Mamdani’s Decision to Retain Jessica Tisch Reassures Commercial Real Estate

In a move that will likely help assuage the fears of many in commercial real estate’s C-suites, New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch will remain in that role after Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani takes office on Jan. 1, according to announcements this morning from both camps.

In an email to the police department’s rank and file, Tisch said that she decided to stay on after several conversations with the mayor-elect.

“Leading this department is the greatest privilege of my life, and I am proud to continue doing it,” said Tisch, according to The New York Times. 

Mamdani’s announcement was complimentary, and made reference to challenges the city has faced and will continue to face beyond just conventional street and subway crime.

“I have admired her work cracking down on corruption in the upper echelons of the police department, driving down crime in New York City, and standing up for New Yorkers in the face of authoritarianism,” Mamdani said.

In a key example of Tisch’s effectiveness, the commissioner announced early this month that “in the first 10 months of 2025, New York City saw the fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims in recorded history,” and also saw “record-low shooting incidents and shooting victims for the month of October.” 

The announcement touted similar advances in subway crime.

“On our subways, the NYPD delivered the safest October for major transit crime in recorded history, tying the previous record set in 2020, when ridership was at historic lows because of the pandemic,” said the announcement. “July, August, September and October combined were the safest months on the subways in recorded history, excluding the pandemic years.”

Mamdani has expressed progressive ideas about crime, including for the formation of a Department of Community Safety that would send mental health professionals instead of police to handle certain domestic disputes. Some feared his mayoralty would reverse these recent reductions in crime, endangering the city’s fiscal progress along the way.

So far, the industry is responding as expected.

“This is good news for the people of New York City, and we applaud Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on his selection of Jessica Tisch to stay on as our city’s police commissioner,” James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said in a statement. “Commissioner Tisch has been a steady hand at the NYPD, and the real estate community is appreciative of her willingness to remain as police commissioner. As Mayor-elect Mamdani builds his team, we are hopeful that he will continue to prioritize governmental experience and civic responsibility in his selections.”

The appointment confirms what Lou Coletti, senior adviser at the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, recently told Commercial Observer about what he had heard at the Somos conference in Puerto Rico in early November, which Mamdani and other government officials also attended.

“I’ve heard him say that he isn’t necessarily going to dismiss people from the Adams administration just because they worked for the former mayor — that he’d make his decisions based on their ability and whether he thinks they would fit within his administration,” Coletti told CO.

Larry Getlen can be reached at lgetlen@commercialobserver.com.