Editor’s Note: For full disclosure, during this election cycle, Norwood News has broadly covered campaign events which were brought to our attention by candidates who campaigned in our local reporting area of Bronx Community District 7, which broadly covers the neighborhoods of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham, Jerome Park, Kingsbridge Heights, Mosholu Parkway, and University Heights. Additionally, we did also cover Rev. Michael Blake‘s campaign launch in the South Bronx last year as we had a bit more time then, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s launch, given he is so high-profile and because we had previously reported on his testing of the Bronx waters in 2022.

 

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Democratic mayoral candidate, along with her colleague, “Jack,” from the city council finance team, paid a visit to Tracey Towers in Bedford Park at the end of April, accompanied by local Councilman Eric Dinowitz (C.D. 11), to assess the structural needs of the 40-floor, Mitchell Lama housing complex, and to hear from its many residents.

 

The Mitchell-Lama program provides affordable rental and cooperative housing to moderate-income and middle-income families, and Tracey Towers opened in 1974 with 871 units across its two towers. Norwood News has reported over the years on the various repair issues affecting the housing complex.

 

Before introducing the speaker, Dinowitz spoke about some of the legislation they had worked on together in the City Council, including laws relating to the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE), which is part of the Rent Freeze Program for Mitchell Lama residents.

 

“When I saw that you guys were seeing 22% rent increases over three years, I spoke with Jean [Hill, president of the Tracey Towers Tenants Organization] who brought HPD [NYC Department of Housing, Preservation & Development] here,” he said. “I said to the speaker and her team, ‘These people need some help.'” He added that “with her leadership,” they passed the law that now provides residents with SCRIE forms pre-filled to make it easier for more residents to qualify and apply for SCRIE.

 

Dinowitz went on to talk about how longstanding scaffolding at Tracey Towers was an eyesore and Hill confirmed it had once been there for 15 years! He said when Hill called the then-comptroller, it was taken down, adding, “The speaker said, ‘We can’t just rely on calling up someone to get the scaffolding [down]. Let’s make some structural changes to make sure that scaffolding is only put up when necessary and comes down quickly and at least looks nice!”

 

He continued, “She said, ‘Instead of every year recertifying, have the buildings recertify every 90 days so they can make sure that it really needs to be up, but the most important thing that the speaker pushed forward was the facade inspections.” He said before the legislation, every five years, facade work was required but the new law changed that to at least every six years, if not 12 years.

 

He said this and initiatives like “netting” would save the building money. “So Speaker Adrienne, under her leadership, is saving you all money and she’s improving your quality of life and I’m just very honored to be able to work with her,” he said.

 

Adams reiterated much of what Dinowitz said, adding she has a Mitchell Lama in her own Queens district where she said she was the first woman to be elected (District 28). “I’ve seen a lot of things over the years as a council member and really, really taken note and taken to heart,” she said in part, adding that she paid particular attention to the City’s older adult population.

 

The speaker added, “We want to make sure that particularly that population is taken care of, making sure that they are aging in place with dignity and with care.” She said usually the federal and New York State “partners” were largely responsible for the upkeep of Mitchell Lamas.

 

In reference to her own district, she said, “I think we care a lot more than our State, and that’s not to say anything bad about them, but I really think that because we typically and literally are the boots on the ground for our communities, we are the ones that live in our communities and work and play in our communities, and our State partners and federal partners are sometimes a little less hands on and in touch with the nuts and bolts of what makes our communities thrive.”

 

Adams said she began funding Mitchell Lama repairs in Queens hoping her State partners would “get a hint” and start carrying  some of the funding cost. “But it happens or not happens so I continue to invest to this day in my Mitchell Lama to whatever degree I can to make sure that I am being the responsible elected official that I need to be,” she said.

 

She commended Dinowitz as a “great partner and colleague” before talking again about how scaffolding was “just horrible.” She added, “It just did something to my psyche. […] We want to live in beautiful surroundings we want to live in places that are pretty, that are nice, that are kept up.”

 

Adams said such eyesores tended to bring down people’s quality of life and affect their mental health and said the change of inspection timeframes would help with that, adding that the scaffolding color didn’t have to be “this horrible green color” and could instead match the characteristics of the community.

