Democratic mayoral front-runner Eric Adams blasted New York City officials for opening fewer cooling centers in Queens during the recent heat wave — particularly in the borough’s southern neighborhoods largely populated by black residents.
“Queens neighborhoods that are home to a disproportionate number of high-risk NYCers have few cooling centers — in a heat wave,” Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said in a tweet Tuesday while linking to a Patch.com story.
“That’s completely unacceptable. We need to open more cooling centers in communities with vulnerable populations, immediately.”
The southeastern Queens neighborhoods of Hollis, St. Albans, Springfield Gardens, Laurelton, Cambria Heights, or Queens Village all lacked cooling centers, Patch.com reported. These communities among the areas where residents have the highest or second-highest risk of heat injury or death.
Adams held a lead Tuesday during the initial vote in the Democratic primary for mayor — in large part due to his strong showing in Queens, where he ran up the score in the borough’s southern communities that lacked the cooling centers.
But the unofficial lead shrunk to two points over Kathryn Garcia on Tuesday, according to the preliminary unofficial tally under ranked choice voting. About 125,000 absentee ballots still needed to be counted to determine a winner.
An OEM spokesperson did not dispute the shortage in Queens but blamed it on COVID-19 issues.
“While we continue to bring more traditional cooling centers back online after many were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City has expanded cooling options like spray showers and drinking fountains across all neighborhoods to help everyone beat the heat,” the spokesperson said, who added that people looking for cooling centers can call 311..
Many Queens libraries were used as a cooling centers pre-pademic.
Queens is the second-most populated borough, but has the second second-fewest number of cooling centers among the five boroughs.
The city opened 35 cooling sites to serve Queens’ 2.2 million residents. But, Manhattan, home to roughly 600,000 fewer people, has 16 more cooling sites, Patch.com pointed out.
Twice as many black New Yorkers die of heat-related illnesses compared to the city’s white residents, according to the most recent Health Department data.