NYC woman, 84, whom Eric Adams compared to slave owner is tenant advocate who fled Nazis
The woman whom Mayor Eric Adams compared to a plantation owner during a fiery town hall exchange on Wednesday is a decades-long tenants advocate who’s lived in New York City since she and her parents left Europe fleeing from the Nazis.
During a town hall at the Gregorio Luperon High School for Science and Mathematics in Washington Heights, Jeanie Dubnau interrupted Adams and accused him of being responsible for the Rent Guidelines Board voting to allow landlords to hike rent on rent-stabilized apartments upꦬ to 6 percent.
Adams asked Dubnau to stand up so he could hear her b▨etter, then insisted he “does not control the [R♈ent] Guidelines Board.”
On her feet🐼, Dubnau shouted that the mayor🍸 had previously voiced his support for the rent increases while vigorously pointing her finger at him.
A clearly perturbed Adams responded, “First, if you’re going to ask a question🅷, don’t point a🎉t me, and don’t be disrespectful to me.”
“I’m the mayor𝔉 of this city and treat me with the respect that I deserve to be treated. I’m speaking to you as an adult.
“Don’t stand in front like you treated someone that’s on the plantation that ไyou🐎 own.”
During the public meetin🎃g, Adams acknowledged owning a🐽 three-family home in Brooklyn but said he’s never jacked up the rent on his tenants.
He also denied having any say over the Rent Guide🃏lines B🍨oard.
“I think it was a 3% recommendatiꦇon,” he said. “I don’t control the board. I make appointments. They made the decision.”
“I think it was a 3% recommendation,” he said. “I don’t c🅺ontrol the board. I make appointments. They made the d🐼ecision.”
Dubnau, a🅷n assistant professor of biology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told The Post Thursday that Adams’ respons🥀e to her was merely “to avoid accountability for his policies.
“He💛 didn’t have an answer,” she said. “That was just a deflection, that’s all, because he ꦜdoesn’t have any answers.”
“He’s a landlord himself. He said, ‘Oh, I don’t raise the r꧂ent on my own tenants.’ Who cares about his own personal tenants? He’s raising the rents on thousands aღnd thousands of people in New York City.”
Dubnau said Wednesday’s meeting proved that Adams is ꩵ“an enemy of all the rent-stabilized tenants in N♑ew York City.”
“You know, Mayor Adams is a landlord stooge and the enemy of t𝔉enants in New York City,” she said. “He 🥂gets millions of dollars from real estate.
“That’s the main issue here.”
She also isn’♋t holding her breath for an apology from the former NYPD captain.
“Oh, he’s not going to apologize,” she said. “I mean, you know the mayor. He thinks he’s the😼 greatest and doesn’t want to be criticized.”
Adams spokesperson Fabien Levy defended Hizzoꦐner’s outburst — saying that “this administration has invested more money for housing than any in New York City history.”
“The mayor’s comments are the ma��yor’s🍎 comments. We stand by the mayor’s comments,” Levy said.
Dubnau was born in Belgium shortly after her parents fled the terrors꧑ of the﷽ Nazi regime in Germany.
After hiding out in Belgium and France throughout World War II, she and her parents emigrated to New York City when she was 8 years old and she has res꧟ided in the Big Apple🐻 ever since.
A volunteer tenant organizer since 1960 and the current chairwoman of Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association, Dubnau has publ🃏icly taken other mayors to task b♕efore.
She challenged Mayor Bill de Blasio at a 2015 town hall over an affordable housing initiative that was moving market-rate deꦛvelopments into the neighborhood, which she said was gentrifying the area and forcing business along Broadway to close in droves.
“I understand that you want to do the best thing. You want to🎐 build affordable housing, but a lot of us are very worried about your plans,” she said at the time.
Dubnau vowed to never stop calling out the mayor, say𒈔ing she’ll do it “as much as I can.”
“The reason I went was because I thought we’d have the opportunity to speak, which we did not, because the meeting was completely controlled by h✤is people,” she said.
“We ha✱ve to get rid of him and the tenant movement has to be strong. I know the whole tenant movement is against him.”
Councilwoman Sandy N🦩urse, a Democrat representing Brooklyn, said the mayor’s comments to Dubnau were “so disrespectful,” and agreed with her that Adams was accountable for the rent board’s decisions.
“The mayor appoints the Rent Guidelin💜es Board, so this board is a refl🎐ection of his values and his priorities,” Nurse told The Post.
“We all get hard questions thrown at us and there are times we feel flustered and frustrateജd because there’s opposition to our points of view … but that’s part of governing.”
“There’s every justification for any New Yorker to enter a town hall and ask a question. Given her backstory and how much she’s been fighting for tenants and New Yorkers — it [Adams’ reaction] was just so disrespectful.”
“That reaction was an overreac♛tion, and it was very condescending,” Nurse said. “I just don’t think it was justified by any measure.”
“I think he should apologize to her.”
Adams’ raciaไlly charged outburst is just the latest from th🐽e increasingly thin-skinned mayor.
Just a week prior, Adams claimed during a press conference that there was a coordinated, racially motivated effort to keep𓆉 him from winning re-election.
“There’s a body of people who were pleased with 30 years without having a mayor that looked like me,” he said, then compared himself to a slave character from the novel and show “Roots” who refused to renounce his true name as plantation owners tried to beat it out of him.
Days before that, he compare๊d press coverage of his mayorship to racial beatings, and last year lamented that a lack of black representation in the media led to bias against him.
💮Pressed by The🀅 Post on the topic last year, Adams grew defensive.
“I want you to grow,” he said. “I want🐓 you to be kinder, I want you to be emotionally intelligent, not to feel that everyone is trying to attack you.”
Additional reporting by Olivia Land
