While walking through Queens with a city councilwoman in 2022, Jessica Tisch noticed an abundance of trash strewn across traffic islands, stepped streets and greenways.
Ms. Tisch, who had just started her job as the city's sanitation commissioner, asked why these particular areas were so littered. The reason was outrageous. Back in 1983, City Hall issued a rule that made each department responsible for maintaining its property, leaving trash to accumulate in no man's land.
So Ms. Tisch convinced Mayor Eric Adams to fund $14 million for a new unit that would regularly pick up trash from those 1,700 locations.
Why did we write this
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has won praise for modernizing the agency and rooting out corruption. But she and her mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, have different views on the causes of violent crime and how to combat them.
“If you live in one of these areas, you see this dump every day and you think no one cares,” says Joshua Goodman, a spokesman for the sanitation department. “The only thing Jesse won't accept is, 'It's just the way it is.'
The government administrator and scion of one of New York's most powerful families has quickly risen through the city's bureaucracy and last year took charge of the nation's largest police department. She described this position as her dream jobdespite never serving as a uniformed officer. Ms. Tisch's tireless commitment to modernizing the NYPD and other agencies has drawn praise from former New York City mayors and police commissioners across multiple administrations.
Her next boss might not be so easy to defeat.
With just two weeks until the New York mayoral election, Mayor Adams dropped out of the raceMs. Tisch may soon find herself at the mercy of Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who has criticized the police department's entrenched power. The Queens Assemblyman, who has a double-digit lead in the polls, apologized For past comments calling the NYPD “racist” and “serious threat to public safety“, and tried to convince voters that he no longer supported “protection” of the police. But he also advocated the creation of a new agency this would result in mental health teams being used to respond to 911 calls instead of police.
He and Mrs. Tisch looked at each other with wary respect. Mr Mamdani commended Ms Tisch for her efforts to reduce the number of shootings And cull corrupt officers whom Mr. Adams, a former policeman, appointed to high-ranking positions.
Wednesday Night, The New York Times reported that Mr Mamdani plans to ask Ms Tisch to remain as commissioner, citing top campaign aides. He publicly confirmed this message during the debate that night. The news may help reassure some of the city's business leaders and more moderate voters who have been skeptical of Mr Mamdani's proposal.
Still, it could be a rocky partnership: Ms. Tisch and Mr. Mamdani expressed sharply different views on the causes of violent crime and the best strategies to combat them.
If he reappoints her but also cuts police funding and reorganizes the agency, Ms. Tisch will have a difficult decision to make. And if she leaves office and crime rises, Mr Mamdani could face a political rival in four years. already advertised some consider him a candidate for mayor.
“Jessie has many excellent career options, but she is on an assignment with the NYPD that I believe will require several more years of service,” said Kathy Wild, president and CEO of the Partnership of New York City. “She can work with anyone.”
“Hard Boss”
Ms. Tisch was born into a family of corporate titans and philanthropists. Her grandfather, Lawrence, was a co-owner of Loews Corp., a hotel and insurance conglomerate. Her father, James, ran Loews for 48 years before retiring in January. But it was her mother, Merrill, chair of the SUNY Board of Regents and former chancellor of the Board of Regents, who instilled in her the virtues of civic leadership.
“People ask me why I’m so passionate,” Ms. Tisch. told New York Magazine. “My mom is definitely my role model.” (The NYPD refused to allow Ms. Tisch to be interviewed.)
She grew up with two younger brothers on the prestigious Upper East Side of Manhattan and attended Harvard University, where she won national championship in the crew as a helmsman and has a university degree in law and business.
Although she internee Having worked at a law firm and the White House while she was in school, it wasn't until 2008 that a friend encouraged her to apply for a position as a counterterrorism analyst with the NYPD and she considered a career in public service.
Ms. Tisch found that she excelled at little things like securing sensitive sites and preventing attacks. In 2014, she was promoted to Deputy Commissioner for Innovation and Technology.
“She can be a tough boss and doesn't suffer fools lightly,” says former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. But she also “sort of leads [where] people… under it have the opportunity to be heard.”
