Greenpointers are demanding that the city implement a full road diet on McGuinness Boulevard amid allegations that a top mayoral aide was bribed to interfere with a Department of Transportation-approved redesign.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin, a former chief advisor to Mayor Eric Adams, allegedly agreed to alter the redesign in exchange for cash and a TV show cameo offered by Broadway Stages owners Gina and Anthony Argento, according to indictments that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced last week.
The indictment was “vindicating” in some ways, said Bronwyn Breitner, a local mom and founding member of Make McGuinness Safe. Locals had long suspected that Lewis-Martin had moved behind the scenes to scuttle the project.
“We’d been seeing really strange behavior by senior Adams officials,” said Greenpoint resident Vincent Valdmans. “ … it was very clear at a certain point that the administration was not going to respect the process of its own DOT.”
But it was also frustrating.
“[The Argentos] have done a lot of good things for our community,” Breitner said. “It’s hard to accept that these guys would put all of the neighbors of Greenpoint’s safety at risk.”
The fight over McGuinness Boulevard created a “rift” in the neighborhood, Breitner said, one that still exists today. And while a redesign was eventually implemented, it was watered-down and less safe than what had initially been promised.
“If these accusations are true, if Mayor Adams doesn’t want to be part of the corrupt landscape that influenced the safe streets redesign, he should go ahead and implement the rest of the road diet tomorrow,” Breitner said. “There’s no reason not to.”
Lewis-Martin was simultaneously charged in three other pay-to-play schemes. She pleaded not guilty to all charges last week, as did the Argentos.
Representatives for the Argentos have said the siblings “did not engage in any wrongdoing” and “did nothing but exercise their First Amendment rights.”
Indictment was no surprise to some
Council Member Lincoln Restler, who represents Greenpoint and Williamsburg, said the indictment wasn’t a surprise.
“I’ve never had the impression that Ingrid operates on the up-and-up,” he said.
The pol told Brooklyn Paper that Lewis-Martin was often described as a “tornado” in City Hall.
“If the tornado doesn’t touch you … you’re fine,” he said. “And you just kind of continue to live your life and do your job. But when that tornado swept in, everything was turned upside-down.”
In the summer of 2023, shortly after DOT finalized its plan to remove a lane of vehicle traffic all the way down McGuinness Boulevard and install parking-protected bike lanes along the curb, Adams — allegedly at Lewis-Martin’s behest — ordered the agency to come up with something new.
“As a result, we, finally, after years of back-and-forth and the mayor changing his mind more times than any of us could count, ended up with an inadequate compromise plan,” Restler said. “Now is the time for us to make every single block of McGuinness Boulevard safe.”
But Adams has said he does not plan to make any changes on McGuinness Boulevard.
“McGuinness was a win, to sit down and come to a resolution that both sides could agree on,” he said at a press conference last week. “[F]rom my understanding, there were a lot of conversations, there were people on both sides of the issue, and you have to come to the middle.”
Adams also defended the Argentos, who he described as “wonderful people.”
“They’re great New Yorkers,” he said. “They contribute in the area of their community, they give back, they’re very dedicated to the people of this city.”
Adams’ son, Jordan Coleman, reportedly worked on a show filmed at Broadway Stages — the same show Lewis-Martin appeared on two years later — in 2020.
Mamdani and Cuomo on McGuinness
At a press conference on McGuinness Boulevard on Monday, mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani pledged to implement the full redesign – along with several other stalled street-safety projects across the city — if elected.
“As mayor, I understand the crises that we are facing, and I understand that the core of the fight to serve this city is a love of this city, and a love of the people who call this city home,” he said. “We will make McGuinness safe, we will make New York City safe.”
Mamdani and his supporters also criticized Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an Independent in the November mayoral election.
“Andrew Cuomo doesn’t have a street-safety plan,” Restler said. “He doesn’t have a plan to create a network of protected bike lanes, he doesn’t have a plan to speed up buses. He only cares about driving his muscle cars.”
In a statement, Cuomo spokesperson Rich Azzopardi said the campaign would “have to review the plan,” but is generally “in favor of anything that can achieve the stated goals of increasing pedestrian safety and decreasing fatalities.”
If Mamdani loses, local pols said, they are prepared to keep fighting for the full redesign. Assembly Member Emily Gallagher said the city set a concerning precedent when it decided to remove the protected bike lane on Bedford Avenue without warning.
“I think we should be prepared to fight just as hard as we’ve ever fought for this road,” she said. “The one thing about this community is, we are indefatigable. We will not stop.”
