While New York City was being battered by a once-in-a-generation storm that caused portions of the city to flood, Mayor Eric Adams acknowledged that he took a covert two-day vacation to the US Virgin Islands last week.
When questioned about his whereabouts last Thursday and Friday as the worst of the weather started to slam NYC, Adams informed reporters that he was in the US Virgin Islands.
After The Post questioned City Hall last week about what would compel him to return home if a fatal house fire in Staten Island and significant flooding in Jamaica Bay and the Rockaways – both of which occurred while he was on his Caribbean vacation – could not do so, Hizzoner reportedly became defensive about the trip.
“I was amazed to see how you responded. This is my second Christmas without my mother and last year, I was really in a state of depression and what I put my staff through – and I said, ‘I can’t do that again’, Adams reprimanded the media.
Adams said that his brief absence was due to his own mental health and that it came after 365 days of working without a day off. He left the city before Christmas.
Adams abruptly vanished on Thursday, raising concerns about how much information the mayor’s office should share with New Yorkers about his trips.
“Every mayor traveled away. I deserve private time. I’m a believer of that. I deserve to walk out of a building without a reporter hiding behind a flower pot, without someone following me. I deserve a moment to really deescalate. There will be many days that my body and my mind tell me, ‘Eric, you need to get away,’ Adams stated on Tuesday.
Adams said that he was not compelled to provide instruction while he was absent or otherwise incapacitated. But Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney did so when he needed heart surgery earlier this year.
A late Saturday night sighting of Adams attending Christmas Eve midnight mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan marked his official return to the public eye.
