Transcript: Mayor Adams Delivers Remarks and Cuts Ceremonial Ribbon at Teen Center

September 27, 2023

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGqiC-w4Fs0

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres‑Springer, Housing, Economic Development and Workforce: All right. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Maria Torres‑Springer. I'm the deputy mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Workforce. I would like to thank all of you for being here today in Mott Haven. I want to start by thanking our branch manager, Tiffany McCrae, for hosting us this afternoon.

Now we all know that New York City's libraries have been invaluable partners from their inception, and I might argue that this was never more apparent than during the pandemic. All of our libraries stepped up during those really challenging times, of course, to offer PPE, testing resources and life‑saving vaccines in communities across the five boroughs.

And as the city looked at the data and continued our conversations with local communities, the feedback was very clear that libraries, of course, are some of our most trusted physical spaces and neighborhood partners in the city. And why wouldn't they be?  So many of us, myself included, have fond, fond memories of going to your local library when you were a child because this was a place where you could be curious; it was a place where you could be safe; and due to the partnership and work of so many in this room, they now offer so much more from digital media to recording studios, teen centers such as this one, are really turning interest of our young people into tangible skills.

And so when we started in this administration led by our mayor, it was really heartening when our library leaders asked, how can we continue to help?  And so really it's with this in mind that I welcome the 110th mayor of New York City to the podium, Mayor Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. And you know, you listened to a lot of things you can get in the library, you did not include you can get pizza.

And you know, so many young people go and attend libraries, but in all honesty, so many don't. So many feel disconnected, and we have to find creative ways of building that bridge. And I think I was really impressed when we saw the Hip Hop 50 library card. Something as simple like that, building the studio.

If you were to walk on the street and speak to the average young person and say "library," they would think that, you know, there's nothing cool, there's nothing hip, there's nothing positive, there's nothing going on. And I think that we must be extremely open to sitting down and asking, what do you want the library to be for you or to you?  What should be there?  How am I going to get you inside so that you can start seeing the wonders of not only a book, audio book of different artistic ways of expressing oneself.

And that's what these amazing library leaders are, from Queens, to the Bronx, to Brooklyn, to Manhattan, Staten Island. They are really engaged in reinventing our libraries, and we want to be a partnership with it. $15 million, five boroughs, not leaving any borough behind, and reshaping the attitude of a teen center and teen services.

And really allowing the creative energy to really come out and experience how do you sit down and interact with each other. And that's what this is about. That is why we want to invest in this. But we need your feedback. We need you to really say to us, this is what we want our libraries to look like, and these are the services that are provided.

Now, it only makes sense, we have senior centers. I've spent a lot of time in the senior centers, and the seniors and the older adults are very clear on what they want. So, if we have senior centers, why don't we have teen centers where teens can start saying, what's the launching pad for me to participate in actively being part of the city that you love?

And it's not only on our part, which is enjoyable, the deputy mayor and the team, we were able to get everything from Best Buy. This is the best buy they can do by investing in young people. We were able to get Google to participate as well, Jolly Foundation, all of these entities. That's cool, brother, you can let it run.

You know, I know, so funny. I'll never forget I was at a meeting one day and all of a sudden I had this ring tone on my phone, and I don't even want to tell you what the song was, but…   

When it went off, it was rather embarrassing, so be careful of your ringtones, you know. It was the thong song, everybody was like… 

You know, so again, just our partners, thank you so much for doing this and thank you, thank you, you know, you young folks who are here. You're not going to blow the winds of change for tomorrow, you're the leaders of today, and your input is crucial. This administration, we want to hear from you so we can get it right. And great job, deputy mayor, great job to our librarians, leaders, our presidents that are here and what they're doing. So, let's keep doing the great work. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Thank you, Mayor. We'd like to hear from the three leaders of our library systems. They have been amazing partners to the city and have really pushed the envelope in terms of what every branch really needs to be able to provide in different neighborhoods in the city.

And so first we are going to hear from the president of the New York Public Library, Tony Marx.

