Transcript: Mayor Adams Announces Multi-Agency "Community Link" Operation to Enhance Quality of Life, Improve Safety in Central Park

May 30, 2025

Deputy Mayor Camille Joseph Varlack, Administration: Good morning, and thank you for joining us here today. My name is Camille Joseph Varlack, and I serve as chief of staff and deputy mayor for Administration. I say it all the time, but our Community Link Initiative is one of the projects that I am proudest of. 

It tackles chronic quality of life issues in this city directly. We talk to the community leaders, we get on the ground, and we fix problems with comprehensive, collaborative, and community-focused solutions to ensure that no neighborhood is overlooked or underserved. 

Today, I'm pleased to announce that we're expanding our efforts to Central Park, and to tell you more about our ongoing work, I'm pleased to introduce Mayor Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much, deputy mayor. I'm not sure if you know what team I'm rooting for, but let's go Knicks. We had an exciting game last night at the Garden, and just real good energy and resiliency. They led from the start, and did not lose the lead at all. 

But on a serious note, many of us know the passing of my mentor, my friend, and a real leader for this city, a patriot who fought in the Korean War, who led Harlem, and we called him affectionately the Lion of Lenox Avenue, Congressman Charlie Rangel. He will be lying in state at City Hall. 

Our team is going to coordinate with the City Council for the exact dates, so those who are new or those who benefited from the congressman, they will have an opportunity to come to City Hall as we have his body lying in state at City Hall. I think the last time we did this was for Councilman James E. Davis. 

We want to show just a high level of respect for a leader. My knowledge [is] that there's only two congressmen I can recall from Harlem, and that was the great Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and the Congressman Charlie Rangel, and so we're looking forward to show him the respect that he's due. 

An important date today, this is a beautiful park. It is an oasis. It's a place of energy. It's a place where people come together. As I was walking with Betsy, as we walked in, she was sharing with me that over 40 million visitors come to Central Park. This is an attraction. 

People know Central Park from all across the entire globe. They know of this beautiful space, an oasis in the middle of Manhattan with all of the brick, mortar, and buildings. There's a place you can come, and there's room for everyone from 59th Street to all the way up to Harlem. 

People have found this as a place of refuge and a place to really interact and to cross-pollinate not only with the beautiful flowers and trees, but the people. This park is a great equalizer. It doesn't matter if you are a bartender or a banker, a CEO, or just someone that's an admirer of our cultural institutions. 

The park is going to treat you all the same way, and so we're proud to be here today. This is New York City's backyard. We've talked about it all the time, where families come here, joggers, cyclists come here, tourists come here, but no matter who is in this park, they must be safe. 

That's what today is about, is to ensure a cross-collaboration of all of our agencies to make this and continue to be the safest big city in America, but also the safest park as all our parks. 

We know that some of the issues that have been plaguing the location is everything from illegal vending to overflowing trash, excessive noise, substance use, and more have persisted for far too long. 

And the conservancy has been doing their job, and we want to make sure that we're doing our job. So today, we're announcing the Central Park Conservancy Partnership, a multi-agency response aimed at addressing public safety and improving the quality of life in and around Central Park. 

This partnership, which is part of our Community Link Initiative, Deputy Mayor Joseph Varlack has been overlooking this with Deputy Mayor Daughtry, and improves coordination across enforcement agencies and increases public education for park goers. 

We're bringing together NYPD and New York City Parks, the Parks Enforcement Patrol, the Central Park Conservancy, a new range of corps, and many more agencies to be zero-focused on the quality of life in our parks. 

So no more trash, no more debris, illegal vending, unlawful pedicabs, or excessive noise forcing family and tourists to cut their visits short in this world-class park. And we know that New Yorkers and tourists are fed up with these quality of life concerns. 

This is part of our 1,500-man unit, a women unit, in the New York City Police Department to specifically go after quality of life issues. This is a continuation of that. And so I want to be clear, our administration, we don't believe in the philosophy of anything goes in our parks and on our streets. 

We want to make sure that we have the quality of life issues addressed and corrected, and that is our north star. And this is why we launched our Community Link operation across the city. This is one of the locations we have launched many more. We're working hand-in-hand with the community to keep our neighbors safe. 