 

Later, in something of perhaps a veiled reference to New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Dinowitz said, “There are certain people who only talk about building new housing, and then you have Speaker Adrienne Adams who says, and we agree on this, ‘It’s not just about building housing. We have housing that was built to be affordable, and we can’t divest from that housing as previous administrations and current administrations have done.”

 

He said that under the speaker’s leadership, money has been set aside in the City’s budget for affordable housing preservation, some of which is specifically for Mitchell Lama housing. “The speaker does care deeply about the affordable housing that already exists, which is often absent from the conversation and so that’s one of the things that’s very special about her, and what she understands about our city,” he said.

CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER and mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams takes a walk through Tracey Towers with Tracey Towers Tenants Organization President Jean Hill, Councilman Eric Dinowitz (C.D. 11) and others on April 28, 2025. Video by Síle Moloney

Adams reiterated the message saying it wasn’t just about building up new housing, which she said had to be done too, but also preserving buildings like Tracey Towers. ‘This space is absolutely beautiful,” she said. “It just needs some tender loving care, some TLC. I see we have a majority of women in here, so you all know if you want things done right, put a woman in charge and we get things done,” she said.

 

The speaker continued, “So it’s going to be my business to make sure that this building gets the TLC that it’s been deserving for far too long. It’s a beautiful space.” She said it was a shame that it had been disadvantaged by long-term disinvestment over time. “It’s a very young building, only 50 years old, younger than me!” she said, adding, “This building should be preserved and the beauty of it should be restored. There’s no reason that we should continue to ever have a building and a structure that could be used for so much to just sit here because it’s disinvested, so we’re going to do something about it.”

 

Resident Cynthia O’Neal Riley broadly outlined the extent of the repairs needed and wondered where the council was going to get the required funding to pay for them. She talked about problems with the pipes and leaking. “You don’t know what it’s like for them to take all the cabinets out of your kitchen twice, for them to fix the pipes for the apartment above you and below you,” she said.

 

She continued, “It’s like a day from hell, I’m just telling you. That’s just the pipes. I’m watching the walls and the cement, the pointing that needs to be done with the bricks.” Brick pointing is the process of renewing the mortar joints in brickwork and involves removing old, deteriorated mortar and replacing it.

 

‘O Neal Riley said her father built houses in South Carolina and she knew what it was to put concrete between bricks. “I’m watching and you can look at these walls and you can see outside!” she said. “None of this makes sense to me. These buildings are literally falling apart!” She said she was scared that what happened in Florida might happen at Tracey Towers where a building just one day collapsed. [One Bronx building in Morris Heights did partially collapse, as reported.]

 

O’Neal Riley went on to say that finances always sounded beautiful on paper but that she looked forward to the day when someone would tell her “They actually fixed the pipes on the 40th floor. They fixed the pipes on the 38th. Now, they’re on the 37th.”

 

She went on to say that on her floor, the lights went out in the hallway and when they were replaced, light covers weren’t put over them due to lack of funding. “I hadn’t seen that since I was a kid,” she said. “That’s ridiculous in these modern times, and I’m paying extra rent so make me understand where this money is going to come from.”

 

Jack responded, saying in part, “What the council has recognized was that owners, developers, landlords need access to additional funding to make these critical repairs that they, frankly, haven’t done for decades.” He said the council had pushed for funding to get the Adams’ administration to put money into the capital budget that could be accessed by owners and developers.

 

“Last year, under the speaker’s leadership, the council secured $2 billion which was the largest, I think, single-year increase in the capital budget, and then the council did it again with the ‘City for All’ negotiations last year, and got an additional $2.2 billion added for housing into the capital budget,” he said in part.

 

“So, this funding is now available and it’s still going to be a push for us to try to get the [Adams] administration to make it available, accessible, but that’s really where we are right now. We’ve got the funding added into the budget, and then the next step is to spend it.” Hill joked, “So, we got a little cash!”

 

The visitors were later shown leaks in the ceiling of the ground floor with Hill mentioning that her neighbor also had a flood in her apartment. “It was like a waterfall,” she said. “There are other neighbors here, they’ve had problems with the water, other problems with the infrastructure. We have paid hefty rents, but we want to see the work get done!” she said, mentioning also the inconvenience to neighbors while adjacent units are worked on.

