Since the time of his campaign for mayor, Mr. Adams had been dogged by questions about owning a second apartment. Initially, Hizzoner’s story, which he is not sticking to, was that he co-owned the apartment with Sylvia Cowan. Former partners, Mr. Adams and Ms. Cowan acquired the Crown Heights one-bedroom apartment in 1988.
Mr. Adams did not list this ownership interest on his financial disclosure forms for his mayoral run. He explained last year that he had conveyed his interest to Ms. Cowan in 2007. Mr. Adams even produced an unsigned, non-notarized three-sentence document that said so. Someone may want to chat with Mr. Mayor about transferring title to real property. Casual papers do not do the trick.
Now, Mr. Adams’s new disclosure statement, filed June 22, 2022, indicates that he still owns an interest in the apartment. Ready for the story? His accountant, a homeless accountant, failed to take care of the issue. However, Mr. Adams now has a new accountant who has pledged to remain in some form of housing (an apartment in Crown Heights, mayhap?) and to take care of the transfer.
Actually, it was Ms. Cowan who, in May 2021, asked the co-up board to transfer full ownership to her. And the co-op board has not yet approved the transfer nor seen any paperwork. That paperwork would generally be done by a lawyer for the two parties, homeless or otherwise.
One additional aside — Ms. Cowan owns another apartment in the same Fort Lee, NJ property in which Mr. Adams co-owns a unit with his current partner, Tracey Collins. So, the mayor of New York City lives in New Jersey? Oh, the tangled webs of deception from public officials, the homeless, and other sundry characters in seeking (or not) a transfer of a co-op interest. Perhaps the non-transfer is necessary political cover.