASHID

President Americ an Pakistani Advoc ac y Grou p Ali Rashid has developed the APAG into one of the most visible political advocacy organizations serving Pakistani Americans in New York City. Rashid’s organization hosted a Queens District Attorney forum to engage voters ahead of the 2019 race. Most recently, the group launched the Essential Groceries Drive, which provides free groceries to residents in need, and advocated for the immigrant municipal voting bill currently being deliberated by the City Council.

OuYang provided pro bono services for Muslim and South Asian New Yorkers affected by discriminatory post-9/11 policies.

87 ALI NAJMI

Co-Founding Board Member and Vice President Sou th Asian IndoCaribbean Bar Assoc iation of Qu eens Ali Najmi is a Queens-based attorney who co-founded the South Asian Indo-Caribbean Bar Association of Queens and also serves as its vice president. Last year, Najmi, who also co-founded the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, was named by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to the Taxi Medallion Task Force. To top off a busy year, Najmi ran as a candidate for the Democratic Judicial Delegate in the 24th Assembly District.

88 PABITRA BENJAMIN Executive Director Adhikaar

As head of Adhikaar, Pabitra Benjamin leads one of the most politically active advocacy groups centered on Nepalese workers, who make up a significant portion of New

ALI RASHID; FOTOMAGIC NY; MARION AGUAS

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York’s domestic work force. “I know I have pride in my Nepali heritage and of being multiple identities that come together as my whole self,” said Benjamin, a queer Nepalese American who was previously an organizing director at the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance.

City & State New York

Taehoon Kim is encouraging New Yorkers to return and support the community’s businesses after the pandemic lockdown.

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ANNETTA SEECHARRAN Executive Director Chhaya CDC

ANDREA JANG

Chief Operating Officer Ac kman-Ziff Real Estate Grou p Before arriving at AckmanZiff, one of the top boutique real estate capital advisory firms in New York, Andrea Jang oversaw growth for the Northwest region at the real estate services company JLL Spark. Outside of her professional work, Jang founded Asian Americans in Commercial Real Estate, a business resource group, and is an active member of Apex for Youth, which recruits professionals to mentor Asian and immigrant youths.

90 JULIE AE KIM

Co-founder Asian Americ an Feminist Collec tive As co-founder of the Asian American Feminist Collective, which focuses on political engagement with the city’s Asian diaspora, Julie Ae Kim has cultivated a young, progressive community among Asian American New Yorkers. Kim previously served in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and became the first executive director of the Women’s Caucus at the City Council. She is also currently the Queens Borough Lead for the 2020 Census.

91 NEETA JAIN

Founder and President International Ahimsa Fou ndation Neeta Jain has served New York City residents for more than 25 years through the principles of Jain, the Indian religion, by promoting peace and nonviolence through her foundation. Jain served as Democratic district leader in New York’s 25th Assembly District Part B, making her the first Indian American elected official in the city, and is president of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Democratic Club of Queens.

Annetta Seecharran has compiled a commendable record serving New York City’s South Asian, Indo-Caribbean and immigrant communities.

Seecharran’s past posts include leadership roles at United Neighborhood Houses, the South Asian Youth Action, and as a board member of the New York Immigration Coalition. In addition to her role at Chhaya, a community development corporation in Queens, Seecharran was recently appointed to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City Civic Engagement Commission.

93 GEETANJALI GUPTA

Chief Investment Officer New York Pu blic Library Prior to joining the New York Public Library, Geetanjali

Julie Ae Kim started the Asian American Feminist Collective.

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Gupta managed global portfolios valued at more than $15 billion across a variety of assets at Boston’s Harvard Management Company. As CIO of NYPL, Gupta puts her asset management expertise to work by collaborating closely with the library’s board of trustees investment committee to manage $1.2 billion worth of financial assets and endowments.

94 TAEHOON KIM

President Greater Flu shing Chamber of Commerc e Downtown Flushing is the heart of the Queens neighborhood featuring a concentration of Asian American-owned businesses, which offer a bustling attraction for residents and out-of-borough visitors alike.

As head of its Chamber of Commerce, Taehoon Kim led the way for Flushing’s recent reopening with the chamber’s #FlushingRising campaign, which encourages New Yorkers to return and support the community’s businesses after the pandemic lockdown.

95 JENIFER RAJKUMAR & ZOHRAN MAMDANI

Assembly candidates In this year’s Democratic primaries for two state Assembly districts, Jenifer Rajkumar and Zohran Mamdani ousted Queens incumbents Michael Miller and Aravella Simotas, in Districts 38 and 36, respectively. Rajkumar, the former director of immigration affairs and special counsel for the state, and Mamdani, a housing organizer, are not just bringing new blood to the Assembly – they would be among the body’s first South Asian members.

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Dave Chokshi is an attending physician at Bellevue.

York, the largest nonprofit organization focused on Muslim civic engagement in the United States. Before joining Emgage, Badi worked as a senior policy associate at the New York Academy of Medicine. Badi is also a Democratic elected official serving as president of the Tilden Democratic Club and second vice-chair on Manhattan’s Community Board 6.

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Medical Director Harm Redu c tion Coalition

96 DAVE CHOKSHI

Attending Physician NYC Health + Hospitals/ Bellevu e Hospital Center Up until May, Dave Chokshi led NYC Health + Hospitals’ accountable care organization, saving Medicare an estimated $37 million in five years.

When the pandemic hit, the Rhodes scholar led the system’s mass transition to telemedicine, conducting 83,000 billable televisits and 30,000 behavioral health encounters in a month all done through telephone and video. He remains a physician at Bellevue Hospital Center and a professor at NYU School of Medicine.

97 JENNY LOW

Director of the Community Engagement Division New York City Cou nc il Speaker’s O ffic e As the trusted liaison between Council Speaker Corey Johnson’s office and constituents, Jenny Low draws on her 28 years of experience

in community-focused corporate communications on a daily basis. Low’s appointment to the office was a “natural extension” following her decades of community service in various nonprofits supporting residents in Chinatown, where she was raised, including a stint as chair of the board of directors of the Chinese-American Planning Council.

98 AHSIA BADI

New York State Census Director Emgage Ahsia Badi is the census director for Emgage in New

100 GITA TIKU

Finance Director Gov. Andrew Cu omo While some New York candidates embrace smalldollar donations, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has won handily at the polls with major contributions and an insurmountable campaign war chest – and that’s thanks in large part to his campaign finance director, Gita Tiku. Since coming on in 2017, Tiku helped Cuomo coast to reelection in 2018 and continue to post impressive fundraising numbers to position him to seek a fourth term in 2022.

NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE; PETER NGUYEN

When the pandemic hit, Dave Chokshi led NYC Health + Hospitals’ mass transition to telemedicine, conducting 83,000 billable televisits and 30,000 behavioral health encounters in a month.

Kimberly Sue is a physiciananthropologist and published author who leads the medical arm of the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national advocacy organization focused on reducing the impacts of the country’s drug crisis on marginalized communities.

Sue is also a physician at New York’s Rikers Island jail and uses evidence-based research to influence drug policies, particularly in the realm of harm reduction related to the opioid crisis.

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DO RENT REGULATIONS ACTUALLY DRIVE UP HOUSING COSTS?