This team, intensive effort, has already responded to over 1,500 complaints and conducted over 1,600 operations across our city addressing our quality of life issues and concerns raised by communities. We hear that in all of our town halls, all of our forums. 

People specifically are concerned about those quality of life issues, and that is why we're going to focus on them. We know crime is down and jobs are up. It's a successful motto that we're able to proclaim, but you can't give people stats when they're worried about abandoned vehicles, public drug usage, or any other quality of life issue. 

We want people to be safe. We were successful in doing that, but we want them to feel safe. And we're going to continue this decline in crime even in the month of April. Many people don't realize, Sunday before Memorial Day, we had zero shooters in this city. 

That weekend was one of the safest Memorial Day weekends in the history of this city. So we're looking forward to a sixth quarter of decline in crime, and here in Central Park, this precinct, crime is down 50 percent in this precinct year to day, driven by 90 percent reduction in robberies and nearly a 29 percent reduction in grand larceny. Great job to the C.O. here, 90 percent reduction in robberies. 

Additionally, we have shut down more than 1,500 illegal smoke shops across the five boroughs and are reopening once-shut shops into legal businesses. We have taken thousands of illegal guns off our streets and more than 2,000 alone this year of illegal guns removed off our street, 21,800 since we came into office of these illegal guns, and many of them, or a substantial portion of them, are ghost guns. 

And so it's a zero focus. And most importantly, when we think about quality of life, those pesky two-wheeled scooters, dirt bikes, illegal cars, ghost cars, the numbers are staggering. 

99,000 of those illegal vehicles have been removed off our streets, and many of them have been crushed and destroyed, never to be used again. 

So this city, in order to be safe, people must feel safe, and people must be safe, and we are going to continue that movement forward. It's the best place to raise children and families, and no greater partnership than the Central Park Conservancy. 

We look forward to continue this great work and having our city a place to enjoy and to raise our children and family. Happy summer. Have a great summer. And most importantly, I don't think anything can be more significant than saying, let's go Knicks.

Deputy Mayor Joseph Varlack: Thank you, mayor. I would now like to turn it over to deputy mayor for Public Safety, Kaz Daughtry.

Deputy Mayor Kaz Daughtry, Public Safety: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for your leadership in ensuring everyone involved in this initiative is aligned on one clear mission, to make Central Park safer, cleaner, and more enjoyable for everyone. 

This effort is about more than enforcement. It's about coordination, communication, and long-term strategies to protect the heart of New York City. Central Park is one of, if not the most iconic public space in the world. 

The public safety team is very happy to partner on all of these projects with the chief of staff and deputy mayor for Administration, Varlack, who leads the Community Link Team. And thank you to the teamwork for everyone here today. 

The park is safer, order is being restored, and people can really see and feel the difference. I want to recognize Jessica Cruz from my office, who has been leading this effort behind the scenes. Jess and our team work with every stakeholder to turn concerns into action. 

Together, we created a punch list of 78 specific action items to improve the safety and quality of life inside Central Park. To date, 48 are completed, 13 are in progress, and 11 are long-term, ongoing efforts. That teamwork includes accessing and upgrading lighting and camera systems across the park to improve visibility, deter crime, and support enforcement, coordinating enforcement strategies to address illegal vending and unlicensed pedicabs, while also engaging directly with the vendors and the pedicab operators to prevent violations before they even occur, launching a dedicated Pedicab Task Force to drive long-term solutions to bring operators into compliance and to hold bad actors accountable for and to protect the riders. 

Educating park goers on their rights when riding in a pedicab or buying from a vendor because protecting consumers and preventing scams is key to keeping the space safe and fair for everyone. 

Strengthening coordination between the newly launched Central Park Conservancy Ranger Corps, the NYPD Park Precincts, and Park Enforcement Patrol, so our teams are sharing information in real time and working as one. 

Increasing surveys for drug paraphernalia and expanding outreach to people experiencing homelessness, connecting them to the services and keeping the park clean and accessible to all. And we are backing this work with real enforcement where it counts. 