Anthony Marx, President and CEO, New York Public Library: Well, a huge shout out and thanks to the deputy mayor, Maria, does an amazing job. Mr. Mayor, what an honor. This is a great day for Mott Haven. This building? 1905, built like a rock. And here in the congressional district with the lowest income I believe in the United States, just a few subway stops from a community of the wealthiest of the United States. This institution has always been a beacon for this neighborhood, and it's always been so inspiring to come here.

This last year, 50,000 visits. 8,000 program office visits. And now with this space we can do so much more, especially for our teens. This is the 20th, 20th teen center to be opening in our system, 11 in the Bronx. As the mayor said, we are using high tech, the best music studios, maker space, to attract the teens in. And we know from the Niarchos Library in Midtown how powerful that is. It will bring you from any neighborhood. If you're an aspiring musician, you have no access to a studio, this can be your start.

And once we have you in, we'd like to suggest some things to read. We have after school, we have job and college guidance and placement, we're working with the administration on a civics project to get the teens and the citizens and the communities engaged in their local issues. We know we have mental wellness issues to address, mentoring. All of it can happen here in the teen centers as part of what we call our 360 team initiative coming out of the pandemic and inspired by this administration. All of this is only possible because of the support of the City of New York and its mayor. Thank you.

Yes, we are a public/private partnership and we're grateful for the support of Google, Best Buy, the Joly Family Foundation, the Tisch Family. But when this mayor came into office he understood the unique power of the libraries in every neighborhood, the most visited civic institutions in this town, and invested, remarkably, $15 million out of the gate.

I have never seen that before, it's a substantive investment. And it is so fitting as just one investment as we look at the nation and the world around us where we see people closing up opportunities to learn and to advance, where we see books being banned, here in New York City, under this administration we stand for New York values — values of opportunity and learning for all.

I am so grateful. I'm so excited about what's going to happen in this space and the other 20 spaces. A huge shout out to Gesille Dixon, Siva Ramakrishnan and the whole adult youth young adult team. The manager here, Tiffany and the team here at Mott Haven. It is a great day for New York, for its libraries, but most importantly, for the people of the neighborhoods who will be flocking to the space. It's now yours. Thank you.

[Applause]

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Thank you, Tony. I'd now like to welcome the CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library, Linda Johnson.

Linda Johnson, President and CEO, Brooklyn Public Library: Thank you, deputy mayor. Good afternoon, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you today, and I'm honored to be with our favorite mayor, Mayor Adams, who as my colleague Tony Marks just said, has made such a significant contribution to the health and well being of the city's libraries.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer, thank you. My colleagues, Tony Marx, Dennis Walcott. I call them my partners in crime, but there's nothing criminal about opening centers for teens especially with technology to help them not only have a good time in the current day but also to give them skills for their futures.

I understand that for teens there's nothing quite like having a space to call your own, and so we're profoundly grateful and happy that there are dedicated areas in our city for libraries and in libraries for teenagers. In Brooklyn, we've seen an 84 percent increase in team program attendance, and it's in no small part due to this rapid expansion of our teen offerings over the past year.

We are probably inaugurating three new teen tech centers at Saratoga, Bay Ridge and Adams Street libraries. These are safe spaces where teens can gather with their friends after school and spaces that offer free access to laptops, to state of the art technology and instruction, and collaborative zones where teens can socialize with their peers, express their creativity and acquire the skills they need to become active and engaged citizens; and I might add, to eat pizza, because what would a library event, as the Mayor pointed out, what would a library event be without the ubiquitous pizza.

So I'm also happy to tell you that the mayor, in addition to supporting these teen tech centers, has supported a popular program in Brooklyn, Teen Takeovers Program, and it empowers local teens councils to organize special evenings throughout the school year where teens get the branches to themselves free range to plan activities and really own the space in a material way.

More than a thousand young people have participated in our Teen Takeover nights, and we're excited to welcome even more in the months ahead. So, thanks to mayoral funding we have also expanded our teen internship programs, our robotics initiatives, which draw intense competition.