July 27, 2020

W H I LE T H E P OLI C Y H A S G O OD I N T E N T I ONS, IT H A R MS MA N Y L OWI N C OME FA MI LI E S AN D S OME T I ME S B E N E F ITS C E LE B R I T I E S A N D W E A LT H Y PE OPLE

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THE

long, winding history of rent regulation New York state has improved the rights of tenants since World War I.

BY ANDREA MURAD

R

ENT REGULATION IN New York City has helped curb rising housing costs, particularly during a housing shortage or low vacancy rates. Rent regulation is the result of a long history that intertwines state and local politics. In New York state, rents are the one issue that can make or break political candidates; tenants want affordable rents while

landlords want more profit.

“Rent regulation has helped to hold down the increase of rents in the city and so for those people who are fortunate to be in rent-regulated apartments, they’ve been able to benefit from that,” said Mark Willis, senior policy fellow at the NYU Furman Center.

New York City currently has about 1 million rent-regulated units, which is a little less than

one-third of its housing stock, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Laws have evolved over the years to provide more protections for tenants so that rents are more affordable, that they have the right to a lease renewal, and that they have a defense against eviction if they go on a rent strike to demand repairs.

Rent regulation is a clear benefit for tenants in other ways in that it prolongs their tenures

and strengthens the residential stability of those units.

But it wasn’t always this way.

“New York City was one of the last places for rent regulation to be imposed by the federal government during World War II because landlords kept rents artificially low during the war to protect their tenants,” said Jay Martin, executive director of CHIP, an association of small property owners in New York

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City. Development in the city was just beginning, and as the subway expanded throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, housing followed.

In the 1920s, over 700,000 housing units were built.

The next wave of rent legislation was part of the wartime effort during World War II. The federal government established the Office of Price Administration in 1941 to control the prices

of rents, wages, and goods like nylons, tires, steel and produce.

“When you’re in a war, you have to keep inflation down because people will speculate and buy up what you need for the war,” McKee said. “You couldn’t build housing because you couldn’t get supplies because everything was needed for the war effort. The entire economy was bent to the task of winning the war.”

The federal government passed the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, but New York City was initially exempt from these federal price controls until November 1, 1943, when the Office of Price Administration froze city rents at March 1, 1943, levels. At the end of World War II, the government phased out rent controls and gave states the power to enact their own laws, which New York did as

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a result of tenant organizing.

Right before the federal legislation expired in 1947, New York state enacted its own legislation in 1946 to preserve rent controls.

In 1950, Gov. Thomas Dewey was elected to his third term as a Republican, and he succeeded in passing a bill that extended rent control to every unit constructed before 1947. Rent control laws often covered buildings constructed during certain years and allowed landlords of the other buildings to charge market rents.

Between 1953 and 1972, much of New York City’s housing was decontrolled, and there were 1.8 million rent-controlled apartments remaining.

Gov. Nelson Rockefeller was running for reelection in 1962 against Robert M. Morgenthau and did not want rent control to become a campaign issue, said Mike McKee, treasurer of TenantsPAC. He pushed the Local Emergency Rent Control Act through the state Senate and Assembly, which transferred the responsibility of administering rent-controlled apartments to the city even though Mayor Robert Wagner did not want the responsibility of regulating rents.

As vacancy rates started to plummet in 1969, the City Council and Mayor John Lindsay enacted the Rent Stabilization Law, which covered buildings constructed after 1947 for the first time, established the Rent Guidelines Board and allowed real estate industry groups to disseminate a stabilization code subject to the city’s review. The Rent Guidelines Board determines rent adjustments, and the mayor has full control of the board and appoints all nine members without City Council approval. “(In 1971), angered by the enactment of the New York rent regulation law, Rockefeller took back home rule from New York City,” McKee said.

Rockefeller then passed six bills, including vacancy decontrol where any apartment turning over on or after June 30, 1971, would be permanently removed from rent control and stabilization. During the next three years, between 400,000 and 500,000 apartments were deregulated in the city. Rockefeller also passed

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the Urstadt Law, named after Charles Urstadt, his housing commissioner, that barred New York City from enacting any rent limitations that were more restrictive than the current law.

“The Urstadt Law shifted the power to Albany, which is a good thing. The whole state depends on New York City’s economic health, and rent control policies have proven throughout history to devastate the economies of cities. Progressive economists universally agree it is bad policy,” Martin said. In 1974, the Emergency Tenant Protection Act repealed vacancy decontrol entirely and all destabilized units reverted back to rent stabilization. After 1974, any rent-controlled apartment that became vacated in the future would transition from rent control to rent stabilization. “The Legislature made a conscious decision to phase out rent con-

July 27, 2020

trol and phase in rent stabilization – most of the rent-stabilized apartments are prewar apartments that were previously rent controlled,” McKee said.

During the 1990s, there was more rent deregulation in the city. The Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1993 included high-income rent deregulation, or luxury deregulation. This law also included a vacancy bonus – if a tenant vacated a unit, the landlord was entitled to a 20% increase in rent to put the apartment more in line with market rents – and allowed for the deregulation of apart-

ments with tenants paying more than $2,000 a month or had incomes exceeding $250,000 for two previous years. In 1997, the income threshold was lowered to $175,000. In 2011, these thresholds were changed again to $2,500 a month and an income higher than $200,000.

This law allowed landlords to convert a significant amount of rent-regulated apartments.

The most recent law to pass was in 2019. The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act no longer permits the deregulation of rent-stabilized apartments and rolled back landlord gains to

where they had been in the early 1990s. Landlords have already filed lawsuits claiming that the rent-stabilization system is unconstitutional and amounts to an unlawful taking of property.

Whether this law remains on the books depends on which political party controls state government.

While tenants have been fighting for these issues for decades, the political context has improved over time. Often Democrats favored tenants, while Republicans favored landlords, and whichever party was in control determined who benefited from any rent-regulation legislation.

new york city currently has about 1 million rent-regulated units, which is a little less than one-third of its housing stock

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Envisioning a fairer housing system Means testing could make thousands of affordable apartments available to those in need.

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BY ANDREA MURAD

P

ROVIDING below-market-rate apartments to New Yorkers with incomes and assets below certain thresholds seems like a good idea, but means testing for housing comes with complications. Diverse socioeconomic populations benefit a city’s cultural fabric, but a system that frees up housing for this population creates more questions about its mechanics. “(For rentals), if there was some easy solution, we would have implemented it a long time ago – it’s administratively complicated and someone has to pay for it,” said Mark Willis, senior policy fellow at the NYU Furman Center.

Housing systems benefiting lower-income tenants distort general market forces.

Rent-regulation laws are written to prevent price gouging on apartments when there are more people wanting to live in New York City than available apartments. Rent regulation was meant as a temporary solution

while sufficient housing stock was built, but plans to build new housing units are often met with community pushback and restrictive zoning regulations.

Means testing could make the system fairer, and requiring an income and asset test would free up thousands of rent-stabilized apartments for those who qualify. Tenant advocates believe that prices for rent-stabilized apartments need to be permanently held down though, and that regardless of their financial situation, tenants should be able to stay in their homes.

Means testing requires oversight to ensure tenants in rent-stabilized units have incomes below a certain threshold.

The mechanics of the system and how that rent is paid – whether it is paid by the tenant, by the government through a voucher, or by the government through a tax break – and then what happens if the tenant’s income increases above an income threshold are unanswered questions.

