Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill performed host on Sunday to one of many strangest sights up to now within the 2025 NYC Mayor’s Race: A bipartisan slate of mayoral candidates standing along with mourning households to oppose marketing campaign frontrunner and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over his dealing with of COVID-19 in nursing houses.
Six Democratic candidates for mayor — Metropolis Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander, Queens Meeting Member Zohran Mamdani, Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos and former Metropolis Comptroller Scott Stringer — joined Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in denouncing Cuomo for actions taken whereas he was governor 5 years in the past through the lethal peak of COVID-19 that they are saying allowed the lethal virus to rampage by nursing houses throughout the Empire State.
The principle difficulty is an order from Cuomo’s state Well being Division within the lethal spring of 2020 which permitted COVID-positive sufferers to be readmitted into nursing houses. Cuomo and his marketing campaign have maintained there isn’t a proof to counsel the transfer precipitated any extra deaths and that the order was exploited by Cuomo’s rivals for political functions.
Nonetheless, critics consider the maneuver contributed to the 15,000 nursing house deaths tied to the virus in New York within the first two years of the outbreak.
“Would any other issue bring us all together with the differences that we have? No,” Sliwa mentioned. “If you are going to forgive this man who has the blood on his hands of 15,000, if not more, every time you shake Andrew Cuomo’s hand and you forgive him and you endorse him for mayor, wipe the blood of the dead off his hand.”
“Would any other issue bring us all together with the differences that we have? No,” Sliwa mentioned. “If you are going to forgive this man who has the blood on his hands of 15,000, if not more, every time you shake Andrew Cuomo’s hand and you forgive him and you endorse him for mayor, wipe the blood of the dead off his hand.”Photograph by Dean Moses 
Households held images of their family members.Photograph by Dean Moses 
Households held images of their family members.Photograph by Dean Moses
Sliwa made these remarks surrounded not solely by his personal adversaries however by the relations of those that misplaced their family members through the disaster. Exterior of 128 Amity St., the Arbeeny household erected a monument to the seniors who perished throughout COVID-19 attributable to what many consider was the then governor’s nursing house order.
The memorial consisted of a hearse adorned with flowers, a cardboard wall crammed with the faces of those that have misplaced their lives, and even a casket representing the loss of life. This could possibly be discovered standing outdoors the house of 89-year-old Norman Arbeeny who perished simply two weeks after being launched from Cobble Hill Well being Heart from COVID-19, one thing the Cuomo admin fees that they had nothing to do with
5 years on, as Cuomo appears to be like to make a political comeback, the household say they haven’t forgotten what they misplaced through the pandemic — and that they consider the previous governor owes them an apology.
“I would like to say that Governor Cuomo team reached out to our lawyers over a month ago, trying to broker a meeting with our family and our advocacy at his law firm. We respectfully declined because we don’t think that we should be meeting in a law office. So, we invited him to our father’s house, as we did five years ago when he was a governor, as we did four years ago, three years ago, two years ago, and one year ago. He’s been invited to our father’s house for five years,” Peter Arbeeny, son of Norman Arbeeny mentioned. “You need to face us and apologize. If you’re going to lead, you have to lead for all of us.”
Mayoral candidates at Sunday’s rally (l. to r.): Former Metropolis Comptroller Scott Stringer, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, Queens Meeting Member Zohran Mandani and present Metropolis Comptroller Brad Lander.Photograph by Dean Moses 
The memorial consisted of a hearse adorned with flowers, a cardboard wall imbued with the faces of those that have misplaced their lives, and even a casket representing the loss of life.Photograph by Dean Moses 
Peter Arbeeny, son of Norman Arbeeny. Photograph by Dean Moses
Nonetheless battling with the burden of their monumental loss, household after household at Sunday’s gathering shared their horror tales as they gripped the images of their family members and even small urns containing their ashes. Some even wept as they recalled the final moments of their mother and father and grandparents, together with Metropolis Council Speaker Adams, who misplaced her father through the pandemic.
“This is not politics for me; this is personal for me,” Adams shared. “We decided to take Dad to North Shore Hospital, and that was the last time that I looked into his beautiful eyes because they would not allow my sister and I to go into the hospital. He was admitted at the door at the outside of the parking lot in a wheelchair on March 26, 2020 and I remember looking at him and taking his hand and saying, ‘Don’t worry about it, daddy, we’re going to be back and we’re going to see you soon.’ And he looked up at me as if to say, ‘Don’t leave me.’”
Lander additionally burdened the continued heartbreak for households as they maintain memorials for these misplaced through the pandemic however added that Cuomo has but to apologize to those households for his nursing house orders.
“This is not politics for me, this is personal for me,” Adams shared. Photograph by Dean Moses 
Holding up an urn containing the ashes of their beloved one.Photograph by Dean Moses 
Some held arms.Photograph by Dean Moses
“This is not about partisan politics, but it is about accountability. And it is not too much to ask Andrew Cuomo to meet with families,” Lander mentioned.
A spokesperson from Cuomo’s marketing campaign, nevertheless, acknowledged that the losses felt over the pandemic have been politically weaponized.
“More than 2 million Americans died as a result of the COVID pandemic, and our hearts break for the families of every person who lost a loved one –but unfortunately, as the DOJ IG confirmed, that pain has been weaponized and politicized for purely electoral purposes for years. Being Mayor of the greatest City in the world is a tremendous undertaking that requires experience, a proven record of accomplishment and management capacity – traits none of these extreme MAGA or fringe DSA mayoral candidates have,” Cuomo spokesperson Wealthy Azzopardi mentioned in a press release.
The assertion went on to underscore that there was no empirical proof to showcase that the nursing house admission precipitated further deaths.
“Cuomo killed my mother and father’ one signal learn.Photograph by Dean Moses 
Some positioned their arms on the coffin.Photograph by Dean Moses 
Some positioned their arms on the coffin.Photograph by Dean Moses 
Jessica Ramos appears to be like upon the memorial wall.Photograph by Dean Moses