And lastly, I want to just take a moment to extend my heartfelt appreciation to the dedicated Brooklyn Public Library team, especially individuals like Ames O'Neill, Jackson Gomes, Yosenex Orengo and Karen Keys. They are the backbones of our teen support system, and they work year-round to get these centers and their programs up and running to empower our next generation of future leaders. So, no pressure, guys, but you're next to the podium, and so we hope that we're giving you the skills to make that happen. Thank you all for your attention.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Thank you, Linda. And because Queens is not to be outdone, I'd now like to introduce the CEO of the Queens Public Library, Dennis Walcott.

Dennis Walcott, President and CEO, Queens Public Library: Thank you, Deputy Mayor, and first, good afternoon to all of you. Mr. Mayor, thank you. Really, thank you very much. And I'm not just thanking you for the initiative and the $15 million, I'm thanking you for your team. Your deputy mayor is truly outstanding. Your team members are outstanding. We at Queens have a great partnership with a variety of components of your administration; and as a result of that, we're able to serve the public.

And I really believe in what you're doing. And again, just to pick up on a point that Tony mentioned earlier and Linda talked about. It was in January when the mayor first took office and he had a conference call or a virtual conversation with Linda, Tony, the deputy mayor and myself. And out of his mouth right away was, I want to make sure we place the emphasis and the focus on teenagers. What can I do to make sure that teenagers throughout the city are getting the support and the services they need?

And the mayor just didn't talk about it, he invested in it. He invested in it city wide, and you heard the results of that investment. In Queens, we're seeing 176 percent increase in the number of teens who are coming through our doors as a result of this investment. We're seeing a 33 percent increase in the number of library cards that are taken out in Queens right now as a result of this investment.

Your investment is paying off big time, whether it's Far Rockaway, Flushing, Cambria Heights, Central, Long Island City, you name it. The teen centers are thriving with things that I don't know how to do, quite frankly. The technology that there is truly amazing. It is something that when I go to visit our teen centers now and hey say, well, do you want to try this, I say, no, I'm not going to embarrass myself. But that's what our teenagers are doing.

And the other thing, Mr. Mayor, that's so important to stress. It's not just one group of teenagers, it's teenagers from across the system who are partnering together; and as a result of that, which Brooklyn does, New York does and we do, partnerships with the city, as the deputy mayor has indicated in her introduction, has been tremendous.

So, Mr. Mayor, thank you, really. I appreciate it. And also, for those who want to know, I know the childhood library that this mayor went to amd on Guy R. Brewer Boulevard… And was it New York Boulevard when you were growing up, or it was always Guy R?

Mayor Adams: New York.

Walcott: It was New York Boulevard, see? And it was New York Boulevard. It's in a different location now. And the mayor is a believer in libraries, and the investment that we've made in our teenagers. And Mr. Mayor, deputy mayor, staff at the Queens Public Library, all of our teams, thank you very much, because our teens are benefiting as a result of this investment.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Thank you so much, Dennis. And now I want to turn to someone who I'm sure is happy not just about this teen center but the 11 teen centers across this borough, the great Borough President Vanessa Gibson.

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson: Good afternoon, everyone. Bienvenidos a todos. Welcome to each and every one of you. What an exciting opportunity to be here at the official ribbon cutting of the teen center at the Mott Haven Library. Yes!

We are so excited to be here because we recognize the value of our New York Public Library system, and right here in the heart of the South Bronx you have dedicated staff like Tiffany and the entire staff here at Mott Haven that dedicate their time each and every day to uplifting the voices of our young people, empowering all of you to realize that you can dream big, you can be creative and innovative, you can be ambitious, bold, courageous. You can be determined in all of this great work.

So, I'm excited that we have an administration led by Mayor Eric Adams and our deputy mayor who believe in the public library system. During the pandemic when so many of our scholars were struggling with Internet access, many of you were disconnected, it was the libraries that were open that provided that safe space but also that space of education, of learning and of recreation. Libraries are hubs. They are beacons of hope for a better tomorrow.

And we have hope for our borough and for our city. So, I am so grateful that we are here, because all of this work, young people, is all for you. We want you to realize that no matter where you live in the Bronx, your block does not block your blessing, but you are destined for great success. You can be the next DJ, the producer, the engineer, the rapper. You can do whatever it is that you want. And right here at the Mott Haven Library, we are offering you all of that.