Most means-tested programs link the household’s need to the subsidy. Since subsidies are attached to the apartment, the landlord is forced to provide the subsidy. Rent regulation is deemed a subsidy to tenants without an affordability test – it’s an inherently unfair system because there’s no relationship between the subsidy and need, and some tenants can afford higher rents, said Greg David, director of the Business & Economics

Reporting Program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. “Over time, without rent regulation, rent-regulated apartments would go up and market rentals would go down.

Ending rent regulation would spur construction because rent regulation deters construction.”

There’s an affordable housing shortage because construction is cost prohibitive with the current tax system. “The only units that are built are highly subsidized, and the landlord usually gets tax credits to produce that housing,” said Jay Martin, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program.

“If we lowered the cost to maintain, build and run these units, the need to highly subsidize the development of affordable apartments wouldn’t exist.”

The economics for means testing works when housing is set aside for specific people based on their income. Rent-regulated apartments have widely varying costs, which makes means testing for these apartments impossible. “Under the inclusionary zoning for (Mayors Michael) Bloomberg and (Bill) de Blasio, we build affordable apartments with specific income criteria,” David said.

“It’s fair in those cases because people are selected by lottery – you qualify on income and get the apartment based on a lottery, and if you leave, they have to replace you with someone with the same income. That’s

where means testing works.”

In these programs, the landlord is given a benefit, like the ability to build taller buildings, that produce more revenue that zoning would allow. Those profits are then used to subsidize the affordable apartments. Areas are rezoned to increase the density and height limits, but these builders are required to provide affordable housing under de Blasio – the program was voluntary under Bloomberg.

Another way to change the system is to adopt vacancy decontrol that moves apartments to market rents when tenants move, which the city did in the 1990s with high-income rent deregulation, or luxury deregulation. A free market would eliminate the need for means testing because people would be better able to afford apartments.

The country does have means testing for housing in many communities. The housing choice voucher program, or Section 8, provides families with assistance to pay their rent based on their gross annual income and family size. The money flows to the landlord, but the individual gets the subsidy. But only a quarter of the eligible households are funded, Willis said.

Means testing works in government housing programs, but government-owned housing is scarce. “When private landlords means test, it’s bad policy,” said Mike McKee, treasurer of TenantsPAC.

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how means testing works for social programs Subsidies should be directed to those who can’t afford certain services.

BY ANDREA MURAD

A

S THE INCOME disparities between the rich and poor become greater, means testing in society helps to promote equality between different classes. The idea is that people who have limited income and assets can still access basic services through a subsidy with the goal of lifting people out of poverty with temporary and sometimes more permanent assistance.

Often, federal or state governments fund these programs and administer them, or delegate the administration to local governments. Either way, means testing only works for certain services.

“Means testing matters to quite a lot of people with low income who aren’t able to consume – principally housing, food and health care – beyond what they wouldn’t be able to if they didn’t get these payments,” said Andrew Samwick, professor of economics at Dartmouth College.

Means testing works such that when a person’s income and savings is below a certain threshold, they’re given access through a subsidy to services they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. That subsidy may be in the form of cash or a voucher that’s passed along to the supplier. Once that person’s income or assets in-

crease beyond that threshold, they lose that subsidy as the thought is that they can now afford these goods on their own. These programs can provide broad coverage, as some have millions of recipients.

Means testing is not to be confused with entitlements and is not redistributive. Typically, recipients spend these funds on the items they need.

While some programs may seem as a disincentive to work, some programs are meant to be temporary and have time limits associated with them.

There are a few different models with housing, like the housing choice voucher program, or Section 8, that provides assistance to families for rent payments based on their gross annual income and family size. While individuals receive the subsidy, the

money flows to the landlord.

More than 2 million low-income people participate in this program nationwide, with about 13% of all Section 8 housing units located outside of metropolitan areas.

“With housing, it has the feel that housing has become permanently unaffordable and some people are permanently closed out. We have to figure out a way to make living in the city or the urban area more affordable, and there’s (an) expectation that that will end at any time,” Samwick said. “If you’re working poor and collecting food stamps, the only way you won’t do that in the future is if you get higher income and that brings a conversation about whether workers can upgrade their wages.”

The Supplemental Nutrition

Assistance Program provides assistance to low-income families in the form of a monthly allotment that can be used to buy healthy unprocessed food.

Assets are not considered for eligibility. In 2018, about 40 million individuals utilized these benefits at a cost of $68 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Within health care, Medicaid is a means tested program that’s jointly funded by both the federal and state governments that helps people with limited income access medical resources. Generally, families that qualify must earn less than 133% of the federal poverty level, which was $26,200 for a family of four in 2020.

The Children’s Health Insurance Program provides low-cost health coverage to children in families whose in-

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July 27, 2020

comes are too high to qualify for Medicaid, but cannot afford private insurance. Each state has its own rules regarding qualification and benefits vary as well.

In March 2020, nearly 71 million individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP, with about 64 million enrolled in Medicaid and about 6.8 million enrolled in CHIP, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

Supplemental Security Income is a federal program that supplements income for disabled adults and children or the elderly by providing cash so they can meet their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. Qualifying recipients are limited to $2,000 in assets for individuals and $3,000 for couples, and most receive the basic monthly SSI benefit, which in 2019, was $771 for an individual or $1,157 for a couple, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. In June 2019, about 8.1 million people collected these benefits at a cost of about $56 billion.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is a block grant that’s given to each state and provides short-term financial assistance to families in need. Each state runs its own program that works to help families care for their children and end dependence on government benefits by promoting job preparation and work assistance. States contribute to the program financially, and in 2018, national spending was about $31.3 billion, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Celebrities who live in regulated housing

THE CITY’S STOCK of about 1 million rent-regulated units enables New Yorkers to work as civil servants, pursue a career in the arts or simply enjoy a fulfilling retirement without having to leave for the suburbs.

Of course, not everyone living in these homes is a working- or middle-class resident. Celebrities, politicians and the ordinary well-to-do have been abusing the housing system as long as it has been in place.

EMILY RATAJKOWSKI AND SEBASTIAN BEAR-MCCLARD The model and actress and her filmmaker husband live in a luxurious 1,100-squarefoot loft on the second floor of 49 Bleecker St. that Bear-McClard has subleased since 2013. When the lease expired in 2017, the posh couple claimed protection under the state’s loft law and hadn’t paid the $4,900 monthly rent since, their landlord claimed. Bear-McClard is worth about $11.7 million and owes his landlord about $160,000.

NORA EPHRON In 2006, Nora Ephron wrote, “Whenever you give up an apartment in New York and move to another city, New York turns into the worst version of itself.” No wonder she held on to her $1,500 eight-room apartment at The Apthorp on the Upper West Side for as long as she could. Ephron had paid the previous tenant $24,000 for the Famous author Norah Ephron held on to her $1,500 8-room apartment at The Apthorp on the Upper West Side for as long as she could.

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apartment, in what has to be the steal of the century. She bought a $2.5 million coop in 2008.

MIA FARROW Mia Farrow inherited her home on East 73rd Street from her family. You’ve seen it before if you’re a fan of “Hannah and Her Sisters” – Woody Allen filmed scenes in her apartment.

She only paid $2,900 a month for the 11-room apartment that overlooks Central Park.

CHARLES RANGEL The former member of Congress from Harlem has not just one or two but four rent-stabilized units at his Lenox Terrace complex on West 135th Street. Rangel paid $3,894 per month in 2007 for the four units – he lived in three of them and used the other as an office – which is about half of what he’d pay if he rented them at market rate. He defended his living situation saying he didn’t know it was a deal.

