Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine at Columbia Journalism School (Photo: Edward Lopez)
In February, Mark Levine sat down with City Newsroom for a wide-ranging interview.
By Francesca Maria Lorenzini; Ashley Elizabeth Miller; Xinyuan Cao; Urvi Shrivastav
In the last two years as a council member, Mark Levine garnered national attention as a leader in the fight against Covid-19, giving New Yorkers regular updates during the worst days of the pandemic and spreading the message on television and social media. Now, as Manhattan borough president, he is laser-focused on what he says is the number one crisis the city faces: housing –and he’s recently joined Tik Tok.
“I’m willing to take the political hits to push through good policy and so far we’re making progress,” Levine said in a February 14 interview with City Newsroom at Columbia Journalism School. Borough presidents have some influence over the land use process, and Levine wants to exercise that power effectively. “We probably need half a million apartments in New York City.”
Last year, his office identified 171 vacant lots just in Manhattan where new apartments could be built. And he said a new updated list will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
The city’s available housing supply fell below 1.4 percent in 2023, the lowest vacancy rate in 50 years, according to city data released in February.
Levine cited rising rents as compounding the housing shortage crisis. The average rent for a market-rate apartment in Manhattan is around $5,000. “This is not just a disaster for low-income families,” he said. “At those rents, you are pushing out nurses, bus drivers, and teachers.”
Levine also spoke about the poor state of public housing, in dire need of billions of dollars in funding. He is calling for a new paradigm for the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), an entity mostly funded by the federal government and managed by the city. More than half a million New Yorkers live in a NYCHA building, many of them in poor condition. “The federal government is not coming to our rescue,” he said, “It is a moral abomination that they have abandoned public housing.”
In Washington, Levine sees fellow Democrat Tom Suozzi’s return to the House of Representatives as a sign that “this MAGA movement is not invincible.” In February, Suozzi won a Queens-Long Island special election held after Republican George Santos was expelled from Congress, narrowing the already slim GOP majority in the House. “This is big,” Levine said. “This was the district that was the epicenter of the red wave that crashed over New York.”
In recent months, Levine’s name has been mentioned as one of many possible primary challengers to Mayor Eric Adams in 2025. Some progressive Democrats have been very vocal in their criticism of the mayor. But Levine closed the door to that possibility. “I’m running for reelection,” Levine said, stressing his intention to serve one more term in his current position, “but this will hopefully not be my last job.” The last Manhattan borough president who ascended to the office of mayor was David Dinkins in 1990.