So, I recently got a second library card, and shout out to Hip Hop 50, thank you New York Public Library for recognizing the 50th anniversary of hip hop right here in the boogie down Bronx. So, if you have not yet gotten your library card, please do so, because we want to get our numbers up, Bronx, so we can compete with Brooklyn, with Linda Johnson and Dennis Walcott in Queens, right?

We want to get our numbers up, so we need more young people to come. We need to get our numbers up, right?  I like it. Yes. We could do a competition. We want to make sure that the Bronx gets our numbers up. We love competition, yes. You see?  He's whipping out his card.

But out of the 20 teen centers in our system that covers the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island, I'm so grateful that 11 are in the Bronx, from here at Mott Haven to Grand Concourse to Wakefield to Spuyten Duyvil, Parkchester, West Farms, Woodstock and a number of others. That is what you talk about when we say access and opportunity, when we talk about investing in all of you.

We cannot tell young people to do something different if we don't offer you something different. So, here you have a music studio, you can design, you can draw, you can do whatever it is that you want. So, I encourage all of you to take advantage of your library and also bring a friend. Every time you come to the library, you should bring a classmate, you should bring a friend.

So, again, thank you to Mayor Eric Adams, to Deputy Mayor Maria Torres‑Springer, to our colleagues at the New York Public Library, our DYCD Commissioner Keith Howard, and everyone from the Mayor's office that really believes in our young people. We pride ourselves here in the Bronx on doing this work with commitment, compassion and intention. We intend for all of you to be successful, and we are not going to leave any of you behind. So, congratulations, young people. Enjoy your teen center, and we look forward to doubling the number to 22 right here in the Bronx. Thank you, everyone.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Thank you, borough president. So, of course today is first and foremost about our young people, and I do want to acknowledge our commissioner from DYCD Keith Howard who wakes up every morning thinking about young people across our city.

So, now we get to hear from one of our younger New Yorkers who's going to share with us her perspective on what we are announcing here today. So, please join me in welcoming an NYPL teen ambassador Yariana Torres.

Yariana Torres: Hello, everyone. My name is Yariana, and I was a teen civics ambassador for the New York Public Library last year. So, teen civics ambassadors work with the library's teen centers to help local teens become more involved in their community; and as an ambassador, my job was running civic focused programs and having conversations with teens about their community's interests and issues that they're passionate about.

I've had conversations with teens at my branch that shifted my perspective about so many important topics. Now I'm a page at the Allerton branch, my childhood location, where I will be able to work to improve the community and provide important services to the library's patrons.

In my time working at NYPL, I've learned that libraries are so much more than a home for books, hey have also become a home for teens as well. We give them shelter when it's cold, friends when they feel lonely, help when they feel stuck and computer access when they don't have it at home.

The staff and the patrons, they all feel like one big family. The staff have open conversations with patrons about what they want to see at their local library, and we work together to execute their vision. The library taught me what a team truly looks like. It showed me that there are people willing to take time out of their day just for me.

Together we formed an unbreakable bond, and I still visit my local branch to catch up with my coworkers. They taught me that a library is not just a building in your neighborhood, a library is its own little community. Thank you, Mayor Adams, for your support of New York City teens and these great teen centers. I am thrilled to join everyone here today and celebrate this wonderful moment at Mott Haven and I'm excited for what my fellow teens will discover here and at libraries throughout the city.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Amazing!  Such beautiful words. Another round of applause for Yariana, please.

Okay. So, before we cut the ribbon, we have a special addition to this program, a gift for our mayor, and I want to invite Nana Adwoa to present the gift.

Nana Adwoa Agyemang: So, my name is Nana Adwoa Agyemang, and I have been I have been wanting to draw the mayor for a while, so I thought this event was the great opportunity to give it to you, so…

Mayor Adams: Nice.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: Wow!

Borough President Gibson: This is The Bronx!

Mayor Adams: I'm going to hang this up in City Hall. So, you're an artist.

Agyemang: Yes, I'm an artist.

Mayor Adams: Wow. Wow.

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