BIANCA JAGGER Rent-stabilized apartments are amazing, but you have to actually live in New York to enjoy one. Bianca Jagger was evicted from her Park Avenue home in 2007 after her landlord sued her, claiming New York wasn’t her primary residence. Turns out she had another apartment in London.

CYNDI LAUPER Boy, people love The Apthorp don’t they.

Nora Ephron’s neighbors, Cyndi Lauper and her husband David Thornton, sublet an apartment in the West End Avenue building for $3,250 a month in 1992 but they realized the unit was rent regulated.

They sued the tenant in 1996, and the building’s owner four years later. A court ruled that Lauper and Thornton were the actual tenants of the unit and lowered the rent to $988 a month.

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July 27, 2020

does rent control actually drive up housing costs?

While the policy has good intentions, it harms low-income families.

BY JONI SWEET

O

N THE SURFACE, rent control sounds like a smart way to keep housing affordable in big, expensive cities.

Beneficiaries of the policy can rest assured that no matter how pricey things get, they won’t be driven out of the neighborhood they know and love.

While New York City’s rent control and rent-stabilization regulations are backed by good intentions, they may end up raising the demand for (and therefore the

price of) market-rate rentals, say economists, ultimately putting housing out of reach for many low- and middle-income families.

“If someone were to purposely attempt to create a set of policies whereby housing would be difficult or impossible for the poor and middle class to access, and with landlords and developers massively enriched in process, you couldn’t do better than zoning and rent control,” said Peter Earle, an economist and research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.

Finding an apartment in New York City is difficult at best. The vacancy rate of all rentals in the five boroughs is typically no more than half the national average. Things get even more challenging if you’re looking for a rent-regulated or subsidized apartment, which only constitute about 35% of all units and see significantly lower vacancy rates.

“Beneficiaries of rent con-

trol are around 20% less likely to move to another unit. They stay in places forever,” Earle said. “It’s an unofficial construct brought on by interfering with the market.”

That squeeze on the housing stock makes it easier for landlords to fetch higher rents from the tenants who are competing for the remaining market-rate apartments.

Rent control and stabilization also caps the amount landlords can earn from a regulated unit. Depending on the economics of a given situation, an owner may decide it’s no longer profitable enough to continue leasing a rent-regulated apartment and find a way to take it off the market, such as by converting it into privately owned condo when the current tenant leaves, said Joseph Salerno, an economics professor at Pace University.

While this phenomenon has yet to be fully analyzed in New York City, economists have looked at how a 1995 expansion of rent control in San Francisco affected its supply and costs of rentals. A 2018 paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that San Francisco landlords who were affected by rent control reduced the supply of apartments by 15%. That, in turn, caused a 5.1% bump in rents – a serious consequence in a city that, like New

York City, already struggles with high housing costs.

Some economists also argue that rent regulation discourages the construction of new affordable units that would otherwise occur to meet demand in a free market. The red tape and limitations on potential profits from rent control and stabilization provide little incentive for affordable housing developers to make the investment in a costly market like New York City.

“Entrepreneurs need as much freedom as possible to figure out ways to economically build low-cost housing.

If rent control was eliminated, it would spur more construction and that’s the way to truly solve the high rent problem,” Salerno said. “We don’t just have BMWs and Mercedes on the roads, there’s a variety of cars of different qualities and prices, and the same thing will happen to housing.”

There’s no doubt that renters who are lucky enough to score one of the city’s rent-regulated apartments enjoy the benefits of housing priced below market rates. But if this subsidy is paid for on the backs of market-rate renters, many of whom also desperately need affordable apartments, it might not be the housing remedy the majority of New Yorkers are looking for.

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AUGUST 4, 2020 1:00PM-4:00PM

For many years New York has been one of most diverse and progressive cities in the world.

Yet beneath those labels we see a city that has grown more and more unequal. The Covid-19 crisis and the murder of George Floyd have exposed a truth that many in power have been unwilling to confront; that years and years of systemic, racially insensitive policies have unduly harmed our communities of color. City & State is proud to present a virtual event called “Economic & Social Equity in New York”. Panelists and presenters will examine how New York can create a better culture for diversity in terms of hiring as well as procurement.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

NUPOL KIAZOLU President, Black Lives Matter Greater New York

RODNEYSE BICHOTTE Assembly Member, Chair, Subcommittee on Oversight of Minority and Women-Owned Businesses

JONNEL DORIS Director, NYC Mayor’s Office for the MWBE

MICHAEL J. GARNER VP & Chief Diversity Officer, MTA

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

LAWANNA KIMBRO Chief Diversity and Equity Officer, NYC Dept. of Social Services

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legalnotices@cityandstateny.com Notice of Formation of JB Capstone Enterprises, LLC, filed with SSNY on 2/4/14. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 12 East 37th St, 2nd Floor, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 5hndred Autohaus, LLC filed with SSNY on March 3, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 615 Manor rd, Staten Island, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of AR Practice Management Firm, LLC filed with SSNY on March 5, 2020. Office: NY Dutchess County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 59 Hudson Heights Drive, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of formation of MikeGeez Fitness Boutique, LLC. Filed with SSNY Richmond County on 1/20/2020. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it ay be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 4131 Hylan Blvd, SI, NY 10308.

Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

App. for Auth. (LLC) Solid & Striped LLC. App. for Auth. filed w/ the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/1/20. LLC formed in DE on 6/7/12. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 529 W. 20th St., #7E, NY, NY 10011, registered agent upon whom process may be served. Purpose: All lawful purposes.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of limited liability company (LLC). Name: MO WELLNESS FOUNDATION, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 04/01/2020. Office location: Bronx County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to: MAURICE HURD 3410 DE REIMER AVE APT 7J BRONX, NY 10475. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Bridge Rockaway L.P. Certificate filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/27/20. Duration: 04/24/2180. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Bridge Rockaway, L.P. c/o The Bridge, Inc., 290 Lenox Ave., 3rd Fl., NY, NY 10027. Name/ address of each genl. ptr. available from SSNY. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of D & D Jones Enterprises LLC filed with NYSDOS on February, 4, 2020 Office: Westchester County. D & D Jones Enterprises LLC designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. D & D Jones Enterprises LLC shall mail copy of process to LLC: 140 Bellamy Loop, 11D, Bronx, NY 10475. Purpose: Same name usage.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Chu, Lund & Peng LLP. Filed with SSNY: 6/8/20. Office: NY Co. SSNY desig. as agent for process & shall mail to: 333 E 49th St, No 1L, New York, NY 10017. Principal place of business: same as process mail-to.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Form. of OTTER CREEK SOLAR, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/09/20.

Office location: Lewis.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 5 Spruce Circle, Westfield, Massachusetts, 01085.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Malone Services, LLC dba Purely Clean Services filed with SSNY on May 15, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 31 Parcot Ave. New Rochelle, NY. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

ZNK, LLC Art. of Org filed with the SSNY on 4/17/20.

Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 47 E 30th St., Apt. 5, New York, NY 10016. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Castlemore Holdings MIMA, LLC. Filed with SSNY: 4/21/20. Office: NY Co. SSNY desig. as agent for process & shall mail to: Juntao Yan, 450 W 42nd Street #45Q, New York, NY 10036.

Principal office: same address. Purpose: any lawful activity.

July 27, 2020

NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 4/14/2020. Office location: Westchester County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 23 Chase Ave White Plains NY 10606.

