Op-Ed | 2024: A record year of delivering for New Yorkers | amNewYork

When I was sworn in as the 110^th mayor of New York City, I promised to “Get Stuff Done.” That has been our focus ever since coming into office, and this past year was no different.

But, in 2024, we did more than just get stuff done — we delivered for you, every day and everywhere. We drove down crime, put billions of dollars back into working-class New Yorkers’ pockets, and shattered records for the most jobs, small businesses, and affordable housing construction in our city’s history.

Thanks to our tireless police officers, New York remains the safest big city in America. Overall crime is down, with shootings, homicides, and transit crime all down by more than 6 percent this year. We put more police officers on our streets and took thousands of illegal guns, mopeds, and ATVs off of them.

We seized more than 6,000 illegal guns in 2024, bringing the total number of guns removed from the streets to 19,600 since January 2022. We also cracked down on car theft and had 12 straight months in reductions.

Safer streets and subways are just the start. Our “Charge Safe, Ride Safe” plan has helped cut lithium-ion battery fire deaths by 72 percent since we introduced it in 2023, while our “Operation Padlock to Protect” initiative has shut down more than 1,300 illegal cannabis and smoke shops.

To keep our young people safe and healthy, we delivered free, virtual therapy to 16,000 teenagers — largely in underserved neighborhoods — through our “Teenspace” initiative and sued the companies that own major social media platforms to hold them accountable for fueling the youth mental health crisis.

This year, we also focused on not only creating a safer city, but a more affordable one, too.

Affordability means having the resources and benefits to take care of expenses. We launched our “Money in Your Pocket” initiative to connect New Yorkers to dozens of federal, state, and local programs to save them money. And to build off of our reductions in child care costs, for the first time in city history, we extended 3K offers to every family who applied on time and enrolled 150,000 children in our early childhood education system.

Additionally, we expanded the New York City Earned Income Tax Credit and gave $345 million back to New Yorkers. And — to deliver even more tax relief — we announced our plan to “Axe the Tax for the Working Class” by eliminating and cutting city income taxes for working-class families and giving $63 million back to nearly 600,000 New Yorkers. We look forward to working with our partners in Albany to get it done.

We shattered affordable housing records for the second fiscal year in a row, unlocked billions of dollars for public housing, and moved a record 18,500 households from shelter into stable homes.

After decades of inaction, we passed the most pro-housing zoning change in city history. Our historic “City of Yes” housing plan will build up to 80,000 new homes for New Yorkers and invest $5 billion in housing and infrastructure.

We broke the jobs record, again and again, and oversaw the creation of 183,000 small businesses across the five boroughs — the most in city history. In 2024, New York City welcomed 65 million visitors to our city — the second highest number of tourists in our city’s history — and won the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals that will bring $2 billion in economic impact and create over 14,000 jobs for the New York-New Jersey region.

We invested in public safety, public health, and public spaces.

We issued rules to move 70 percent of all New York City trash off the streets and into container bins, took down hundreds of long-standing scaffolding sheds since launching our “Get Sheds Down” initiative, and created thousands of acres of new public space to make our city more welcoming to everyone — for New Yorkers and visitors alike.

Above all, we are just getting started. Next year, we will unveil bold new initiatives to create an even safer, more affordable city for all. Until then, I wish you a happy holiday season in the greatest city in the world.