She was the most powerful woman in City Hall, brought down by a pending corruption investigation. But what role did a single bike lane play in Ingrid Lewis-Martin’s undoing?
That’s a question worth asking after Mayor Adams’s most-loyal ally — also the single biggest impediment to street safety inside City Hall — resigned abruptly on Sunday as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg reportedly plans to charge her this week as part of a corruption probe.
The details are still unclear as investigators apparently look into much broader allegations of bribery and money laundering, along with other possible crimes, the Times reported.
But here’s the key detail: Just days after Lewis-Martin’s phone was seized in late September, investigators also reportedly took the phone of Gina Argento, the powerful chief executive officer of Broadway Stages, which, like Lewis-Martin, had been at the epicenter of the fight against the redesign of McGuinness Boulevard — one of the most prominent battles for street safety in the Adams administration.
Under pressure from Broadway Stages, Mayor Adams abandoned his own Department of Transportation’s plan to calm the notoriously dangerous Brooklyn roadway. Then days after both women’s phones were seized in the corruption probe, City Hall suddenly pushed ahead with the safety plan, and Broadway Stages even put out a conciliatory press release.
So there’s no fire, only smoke? Perhaps, but when the Times called Gina Argento’s lawyer — who is also her husband — he put the Greenpoint street’s saga smack dab in center stage, telling the paper that prosecutors were looking into Argento because of, whaddya know?, her opposition to the safety redesign.
And Lewis-Martin’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said at a hastily called press conference on Monday that he expected that the coming charges were related to “improper gifts.”
A lawyer for Argento did not respond for comment. Neither did Bragg’s office. Tony Argento, Gina’s brother and the Broadway Stages co-founder, hung up on Streetsblog on Monday.
So what’s going on with Lewis-Martin and Broadway Stages? And where does the on-again, off-again, on-again McGuinness Boulevard safety project fit into the nexus of alleged corruption inside the Adams City Hall? Here’s a timeline of what we know:
The McGuinness Boulevard Saga
May 2021: Beloved local teacher Matthew Jensen is killed by a hit-and-run driver on McGuinness, where 11 pedestrians and three cyclists had been killed since 1995. The death count prompts residents to demand changes, and Mayor de Blasio pledges $40 million to make McGuinness safe.
May 4, 2023: DOT unveils its plans to remove a lane in each direction on the dangerous roadway between the Pulaski Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, a safety design known as road diet, while installing a parking-protected curbside bike lane and shortening pedestrian crossings.
May 10, 2023: A group opposed to the redesign dubbed Keep McGuinness Moving hosts a town hall at a Broadway Stages soundstage on Monitor Street. Most of the companies listing themselves as opposing the plan can be traced back to the Argentos, The City reports. Representing the city at that meeting is Richard Bearak, a City Hall functionary whom Lewis-Martin positioned to intervene in street safety projects, as Streetsblog reported.
June 15, 2023: Broadway Stages flexes its pull by holding another town hall, but this time speakers include DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and Brooklyn Democratic Party boss and Assembly Member Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn of distant Flatbush. The organizers also lock out supporters of the project, who have rallied under the Make McGuinness Safe banner. Argento and her brother Tony are major donors to Adams and the Brooklyn Democratic Party.
July 5, 2023: Lewis-Martin railed against the plan and claimed that only outsiders want it, though all of the neighborhood’s elected officials support the road diet and bike lane. Nonetheless, Mayor Adams orders DOT back to the drawing board.
Aug. 1, 2023: The new plan is watered down: North of Calyer Street — which is the section of McGuinness that’s closer to Broadway Stages’s properties — will keep two lanes of traffic each way during the daytime.
Aug. 14, 2023: Streetsblog reports that Lewis-Martin intervened in another project in Brooklyn, this time one block of a protected bike lane on Ashland Place, on behalf of real estate company Two Trees which has a building with a garage facing that street.
August, 2023: Hell Gate obtains a DOT slideshow that shows that Broadway Stages’s concerns about truck traffic from a road diet are unwarranted. But the department mysteriously removes the slide from the public copy of the presentation.
Sept. 8, 2023: Adams stalls the redesign of the southern portion of McGuinness again for more “analysis,” throwing into question if the road diet will happen at all.
Sept. 22, 2023: Yet another safety project faces uncertain times, as Adams stalls the Underhill Avenue bike boulevard in Prospect Heights on the advice of Lewis-Martin.
Fall 2023: DOT installs the watered-down redesign of McGuinness north of Calyer Street, does “nothing,” for pedestrian safety, according to the local electeds who favored a full safety plan. Drivers largely ignore the regulations of the outer lane being for driving during the daytime, and often park illegally in it.
Aug. 20, 2024: Mayor Adams waters down the redesign of the southern portion of McGuinness, deciding the entire corridor will maintain its two lanes.
Sept. 27, 2024: Investigators for DA Bragg seize Lewis-Martin’s phone upon arrival at Kennedy Airport after a trip to Japan. They also raid her home. “Days later,” the prosecutor’s team also take the phone of Gina Argento and three other people, according to the Times.
Oct. 2, 2024: The city suddenly reverses course on McGuinness, this time with an announcement that the DOT would move forward with the original road diet south of Calyer Street. Despite the timing, city officials claim the plans had been in works for months. That plan is being implement and is almost entirely done.
Dec. 15, 2024: Lewis-Martin resigns from office. Later that day, the Times reports about the impending indictment by DA Bragg’s office expected this week.
At that press conference with her lawyer Aidala on Monday morning, Lewis-Martin denied doing anything illegal “in my capacity in government.
Later that day Mayor Adams, who faces his own bribery charges in federal court, claimed to not know about any connection between the McGuinness flip-flop and investigators circling in on the two prominent opponents.
“I have no knowledge of that,” Hizzoner said in response to a question from Streetsblog at City Hall. “I know that [Lewis-Martin] did an amazing job of bringing people to the table of settling that entire initiative.”