Notice of Formation of J.S.Cambareri, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of UPLIFT DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 77 W. 24th St., Apt 22B, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation 98th Ave Realty LLC Arts of Org filed by the Department of State of New York on: 03/04/2020 Office loc: Kings County Purpose: Any and all lawful activities SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: c/o Chaim Schweid 1440 55th Street Brooklyn, NY 11219 BRINDICATE CAPITAL, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 11/09/2010. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, P.O. Box 131, Bronx, NY 10453-0131.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of JOB Special, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/18/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, 163 W. 74th St., NY, NY 10023.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of Appassionata, LLC filed with SSNY on April 15, 2020. Office: NY County.

LegalZoom designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. LegalZoom shall mail copy of process to LLC: 401 Schenectady Ave, 4b, Brooklyn, NY 11213. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of VARICK STREET REALTY, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/23/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/20/20. Princ. office of LLC: 180 Varick St., #816, NY, NY 10014.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, 820 N. French St., 4th Fl., Wilmington, DE 19801. Purpose: Real estate broker.

Notice of formation of A n n e s e P T. S e r v i c e s , LLC, a domestic LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on June 29, 2020. Office location: Richmond County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 27 Portage Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10314. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of BENLAB Realty, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/18/19. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, 163 W. 74th St., NY, NY 10023. Purpose: any lawful activities.

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Notice of Qualification of TRAVEL LEADERS GROUP HOLDINGS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/18/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/20/16.

Princ. office of LLC: 1633 Broadway, NY, NY 10019. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St. Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Travel agency related services.

Notice of Qualification of SLB CAPITAL ADVISORS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/17/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/28/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 634 Park Ave., Collingswood, NJ 08108.

DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Enchantress Beauty LLC filed with SSNY on June 17, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY Yokayra Rojas agent of Enchantress Beauty LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to Enchantress Beauty LLC: 451w 166th street apt 4B, New York, NY 10032. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 491 QUINCY STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

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July 27, 2020

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY CASE NUMBER: 2:19-CV-8550 NOTICE TO ABSENT DEFENDANTS (PUBLICATION) TO: 7 MONKEYS LLC.; KYO CHEOL HWANG; A HYON YEOM You are hereby summoned and required to served upon Martone & Uhlmann, A Professional Corporation, attorneys for Plaintiff, whose address is 777 Passaic Ave, Ste 535, Clifton, NJ 07012, an answer to the Complaint in a civil action in which UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is Plaintiff and 7 MONKEYS LLC.; KYO CHEOL HWANG; A HYON YEOM are Defendants, pending in the United States District Court within twenty-one (21) days after June 22, 2020 not counting the date of publication or if published after June 22, 2020, twenty-one (21) days from the date of such publication. You shall file your answer and proof of service in duplicate with the Clerk of the United States District Court, Martin Luther King Building & U.S. Courthouse, 50 Walnut Street, Newark, NJ 07102, in accordance with the rules governing the courts. You must also send a copy of your answer to plaintiff’s attorney whose name and address appears above, or to plaintiff, if no attorney is named above. A telephone call will not protect your rights; you must file and serve a written answer if you want the court to hear your defense.

If you do not file and serve a written answer or motion within 21 days, the court may enter a judgment against you for the relief plaintiff demands, plus interest and costs of suit.

The action has been instituted by the USA for the purpose of collecting the amount due under a promissory note dated January 21, 2011 executed by Defendant KYO CHEOL HWANG as Managing member of 7 Monkeys LLC, in the sum of $100,000.00.

Defendant, 7 Monkeys LLC is joined as a party defendant to this action because this company borrowed under the Note.

Defendant, KYO CHEOL HWANG and A HYON YEOM are joined as party defendants to this action because they signed a personal guarantee.

Since the current whereabouts of 7 MONKEYS LLC.; KYO CHEOL HWANG; AND A HYON YEOM ARE UNKNOWN, The Court by order dated June 22, 2020 Ordered Notice should be served upon you via publication Dated: June 22, 2020 /s/ Clerk of the United States District Court, District of New Jersey

134 Reade St. LLC filed w/ SSNY on 2/3/06. Office: New York Co. SSNY designated as agent for process & shall mail to: 34 W 32nd St., #1610, New York, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful.

Notice of Formation of Nisbett and Sons LLC filed with SSNY on March 09, 2020. Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC:933 LINCOLN PLACE BROOKLYN, NY 11213. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Beloved Creations, LLC., Articles of Organization were filed with the SSNY on June 25, 2020. Office: Bronx County. SSNY has been designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 941 Hoe Avenue, Ste. 3, Bronx, New York 10459.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

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Notice of Qualification of DV7 US ACADEMY HOLDINGS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/24/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/17/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served.

DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 489 QUINCY STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DAJL LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 247 Seeley St, Brooklyn, New York, 11218. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DREAM MEDICAL, PLLC.Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/01/20.

Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served.SSNY mail process to 201 E 65th St, New York, New York, 10065.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of GANG GRAFFITI LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/15/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 365 Sackman Street, Apt. 10d, Brooklyn, New York, 11212. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of LAKE RECOVERY SERVICES LLC. Arts .Of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/18/20.Office location:Fulton SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.SSNY mail process to Po Box 270, Northville, New York, 12134. Any lawful purpose.

Highlands Investments LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the Secretary of State (“SSNY”) on 4/8/20. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

The address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon it is: 385 1st ave, Apt 3B, New York, NY, 10010. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 23 MENAHAN LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike, Suite 302 Wilmignton, Delaware, 19801. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of NY Avenue 724 LLC filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on February 4, 2020. Office: Kings County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 1430 Pitkin Ave, Brooklyn NY 11233.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qual. of SKW - B 33 WEST 9TH STREET PORTFOLIO, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/03/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 05/28/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of MR. MOOSKI LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/11/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 605 Third Avenue, 34th Floor, New York, New York, 10158.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of PREMIER ELECTRICAL SERVICES, LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/25/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 882 3rd Ave, 8th Floor, Brooklyn, New York, 11232. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 366 Manhattan Avenue, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 15/11/20. Office location: Kings.

LLC formed in VA on 06/26/2014. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 7288 Hanover Green Drive Mechanicsville, Virginia, 23111. Arts. of Org. filed with VA SOS. 1111 East Broad Street, 4th Floor, Richmond, Virginia 23219. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 125 HANCOCK STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

Formation of Marine Capital Management LLC filed with the Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/16/2020.

Office loc.: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

The address SSNY shall mail process to Thomas G. Shugrue, 353 W. 56th St., #3M, New York, NY 10019. The LLC is to be managed by one or more managers.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

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Notice of Formation of 423 HEBERTON AVE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 429 Clove Road, Staten Island, New York, 10310. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 429 CLOVE ROAD LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 429 Clove Road, Staten Island, New York, 10310.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 1375 BROADWAY PROPERTY INVESTORS V, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20. Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 01/15/20.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 15 North Mill Street Nyack, New York, 10960.

Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg.

Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 1375 BROADWAY HOLDINGS V, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20.

Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 01/15/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 15 North Mill Street Nyack, New York, 10960.

Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg.

Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of RITA’S ROYAL LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/22/20. Office location: Clinton SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 23 Cedarwood Ln, Plattsburgh, New York, 12901.

Any lawful purpose.Any lawful purpose.