In December 2019, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Ms. Tisch to lead the city's technology office. During the pandemic, she built a contact tracing system from scratch and then managed a distribution system that got COVID-19 vaccines to people. 90% city residents.
When Mr. Adams asked her which agency she wanted to run, Ms. Tisch chose sanitation. There she sought to tame the city growing rat populationlaunched a citywide curbside composting programand unveiled a plan requiring durable plastic trash cans for residential buildings.
She also made less publicized changes that had significant consequences. She asked senior sanitation managers to review the data weekly, which reduced missed collections to almost zero. And instead of focusing on the amount of trash picked up by garbage trucks, she prioritized another metric: how long it had been rotting on curbs.
“The performance measure was important, but the purpose of the data is to improve quality of life,” says Mr. Goodman, the sanitation official.
Sanitation was a bright spot in the Adams administration, permeated corruption charges And iniquity — and no agency has exemplified this dysfunction more than the police department. Misconduct Complaints jumped to the highest level since 2014, including among Mr. Adams' hand-picked deputies, as officers retired in crowds.
After the third police commissioner in three years resigned last October, Mr. Adams approached Ms. Tisch with a request lead department. She's fast expelled Dozens of managers, including two top internal affairs chiefs, halved the department's staff. 87 people press service and began a major overhaul of its disciplinary process.
Since then, Ms. Tisch has deftly handled several high-profile cases, including the manhunt following the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. She is also credited with helping to convince The Trump administration is not sending the National Guard to New York.
Her targeted deployment officers in areas with high crime rates has already had an effect. The city has seen a decline in violent crime for seven consecutive quarters. fewest recorded shootings in records for the first nine months of any year.
“She knows when to be in front of the cameras and when to distract attention. That's a rare skill in politics,” says political consultant Neil Quatra. “She's gone way beyond anyone's idea that she's in her job because of her name. She's done a damn good job.”
Accessibility issues trump crime
Due in part to Ms. Tisch's efforts, public safety concerns didn't dominate this year's mayoral campaign, unlike four years ago.
That allowed Mr. Mamdani to gain popularity with his message of addressing the city's affordability crisis, winning the Democratic primary last June.
Ms. Tisch avoided direct comment on the race, but indicated privately she wants to continue her role next year. In meetings with Mr. Mamdani this summer, business leaders and government officials urged him to keep it.
“Keeping it in place will protect the next mayor from any accusations that he will be soft on crime,” Ms Wild says.
Both of Mr. Mamdani's rivals, former New York governor and independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, have said they would retain Ms. Tisch if elected.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards says Mr. Mamdani's first question to him at a meeting in Astoria two weeks after the June primary was whether he should keep it.
“He's a lot more pragmatic than I thought,” said Mr. Richards, who hopes Ms. Tisch will remain in her post. “Public safety should be a top priority, especially under a progressive administration. People are looking for stability.”
But Mr Mamdani's progressive allies may think differently. When Mrs. Tisch said The Citizens Budget Commission said last month that crime has risen in the years since the pandemic because of legislative criminal justice reforms, one Assembly member tweeted“It’s so strange that the heiress to one of the city’s richest families does not seem to understand the sociology of social insecurity and its relationship to crime.” (Mr. Mamdani replied noting that similar crime spikes have been observed across the country.)
Mr. Bratton says Mr. Mamdani will not be able to find anyone who can match Ms. Tisch's experience and knowledge. But a former police commissioner recently said in his podcast interview that he would advise her not to remain in the Mamdani administration.
“I suggest we think long and hard,” Mr. Bratton told the Monitor. “The public thinks well of her now. It shouldn't be wasted in the first months of the new administration.”
No matter what she decides, he predicts she won't be intimidated by the Democratic Party's new wunderkind.
“Jesse loves a challenge,” he says. “You can’t be a police commissioner if you’re not… interested in taking on that challenge.”
Editor's note: This article was updated on Oct. 22, the day it was first published, to reflect news of Mr. Mamdani's intention to ask Ms. Tisch to remain as commissioner.
