Hours after being sworn into office in Times Square as the city rang in the new year, Adams utilized his inaugural address to promise more efficiency, invoke New Yorkers' reputation for toughness, and urge the city's almost 9 million residents to make a New Year's resolution that their lives not be ruled by the pandemic.
"Getting vaccinated is not letting the crisis control you," Adams announced at City Hall. "Enjoying a Broadway show. Sending your kids to school. Going back to the office. These are declarations of confidence that our city is our own."
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Adams, 61, faces the enormous challenge of drawing the city out of the pandemic, taking office as the city is grappling with record numbers of COVID-19 cases caused by the omicron variant.
While he has vowed to keep the city open and stave off any go back to shutdowns, he is taking the helm of a city that has seen subway lines, restaurants, and even urgent care centers temporarily closed due to staffing shortages caused by COVID cases.
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Adams announced this week that he intends to keep in place many of the policies of outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio, including vaccine mandates that are among the strictest in the country.
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In his Saturday address, Adams furthermore explained that he would take a "radically practical" approach to improve the city's government that involves not just "grand plans and proposals," but further "weeding out waste and eliminating the inefficiencies."
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The former New York City police captain rode the subway from his Brooklyn brownstone to City Hall for his first day on the job. Adams spoke with New Yorkers and a throng of reporters following him. He even called 911 to report a fight after seeing two men fighting near the subway station.
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Hours earlier, as confetti continued to drift across Times Square, Adams recited his oath of office. Associate Justice Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix of the state Supreme Court's appellate division swore Adams in as he placed one hand on a family Bible and his other held a picture of his mother, Dorothy, who died in 2020.
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After canceling initial plans to be sworn into office at a Brooklyn theater, Adams explained on Saturday that he decided to hold his inauguration ceremony at the scene of the New Year's Eve ball drop to show that the city was open and alive and "that New York can and should be the center of the universe again."