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Notice Of Formation of AMH Asset Management LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/30/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 10 East 39th St, 12th Fl, New York, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Qual. of 111 WALL FEE HOLDINGS LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/06/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 07/01/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 733 Third Avenue, 12th Floor New York, New York, 10017. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of formation of UPLIFT DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 77 W. 24th St., Apt 22B, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of UPLIFT DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 77 W. 24th St., Apt 22B, New York, NY 10010. Purpose: any lawful act.

INTEGRATIVE WELLNESS NURSE PRACTITIONER IN PSYCHIATRY PLLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 05/13/20. Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the PLLC, 509 East 78th Street, Apartment 5G, New York, NY 10075. Purpose: For the practice of the profession of Nurse Practitioner In Psychiatry.

Notice of Formation of My Interview Advisor, LLC filed with SSNY on 06/30/2020. Office: Westchester County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 9 Little John Place, White Plains, NY 10605. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of SILVERSTEIN MANAGER LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/06/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/02/20. Princ. office of LLC: 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St., NY, NY 10007.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 10 LEXINGTON LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/08/20.

Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike, Suite 302 Wilmington, Delaware, 19807. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

GD OFFICES, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/16/2020.

Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 300 Fort Washington Avenue, NY, NY 10032. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

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Notice of Formation of New Brooks Media, LLC filed with SSNY on July 1, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 387 Park Ave South, 5th floor, NY, NY 10016. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of SHINE CAPITAL, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/06/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/07/19. NYS fictitious name: SHINE PARTNERS LLC. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, 200 Hicks St., Apt. 6S, Brooklyn, NY 11201. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of LEARNING SPECIALIST BULLETIN, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/07/20. Office location: Westchester County. LLC formed in Massachusetts (MA) on 07/16/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

MA addr. of LLC: 333 Lexington St., Auburndale, MA 02466. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of the Commonwealth of MA, Corporations Div., 1 Ashburton Pl., 17th fl., Boston, MA 02108-1512.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Gemstone Consulting Services, LLC filed with SSNY on June 18, 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: P.O. Box 141048, Staten Island, NY 10314. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

July 27, 2020

Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 1-11 LEXINGTON LLC. Auth. f i l e d with SSNY on 07/08/20.

Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike Suite 302 Wilmington, Delaware, 19807. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of GKED Holding Company, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/21/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1114 Avenue of the Americas, NY, NY 10110. Purpose: any lawful activities.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF PROFESSIONAL LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY Dawood Rouben Architecture, PLLC filed Art. of Org. with the NY Dept. of State on July 10, 2020. Location: New York County. Sec’y of State is agent for service of process. Copy of any process shall be mailed to Delaney Corporate Services, Ltd. 99 Washington Ave., Suite 805A, Albany, NY 12210. The profession to be practiced is architecture.

Notice of Formation of JKLM Advisors, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/22/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: c/o Marc Schneider, 215 West 88th St., Unit 2D, NY, NY 10024. Purpose: any lawful activities.

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Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 75 RALPH LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/08/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike, Suite 302 Wilmington, Delaware, 19807. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 412 EVERGREEN LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/08/20.

Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike, Suite 302, Wilmington, Delaware, 19807. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of KRE BKLYNER 1875 ATLANTIC LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/08/20. Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 06/25/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 4001 Kennett Pike, Suite 302, Wilmington, Delaware, 19807. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM Notice of Formation of The Law Firm of Rasica Selvarajah, PLLC filed with SSNY on 5/15/2020.

Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to PLLC: 397 Gower St., Staten Island, NY 10314. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

BFS NA LLC filed w/ SSNY 6/15/20. Off. in NY Co. SSNY desig. as agt. of LLC whom process may be served & shall mail process to the LLC, 50 Broad St, Ste. 1904, NY, NY 10004. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of COLONIAL VILLAGE PRESERVATION, L.P. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/22/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LP: 60 Columbus Circle, 19th Fl., NY, NY 10023. Latest date on which the LP may dissolve is 12/31/2119. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of Viking Vex LLC Arts of Org filled with SSNY on 05/29/2020. Office location: Westchester County.

SSNY desg as agent of LLC upon process against it may be served SSNY shall mail process to: Viking Vex LLC 45 S broadway Apt 3G Yonkers, NY 10701 Notice of Formation of 493 QUINCY STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 489 Quincy Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11221-1505. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of THE REV OPS SHOP, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 6/1/2020.

Office location: RICHMOND County. SSNY is designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC at: Mikhail Grinberg, 226 Slater Boulevard, Staten Island, NY 10305.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose or activity.

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PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

Notice of Form. of 143147 Madison St LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 3/27/20. Office location:Cortland.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 36 Monroe St. Apt E3, New York, New York, 10002.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of ET FILS, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/24/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 193 Midwood Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11225. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of COELO OASIS LLC Arts .Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/10/20. Office location: Bronx SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 120 Erskine Place #11c, Bronx, New York, 10475-5702.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of EMPYREUS LLC.Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 950 El Campo Drive, Pasadena, California, 91107.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of HIGHER PICTURES GENERATION LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/07/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 16 Main Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11201. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of FIRST ENY LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/07/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1562 Pacific St, F l1, Brooklyn, New York, 11213. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of H & H BRONX LLC. Arts .Of Org. filed with SSNY on 05/23/18. Office location: Bronx SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 2438 Fuller Street, Bronx, New York, 10461. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of SUSSEX YORK LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/08/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 387 Park Avenue South, 5th Fl, New York, New York, 10016.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of AV-ZG WEST 80 LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/30/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 444 Madison Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, New York, 10022. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 203 WEST 80 STREET OWNER LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/30/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 444 Madison Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, New York, 10022.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of CELERI TREASURY LLC.Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 01/21/20.

Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 387 Park Avenue South, 5th Fl, New York, New York, 10016.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of EWQ CAPITAL LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/03/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 1760 Wilson Avenue, Arcadia, California, 91006.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of GARAGE D’OR, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/24/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 193 Midwood Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11225. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of A UNICORN LIVES HERE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/06/20.

Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 105 Boulder Street, Staten Island, New York, 10312. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of MM3 LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/18/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2 Park Avenue, 20th Floor, New York, New York, 10016. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of ADVERTIBLES LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 02/26/19.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1129 E 23rd Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11210. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DAMES I, LLC.Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/04/45.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 477 Madison Avenue, 20th Floor, New York, New York, 10022.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of MULTIPLE PROPERTIES LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/30/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1763 74th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11204. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of EMA RUGBY LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/13/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 400 Rugby Road Apt 3a, Brooklyn, New York, 11226. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of HANCO & WENDY LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/01/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 255 Bay 20th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11214. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of JAR FAMILY LIMITED PARTNERSHIP. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/22/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 420 Lexington Ave Ste 1708-09, New York, New York, 10170.Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1329738 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR

BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 304 E 49TH ST. NEW YORK, NY 10017.

NEW YORK COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION.

Notice of Formation of GBZL LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 03/02/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 5401 4th Ave.,Brooklyn, New York, 11220. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of SKYRX LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/02/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 500 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11249. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of KAYA MANAGEMENT GROUP TWO LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/24/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1674 72nd Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11204. Any lawful purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

RAMEN USA INC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1326323 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 2 KNICKERBOCKER AVE. BROOKLYN, NY 11237. KINGS COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. BUSHWICK BEER GARDEN LLC Notice of formation of Sade’s Gifts & Goodies LLC filed with SSNY on May.5,2020. Office: Richmond County.SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 56 Ludwig lane Staten Island NY 10303 Purpose : Any lawful act or activity Notice of Qual. of KIMMERIDGE ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/14/20. Office location: New York. LP formed in DE on 03/19/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

51

FEEL GOOD VIBES NYC, LLC Notice of formation of limited liability company. Name: FEEL GOOD VIBES NYC LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 4/13/2020. NY office location: Bronx County.

SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

The post office address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is FEEL GOOD VIBES NYC, LLC, 729 Bryant Avenue, Bronx, NY 10474. Purpose/character of LLC: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Gross Investigation Bureau, LLC filed with SSNY on April 27, 2020.

Office: 244 5th Ave, Ste V201, NY County, NY 10001. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 213 Bennett Ave, Apt. 3B, NY, NY 10040 Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qual. of KIMMERIDGE ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT, LP, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/14/20. Office location: New York.

LP formed in DE on 03/19/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Blocc Music Entertainment LLC filed with SSNY on May 7, 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: P.O Box 381 NY, NY 10039. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

52

CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

Notice of Qual. of KIMMERIDGE ENGAGEMENT GP, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/14/20. Office location: New York. LLC formed in DE on 03/19/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of KIMMERIDGE ENERGY ENGAGEMENT PARTNERS, L.P. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/14/20.

Office location: New York. LP formed in DE on 03/19/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose

Notice of formation of LEVEL ILLUMINATION LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/22/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: Highpoint C. S., P.O. Box 140724, SI, NY 10314. Purpose: any lawful act.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1326529, FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 19-33 DITMARS BLVD ASTORIA, NY 11105.

QUEENS COUNTY, FOR ON-PREMISE CONSUMPTION.

Notice of Qualification of RAINBOW POT LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY on 6/1/20.

Office location:NY County. LLC formed in Delaware on 5/28/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to:c/o The LLC, 500 8th Ave.Rm.908, NY NY 10018. Address to be maintained in DE:850 New Burton R d . , S t e . 2 0 1 , D o v e r, D E 19904. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State of DE, 401 Federal St.,Dover,DE 19901. Purpose:any lawful activity.

Notice is hereby given that a license, serial #1326897, for an On-premises liquor license, has been applied for by Cajun Seafood Yonkers LLC dba : Hook & Reel Cajun Seafood & Bar to sell Beer, wine, liquor at retail in a Restaurant under the Alcohol Beverage Control Law at 2375 Central Park Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10710 for on premises consumption

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

NIKOS REDEMPTION LLC. NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 12/18/2019. Office location: Westchester County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 80 Rumsey Road, Yonkers, New York 10705. Notice of Formation of KEF CLOTHING, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with Purpose: any lawful activity.

NY Secy of State (SSNY) on 06/10/2020. Office location: Westchester County.

SSNY is designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 16 NASSAU RD, APT 1, YONKERS NY 10710. Notice of Formation of ORIGINBASKET LLC Arts of Org. filed with Purpose: any lawful activity.

Mott Haven Productions, LLC. Art. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 07/22/2020. Office: Bronx County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 406 East 142nd St., #1, Bronx, NY 10454. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

July 27, 2020

THE ANNUAL RETURN OF THE AGB FUND, INC. for the year ended December 31, 2019 is available at its principal office located at Farkouh, Furman & Faccio LLP, 460 PARK AVE 12TH FL, NEW YORK, NY 10022 for inspection during regular business hours by any citizen who requests it within 180 days hereof. Principal manager of the Foundation is LEE R. ROBINS THE ANNUAL RETURN OF THE JACQUES AND NATASHA GELMAN FOUNDATION for the year ended November 30, 2019 is available at its principal office located at 260 MADISON AVENUE, 18TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10016 for inspection during regular business hours by any citizen who requests it within 180 days hereof.

Principal Manager of the Foundation is JANET C. NESCHIS. Notice of Qualification of GA APF GenPar, L.P. Authority filed with NY Dept. of State on 7/8/20.

Office location: NY County. LP formed in DE on 5/5/20. NY Sec. of State designated agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o General Atlantic Service Company, L.P., 55 E. 52nd St., 33rd Fl., NY, NY 10055, principal business address. DE address of LP: Corporate Creations Network Inc., 3411 Silverside Rd., Tatnall Bldg. #104, Wilmington, DE 19810. Name/address of genl. ptr. available from NY Sec. of State. Cert. of LP filed with DE Sec. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: all lawful purposes.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of G&G Design Concepts LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 7/8/2020.

Location: Westchester. SSNY designated as agent for service of process on LLC. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to: 3680 Mt. Brook Road Shrub Oak, NY 10588 Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of HANCO & WENDY LLC. Arts. Of Org. f i l e d with SSNY on 07/01/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 255 Bay 20th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11214. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Aj’s Happy Feet Daycare LLC , LLC filed with SSNY on May 29, 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of Ajs Happy Feet Daycare LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to AJ’s Happy Feet Daycare LLC: 1669 university ave, Bronx, NY 10453. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

P&C Brothers LLC Notice of formation of limited liability company (LLC). Name: P&C Brothers LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 3/18/2020. NY office location: Richmond County. SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The post office address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is Esmeralda G Betancourth, 172 Kirshon Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10314.

Purpose/character of LLC: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Qualification of Cheat Sheet, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/14/20. Office location: Kings County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 07/13/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o eResidentAgent, Inc., 99 Washington Ave., Ste. 805A, Albany, NY 12210, also the registered agent upon whom process may be served. Address to be maintained in DE: 1013 Centre Rd., Ste. 403S, Wilmington, DE 19805. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

NOTICE OF NAMES OF PERSONS APPEARING AS OWNERS OF CERTAIN UNCLAIMED PROPERTY HELD BY PUBLIC SERVICE INSURANCE COMPANY NEW YORK, NY The persons whose names and last known addresses are set forth below appear from the records of the the above named insurance company to be entitled to abandoned property in the amounts of fifty dollars or more CVS MEDICAL SERVICES OF NY 41-11 C 30TH AVENUE ASTORIA, NY 11103 LI PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSULTING 68-01 43 AVENUE FIRST FLOOR WOODSIDE, NY 11377 MIHAIL MEDVEDOVSKY PHYSICIAN 3039 OCEAN PARYWAY BROOKLYN, NY 11235 ESTATE OF WILLIAM MOK 227 MADISON ST, 13TH RM# 1317B NEW YORK, NY 10002 PSYCOLOGICAL HEALTH SERVICES 1702 E 36TH ST BROOKLYN, NY 11234 NEXRAY MEDICAL IMAGING PC 65-55 WOODHAVEN BLVD LL REGO PARK, NY 11374 MLJ CHIROPRACTIC PC 2270 GRAND AVE BALDWIN, NY 11510 JOSE PEREZ 419 RIDGEWOOD AVE BROOKLYN, NY 11208 JANICE HWANGE, MD 256B MASON AVE STATEN ISLAND, NY 10306 TERESA BOWEN-SPINELLI, MD 475 SEAVIEW AVENUE STATEN ISLAND, NY 10305 ESTATE OF ANTHONY J PEPE 1570 EAST 14TH STREET #H BROOKLYN, NY 11230 MULTI-SPECIALTY PAIN MGMT PC 3713 EAST TREMONT AVE BRONX, NY 10465 LISA A. CORRENTE, MD 1010W. 24TH STREET #28 NEW YORK, NY 10016 MARC BELLANTONIC DC 63 36 99TH STREET 1ST FLOOR REGO PARK, NY 11374 DOUGLAS MCBRIDES 1 BEACH 105 STREET ROCKAWAY PARK, NY 11694 PEDRO BACCACO 1321 SHERIDAN AVEBASEMENT BROOKLYN, NY 11208 CROSS RIVER PAIN MANAGEMENT 246 MAIN STREET, STE 15A NEW PALTZ, NY 12561 FOCUS OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY PC 139 CENTRE STREET, STE 814 NEW YORK, NY 10013 ADIN S LABOY 20 ORCHARD STREET, APT.#2 LIBERTY, NY 12754