Park Enforcement Patrol has issued 289 summonses this year related to pedicab violations, and the NYPD Central Park Precinct has issued 194 related summonses up from 162 the same time period last year. The NYPD has also seized 19 pedicabs so far this year compared to just 1 during the same time period last year. 

As for illegal vending, Park Enforcement Patrol has issued 294 summonses year to date, and the Central Park Precinct has issued 38 vending-related summonses and conducted 17 seizure operations. Officers also made three arrests for trademark counterfeiting, recovering 203 counterfeit items with an estimated street value of nearly $55,000. 

This teamwork matters even more as we head into the summer when even more people are coming out to enjoy Central Park. This is the We Outside Summer, man. Whenever you are outside, we outside too, keeping you safe. 

And let me be clear, we are not here for quick fixes or one-off crackdowns. Our goal is to create long-term solutions to reduce the need for enforcement even in the first place, and it's also already working. We are seeing fewer violations related to pedicabs and vending because people are following the rules. 

Last year, the park saw an uptick in crime. As the mayor said this year, crime is down, jobs are up, and we are expected to turn that trend and to continue that trend in keeping this park safe, thanks to coordinated efforts that you see here standing behind me today. 

This level of coordination does not exist under the previous administration, but the mayor changed the game with the Community Link Initiative. Thank you very much to Deputy Mayor Joseph Varlack for that. 

Community Link is about taking action, tackling issues and progress, and delivering real-time results. That's exactly what's happening here in Central Park and many neighborhoods across our city. 

I'd like to thank the team and the agencies and our partners and the community members who are here, and everyone, thank you for your help for making this park safer and stronger, and please come outside. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Varlack: Thank you, D.M. Daughtry. And finally, cannot underscore enough the importance of our partnership in this effort with the president of the Central Park Conservancy, Betsy Smith.

Betsy Smith, President and CEO, Central Park Conservancy: First of all, thank you very much, Mayor Adams. You understand Central Park completely and how important it is. We often say at the Conservancy that Central Park is sort of a barometer about the way people feel about the city, and when it's safe and it's clean, and people feel comfortable, and there's not a lot of quality of life violations, people feel New York's good because we have so many people. 

So thank you so much for your appreciation of that. My name is Betsy Smith. I'm the president and CEO of the Central Park Conservancy, the not-for-profit civic institution that has been caring for the park for over 40 years. 

We are very, very pleased to recognize this critical partnership with the City of New York. By working with all of our partners and all the various agencies, we are able to maintain Central Park as a respite for the millions of New Yorkers and visitors every year. 

That's why I'm so excited about this new initiative, so that we can do everything we can to make the park safe, accessible, and welcoming to everyone. 

Through our collaboration with the deputy mayor of Public Safety's office, we meet weekly with over a dozen agencies, all steered by the deputy mayor's team. And we are all working together to tackle whatever the challenge of the day might be. 

And so far, as the deputy [mayor] mentioned, there has been very, very impressive results. But more specifically, when the conservancy, for example, when our staff hears that there's street lights that are out, we have a new protocol with the Department of Transportation to make sure the lights get fixed and fast. 

When we express concern about quality of life issues along 110th Street, we began a conversation with the Department of Homeless Services that has resulted in 48 New Yorkers being connected to housing. 

When a member of our staff sees something concerning in the park, we are able to communicate with PEP and with NYPD in real time and get the help that's needed to address whatever problem has been discussed. 

And to bolster these efforts, we're so proud of our new Central Park Ranger Corps. This has been a long time in the making. We really see it as additional eyes and ears for our city partners. We are in the park, on the ground, looking, talking to everybody every single day. 

So our rangers are designed to address visitor concerns and quality of life issues. The Ranger Corps is tasked with protecting the park and serving as a point of contact for the public. They work very closely with our partners in government to keep the park safe and welcoming. 

And none of it would have happened without the cooperation of all these city agencies. And that is really the brilliance of this initiative. If you want to solve problems, you need to get everybody at the table. 