 

The group later took a tour of the building and Hill explained that because the complex was built over transit property [the end of the 4 subway line] sometimes Tracey Towers had to work with the relevant transit authority to fix anything in the outdoor space. “We had to fix this driveway that has potholes and all kinds of things,” she said, adding she always had to warn people to be careful when they were in the outdoor space for this reason.

 

Hill added that the complex did get some funding from the State Assembly to go towards fixing the elevators. “We got $10 million from them,” she said before adding, “The fire department might as well have an office here they come so often to get people out of the elevators.” She said they now needed funds for plumbing and cameras because some people were allegedly “carrying on unsanitary things” on the complex grounds and said security had to cover a lot of different areas and control the access points more effectively.

 

She went on to say that someone called her recently at 11 o’clock at night to come down to the 11th floor where she said four apartments were flooded. “Two of the tenants on that floor, one just had a liver transplant,” she said. “The other lady, she’s a senior woman. She’s on dialysis. She’s an older lady. She can’t deal with having to scoop up water and water’s cracking the tiles on the floor. That’s dangerous for her if she falls down in that apartment.”

We spoke to some of the residents later about the speaker’s visit. Sheila Reinhardt Ballard is a former president of the tenants association, a 50-year resident of Tracey Towers who also started a senior citizens’ committee there. She said though she was present for Adams’ visit, she hadn’t had a chance to speak to her directly and was disappointed to have missed out on the chance. “Because I have duties in the morning; I’m a caregiver to my mom who lives in this building, and she’s 95,” she said. Reinhardt Ballard, herself, appeared to be an older adult and was using a wheelchair when we spoke with her.

 

She continued, “It was heartening to me to see her today and to listen to her speak, and she is a woman of my heart,” she said. Reinhardt Ballard added that she liked that Adams believed in preservation. “That’s the way to go, right?” she said. “It’s not all about the new all the time. It’s about preserving what you have and a lot of the time, what you have is better than the new; the structures are better. They just need TLC.”

 

She continued, “I hope that I live long enough to see them really do something here.” Reinhardt Ballard added that she had seen it all over her 50 years as a resident. “We have some beautiful, beautiful times here, and we just really would love to see people get involved again. They come in, they get in the elevator, they go to their apartment, and that’s it. There’s less community spirit.”

 

She said when she was president, she had a good time with it because she had the support of the people [to help] and “did some very nice things.” She mentioned the health fairs with the borough president’s office and a lot of other “good things” that took place for seniors.

 

In reference to the needed repairs, we asked if the water pipes had ever burst in winter and she said she wasn’t sure. “I do know that they do burst in the community room in Building 20. They renovated it. They made it so beautiful but they didn’t fix the the water situation and the pipes that came destroyed everything that they had done and they didn’t want to do it again. They still haven’t done anything, but we need the space. There’s 871 families in here – it’s a lot.”

 

We also spoke to residents, Maggie Robinson, Mary Spencer, and O’Neal Riley. “Yeah, I love her,” said Spencer. “She’s from South Carolina, that’s my home.” Meanwhile, Robinson said, “It was very nice of her to come and speak. We really appreciate her coming to see what’s going on and this way it gives us hope that something will be done.”

 

For her part, O’Neal Riley said, “I really enjoyed the visit, and I’ve got a very positive vibe and I feel like she’s going to do something positive to help Tracy Towers.” Spencer added, “I think she was very promising. When I saw her, I said, she’s going to be good!”

Adding that Tracey happened to be her sister’s name, the speaker earlier told residents she would never forget the name Tracey Towers. “Thank you all for everything that you are to this community, to this district. You truly are the jewels of this community and we want to make sure that you’re okay. That’s why I’m here today.”

 

Adams is running on both the Democratic Party and the New York Working Families Party tickets in the upcoming primary. She had also recently joined the councilman for a check presentation at Kings College where she briefly told Norwood News why she was running for mayor.

 

Primary Election Day in New York is Tuesday, June 24. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Early Voting runs from June 14- 22. To be eligible to register to vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen; be 18 years old on June 24; a New York State resident for at least 30 days before the election; not be in prison for a felony conviction; not be adjudged mentally incompetent by a court; and not claim the right to vote elsewhere. The last day to register to vote in person was June 14. Applications to register to vote by mail should also have been received by June 14. For more information, click here.