MARCO PRADO 116 W 197TH STREET, APT 4C BRONX, NY 10468 AUGUSTO MENDOZA 142 HASACO AVENUE PORT CHESTER, NY 10573 YAN CHU ZHANG 5443 80TH STREET ELMHURST, NY 11373 HONGMIN ZHENG 4255 COLDEN ST #8T FLUSHING, NY 11355 BAXTER MEDICAL CARE PC 8106 BAXTER AVE MC 2 ELMHURST, NY 11373 DYNAMIC ADVANCE CARE PHYSICAL 8106 BAXTER AVE MC 2 ELMHURST, NY 11373 TI SHEN ACUPUNCTURE PC 8106 BAXTER AVE MC 1 ELMHURST, NY 11383 WING TANG 31-42 18TH STREET EAST ELMHURST, NY 11370 FU Y REN 150-25 72RD #6J FLUSHING, NY 11367 STEVEN SCHWARTZ, MD 1160 S MYRTLE AVENUE RICHMOND HILL, NY 11418 A REPORT OF UNCLAIMED PROPERTY WILL BE MADE TO THE COMPTROLLER OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK PERSUANT TO SECTION 701 AND/OR SECTION 1316 OF THE ABANDONED PROPERTY LAW OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. A LIST OF NAMES OF THE PERSONS APPEARING FROM THE RECORDS OF THE SAID INSURANCE COMPANY TO BE ENTITLED THERETO IS ON FILE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC INSPECTION AT THE PRINCIPAL OFFICE OF THE CORPORATION LOCATED AT 29 BROADWAY, 28TH FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10006, WHERE SUCH ABANDONED PROPERTY IS PAYABLE. SUCH UNCLAIMED FUNDS WILL BE PAID BY US ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 31ST NEXT TO PERSONS ESTABLISHING TO OUR SATISFACTION THEIR RIGHT TO RECEIVE THE SAME.

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54 CityAndStateNY.com

July 27, 2020

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Comptroller David Pirozzi, Business & Operations Manager Patrea Patterson, Administrative Assistant Lauren Mauro

Who was up and who was down last week

CREATIVE Art Director Andrew Horton, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton

LOSERS

DIGITAL Project Manager Michael Filippi, Digital Content Manager Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, Digital Marketing Strategist Caitlin Dorman, Web/Email Strategist Isabel Beebe

SHELDON SILVER After five long years of putting off prison time for corruption, the former Assembly speaker was sentenced (again) – this time to six and a half years behind bars. Despite his plea to begin serving his sentence at home due to the threat of the coronavirus, the judge was adamant that he begin his sentence in real big-boy prison next month. After years of making millions through two different schemes and abusing his power, Silver is finally being forced to pay the piper.

THE BEST OF THE REST

THE REST OF THE WORST

EMILIA DECAUDIN & MELISSA SKLARZ

CARL HEASTIE

Winning is nice, but making history at the same time? Nothing beats it. Emilia Decaudin and Melissa Sklarz not only became Queens district leaders, they became the first openly trans people in New York City to hold the party position.

EMILY GALLAGHER

Then again, who needs the DSA? The local chapter stayed out of this member’s primary race, but she proved that voters’ desire for fresh blood is bigger than just three-letter acronyms and toppled a 48-year incumbent all on her own.

The assembly speaker doesn’t have the sway he once had – just ask all the longtime Assembly incumbents who just lost their seats to left-wing challengers.

He had better get an idea about what’s going on soon, or there won’t be much speakering to do after 2022.

ADVERTISING Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@ cityandstateny.com, Account/Business Development Executive Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com, Vice President, Advertising and Client Relations Danielle Koza dkoza@cityandstateny.com, Sales Associate Cydney McQuillan-Grace cydney@cityandstateny.com, Legal Advertising Executive Shakirah Gittens legalnotices@ cityandstateny.com, Sales Assistant Zimam Alemenew EVENTS events@cityandstateny.com Sales Director Lissa Blake, Events Manager Alexis Arsenault, Event Coordinator Amanda Cortez

Vol. 9 Issue 28 July 27, 2020 ASIAN AMERICAN POWER

100

I AM IRON MAN John Liu is back – and crushing it

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

July 27, 2020

Cover photography Winnie Au

PAT FOYE

MTA Chair Pat Foye called the budget disaster facing the agency a “fiscal tsunami.” He repeated pleas for federal assistance, but if the price of a MetroCard rises, angering underwater New Yorkers, he’ll have another disaster on his hands.

WINNERS & LOSERS is published every Friday morning in City & State’s First Read email.

Sign up for the email, cast your vote and see who won at cityandstateny.com.

CITY & STATE NEW YORK (ISSN 2474-4107) is published weekly, 48 times a year except for the four weeks containing New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas by City & State NY, LLC, 61 Broadway, Suite 1315, New York, NY 10006-2763. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices.

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ANEESH BHOOPATHY; ZOHRAN FOR ASSEMBLY; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

ZOHRAN MAMDANI & PHARA SOUFFRANT FORREST The left-most wing of the Democratic Party has soared through the 2020 primaries. Both of these Assembly candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America – Zohran Mamdani and Phara Souffrant Forrest – toppled incumbent legislators, adding to the growing list of DSA victories this election cycle. The organization’s wins this year will certainly keep incumbents sweating next primary season if a rose-clad candidate comes knocking.

OUR PICK

OUR PICK

WINNERS

Buy me some peanuts and Cuomo Chips – baseball is back, and instead of poring over absentee ballot counts, New Yorkers can cheer on one of our three home teams.

Yanks, Mets and the Buffalo Blue Jays – as long as Cuomo and Schumer can pull off a little bit of international diplomacy and give Toronto’s stranded team a home field to play in for this COVID-19-shortened season. Forget a Subway Series – how about an Amtrak Empire Service Series?

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Editor-in-Chief Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Senior Editor Ben Adler badler@cityandstateny.com, Special Projects Editor Alice Popovici, Deputy Editor Eric Holmberg, Senior Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Zach Williams zwilliams@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Rebecca C. Lewis rlewis@cityandstateny.com, Tech & Policy Reporter Annie McDonough amcdonough@ cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Kay Dervishi, Associate Copy Editor Holly Pretsky

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Celebrating Pat Wang.

Bold leadership.

Powerful results.

Good health doesn’t just happen. It takes community commitment and leadership.

As New York’s largest not-for-profit health insurer, no one knows New Yorkers better than Healthfirst. Working together with the best of New York’s hospitals and providers, we help millions of New Yorkers enjoy better health.

We’re proud to congratulate Pat Wang, our President and CEO, on being named one of City & State’s 100 most powerful people in New York’s Asian American community.

Thank you, Pat, for your vision as we lead the industry in keeping the care in healthcare and remain more committed to our members than ever.

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