Characters Of The Village

Brad Hoylman-Sigal: New Borough President

By Brian and Joy Pape

Newly elected Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, formerly our state senator in Albany, now takes on the representation of the entire borough.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in rural West Virginia, Hoylman-Sigal graduated from Oxford University in London (as a Rhodes scholar) and from Harvard Law School. Before being elected to the State Senate in 2012, he practiced law in the private and nonprofit sectors, having previously served as a Democratic District Leader and three-term chair of Manhattan Community Board 2.

Hoylman-Sigal and his husband, David, are the parents of two daughters, Silvia, 15, and Lucy, 8. They are members of Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the LGBTQ synagogue once located in the Westbeth complex on Bethune Street.

Here’s our interview with Hoylman-Sigal.

---

Tell us about your relationship to the Village.

I always wanted to live in New York — specifically, the Village — since I was a kid. I moved here after grad school. I guess mine was a classic NYC story: the only thing I had when I arrived was a couple of hundred bucks in my pocket and a dream. For the first year, I worked as a temp and couch-surfed with friends across Manhattan. Soon after, I met my husband, David, and we’ve lived in the same apartment ever since.

After law school, I worked for a big law firm and began my community involvement with my local block association on West 10th Street at the invitation of Vicki Polan. I have Vicki to thank for why I’m a borough president today! I eventually got involved with the Village Independent Democrats and Community Board 2 and was elected chair. One of the earliest challenges I faced was the controversial redesign of Washington Square Park. I think we reached a good compromise thanks to elected officials, including then-Speaker Christine Quinn, Senator Tom Duane, Assembly Member Deborah Glick, board members, and advocates.

In between, I ran an insurgent campaign for City Council on that fateful day of September 11, 2001. My campaign manager was a then-unknown 19-year-old named Micah Lasher, who is now an Assembly Member running to succeed Jerry Nadler in Congress. We placed a respectable second. After my loss, I had the good fortune of working for Kathy Wylde, who recently retired as CEO of the Partnership for New York City, the city’s leading business and civic organization. Had I not worked for Kathy, I may never have fully understood the importance of the business community to the wider political dynamics of our city.

My next opportunity for elected office came when Senator Duane announced his retirement in 2012. The Republicans had controlled the Senate for the better part of a century, so I won that race, probably in part, because there was so little interest in the seat. In 2019, Democrats finally took control by vanquishing a group of breakaway Democrats who had sided with the Republicans at the encouragement of Governor Cuomo. My legislative career really took off when I chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. I passed 426 bills through the Senate on a wide range of issues including LGBTQ rights, abortion access, gun safety, sexual abuse, rent law reform, consumer protection, and environmental protections.

Our daughters were both born through gestational surrogacy, so I passed a bill to legalize surrogacy in New York and protect surrogates and donors. One of my daughters has dyslexia, but David and I didn’t find out until she was in fourth grade. I then passed legislation to create a statewide task force on dyslexia and a bill requiring private health insurance to cover dyslexia testing, which can cost parents $5,000 to $15,000. My family has been a virtual think tank for policy ideas!

What are your favorite places or memories of the Village?

It’s hard to name a favorite restaurant in the restaurant capital of the world ─ but I’d have to single out community-gathering places like Gene’s, Coppelia, Bonbonniere, Jane Street Tavern, and Knickerbocker. I was at Knickerbocker throughout the day and evening on 9/11 ─ and I’ll always remember sharing hugs and tears with so many neighbors.

And I still miss Joe Jr.! We need more diners in Manhattan.

When I arrived in NYC, the first places I visited were the Stonewall Inn and the LGBT Community Center, probably like a lot of young gay transplants before and after me. Another early memory was a rally in Washington Square Park to save the Edgar Allan Poe House. I still find it shocking that this historic building was demolished. And the hours after Superstorm Sandy were memorable too, but not in a pleasant way. We walked down 15 flights in pitch darkness with my 2-year-old in our arms. This begs the question of whether Manhattan is any better prepared for another extreme weather event.

What keeps you up at night?

Donald Trump and the complicity of Republicans in Washington should keep every decent person up at night. I just returned from a rally in Union Square with many Villagers protesting yet another shocking murder of an American citizen by ICE agents in Minneapolis. I hope every New Yorker takes the grave threat to our democracy with the utmost seriousness. We should all take to the streets to demand the dismantling of ICE and show our support for our immigrant neighbors, whose due process rights are being trampled on daily by this federal administration.

Tell us about when you helped Doris Diether adopt her cat.

That’s a fun and poignant memory which meant a great deal to me. We helped the “Queen of Washington Square Park” with a paperwork complication so she could adopt her cat ─ which would stay with her until she passed. And the two of you had so much to do with it. Rest in peace, Doris.