With the black netting shroud now removed after months of brick pointing work, the exterior of the 52nd Precinct headquarters on Webster Avenue looks relatively fresh and vibrant. The commander’s office, inside the landmarked building, with its new couches and a giant flat-screen TV, also looks refurbished.

“It’s a new look, a new era,” says Deputy Inspector John D’Adamo, the office’s new occupant and the precinct’s new commanding officer.

Along with the headquarters’ new look, D’Adamo is implementing his own approach to leadership and fighting crime. It may not be exactly “new,” but so far it has proved effective and has earned D’Adamo rave reviews.

“He’s very impressive,” said Steve Bussell, a Bedford Park resident and longtime member of the 52nd Precinct Community Council.

“I think he’s done a great job so far,” said Fernando Tirado, the district manager of Community Board 7, which is contiguous with the 52nd Precinct.  

On Oct. 27, D’Adamo, 39, assumed command of the precinct, replacing James Alles, who retired from the Police Department to spend more time with his family. On his way out, Alles said he recommended D’Adamo to be his successor.

Most recently, D’Adamo was commanding officer of the 50th Precinct, which includes Riverdale and Kingsbridge Heights and is about half the size (in terms of manpower) of the Five-Two. His ascension to the rank of deputy inspector in August was just the latest promotion for a career cop who may as well have been born with a badge.

“I followed in my father’s footsteps,” D’Adamo says.

Upon entering the force in 1990 at 20, D’Adamo became a housing cop, just like his dad who retired from the NYPD in 1995.

After five years working city housing complexes, D’Adamo became a detective with the Bronx narcotics unit where he stayed for about two and a half years.

He moved back to housing after becoming a sergeant. In 2000, he became a lieutenant and did his first stint at the 50th Precinct, a job that would only last four months. From there, he joined a mobile anti-crime unit that attacked troubled housing complexes throughout the city. He then rose to captain and became the executive officer in the 43rd Precinct, where he stayed for 32 months before moving to taking over command of the 50th.

D’Adamo, who lives in Rockland County with his wife and daughter, says his latest promotion is exactly where he wants to be.

“Being [commanding officer] is the best job in the Police Department for me,” says D’Adamo, one of 76 COs in the NYPD.  “You really get to see how good the cops are in the NYPD.”

Since arriving in the Five-Two, D’Adamo has made it a point to know all the cops under his command by name and to let them know his door is always open. “Cops know they can come and talk to me at any time,” he says.

One of his top cops, Lieutenant Ray Herasme, D’Adamo’s director of special operations, is on board with his boss’s leadership style.

“He brings lots of energy, a very positive vibe, and he passes it on to us,” Herasme says.

He has also made it a point to channel that energy when attacking problem areas in the precinct.

In his office on a recent afternoon, D’Adamo pointed to the wall facing his desk where a series of precinct maps are mounted. Each map is dotted with push pins – the “famous D’Adamo pins,” he says — of various colors, each color representing a different crime and each pin a separate incident. When like-colored pins begin to cluster, D’Adamo sends in the troops.

For instance, in December, a series of burglaries began cropping up in the Norwood area, near Williamsbridge Oval Park. D’Adamo increased patrols in the area, searching buildings for vagrants and drug dealers, making arrests and handing out summonses for various offenses. In January, there were decidedly fewer burglary pins in that area on D’Adamo’s map.

That “strategic strike” was based on statistical analysis, but D’Adamo also says he wants to address problems the community brings to his attention.

On Davidson Avenue, south of Kingsbridge Road and just east of St. James Park, residents have complained about prostitution for years. In the past few months, they said the problem had exploded.

D’Adamo implemented a strategy called “Operation Losing Proposition,” which aims to stamp out the sex trade by having officers observe prostitutes and johns and then arresting them when they arrange transactions. D’Adamo says his teams were making 10 arrests a night. “Has the problem gone away completely? No, but we’re addressing it and making an impact there,” D’Adamo says.

The prostitution crackdown shows that the new commander is using community input to fight crime, says Tirado. “He listens,” Tirado says.

“The community is a wonderful partner,” D’Adamo says. “Who knows better what’s going in their neighborhoods than the people who live there?”

So far, so good. Compared to this time last year, crime is down nearly 20 percent for the seven major categories and arrests are up 46 percent — from 501 at this time last year, to 733 this year.

Lately, however, D’Adamo’s leadership has been tested.
In mid-January, two of his cops were shown on video beating a suspect in handcuffs (see sidebar). Two weekends ago, a man was shot to death in Norwood (see sidebar), the first murder under D’Adamo’s watch in the Five-Two.

These will not be the last challenges D’Adamo faces, but Herasme for one believes his boss will persevere. “He’s always coming up with new ideas,” he said.