And then you need to keep meeting until the job is done, which in our case is going to be forever. We're really hoping this is a long-term initiative that just lives throughout the next decades, because that's what we need to keep 40 million people safe in the park every year. 

Not every park, though, has the same challenges, but every park can benefit from this kind of tailored, multi-agency approach. And we are thrilled to be a part of this pilot program. 

It takes a village, as people say, and in many ways Central Park is its own village. We have so many different constituencies and so many different users, so we could not be more grateful for the level of help and communication that we are getting from the Mayor's Office and from all of our agency friends as we head into the busy summer season. 

So I just want to thank you so much. This has been an extremely effective partnership, and we'll do everything we can, leading with our rangers and everyone at the Conservancy, to help the city keep Central Park the iconic place it is for the worldwide reputation that it has. 

Mayor Adams: Any questions? It's a good thing. That means, we did it right. 

Question: What can New Yorkers expect to see in terms of what the patrol looks like? Is it more patrol cars, more mounted cops, more cops on bicycles? What does that look like?

Deputy Mayor Daughtry: Thank you for the question. As I mentioned before, we put extra cameras in here, some cameras that people will see, some will not see. New technology cameras where they also hook up to electric, but they're also solar-powered as well. 

You will also see extra park patrol officers, PEP officers. My office is working with the NYPD to secure 12 to 15 new bikes for bike patrol inside of Central Park. That's breaking news if you want to hit the button, because I didn't say that yet. 

And you're going to see some of the park police officers, mounted teams, as well as some of the field forces. Where one field force of officers [are] here, about 40 additional officers, especially during the week. 

So you're going to see a lot of police personnel here. And some cops you will not see also as well. We have some plainclothes officers that are going to be tasked to conduct vending operations in the park. And they're also looking out for crime too.

Question: What is the specific regulation with respect to these pedicabs? Because if you go to Central Park South, for example, by 6th Avenue, it can be overwhelming. They're blasting their music, cutting people off. What is the regulation regarding them, and how is that specifically being addressed?

Mayor Adams: Well, one thing for sure, and we're talking about some enforcement, it's not a petty concern, that's for sure. You know, we are really concerned with the over proliferation of pedicabs that many of them are unlicensed. 

They're overcharging tourists. Some of the cases that we've heard are really astonishing. When you think about people coming here to visit the city, they don't want to be ripped off and harassed in a manner. And so we did several operations. You want to talk about those operations?

Deputy Mayor Daughtry: Thanks, N.J. And that's one of the biggest concerns here in Central Park is the pedicabs. They're out of control. Last year, we did a really big pedicab initiative through Midtown as well as even down in Central Park. But a pedicab is just what it is, a pedicab. 

You notice some of these pedicabs, the majority of them have motors on them. They're not supposed to have motors. And their prices are very deceiving to New Yorkers, especially tourists, when I'm coming here from a different country because this is the best place in the world. 

When they jump on a ride, it says $8.99. People think it is $8.99 per [person], but they're charging you $8.99 per [minute]. So a ride around Central Park can cost a person almost $200. And that gets into a conflict between the rider, the ride-goer, and the pedicab operator. 

So when the officers come in and converge on them, initially they try to take off. But we have a really tactical plan in place for how we go after these individuals. But if you see a pedicab with a motor on it, if you don't see the license sticker on the side by the Consumer Worker Protection Program, they're supposed to be registered. 

And I would say about 95 percent of these pedicabs are not registered. They're not licensed. So it's an easy confiscation. We're working with our law department in the sea of ways of how we can take these pedicabs legally and lawfully and not give them back to the owner because we only can have them seized for a couple of days. 

So we're working with our legal teams, our Law Department, to come up with some sort of resolution so we can actually take these pedicabs permanently if they don't come pick them up.

Question: What about the music?

Deputy Mayor Daughtry: The music is also, you're not supposed to have a sound reproductive device. I mean, listen, the pedicabs are fun, attractive for people that are not from here. But sometimes they do take advantage of our tourists. 

And we don't want that. We want people to come here, have a good time. We don't want them to get into altercations with the pedicab drivers over a $250 fare, which is sometimes absurd. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Good job.