Joe Esposito, former longtime NYPD chief of department, has died

Joe Esposito, the NYPD’s longest serving Chief of Department who later defiantly refused to leave his post after he was fired as head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, has died, Mayor Adams announced Tuesday. He was 73.

Esposito died Monday after a long battle with cancer, friends and colleagues said.

After a distinguished career with the NYPD, Esposito was fired as OEM commissioner in 2018 following a will-he-stay-or-will-he-go drama involving former Mayor Bill de Blasio and his aides, who seemed incapable of directly firing him.

But he couldn’t give up city service and became the city Department of Building’s Deputy Commissioner for Enforcement in 2022.

Despite his clashes with the de Blasio Administration, Adams called Esposito “the definition of public service.”

“He served his city on our darkest days and brightest moments, climbing the ranks from NYPD Officer to Chief of Department to NYC Emergency Management Commissioner,” Adams said.

The Mayor ordered flags outside of city buildings to be flown at half mast Tuesday in honor of Esposito’s service.

“He worked hard for his city, right up to the end,” Adams said. “And he left it a better place.”

NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper called Esposito “a legend by his own right.”

“Whatever role in public service he held later in life, he’ll always be ‘Chief Espo’ to countless members of the NYPD, myself included,” Kemper tweeted. “Thank you for your lifetime of service to this city, its people, and the men & women of the NYPD.”

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Esposito joined the NYPD in 1968 and was named chief of department in 2000. He spent the next 13 years in that role, serving two police commissioners and leading the NYPD through 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy. He retired from the NYPD in 2013 after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 63 and was named OEM commissioner a year later.

“I wish I could stay until I was tired of it or until it wasn’t fun anymore or it wasn’t as fulfilling or as satisfying as it is,” he told the Daily News before his retirement from the NYPD. “I have the best job in the world. They pay me for playing cops and robbers.”

After accusing him of mishandling a surprise snowstorm on Nov. 15, 2018 that sparked a commuter nightmare, Deputy Mayor Laura Anglin demanded his resignation but Esposito flat out refused and continued to work through that weekend and into the next week.

The marching orders, apparently, had to come from de Blasio, who repeatedly waffled on the decision and wouldn’t commit to firing the longtime cop.

On Dec. 3 2018, two weeks after the snowstorm and three days after being fired by Anglin, de Blasio finally had a sit down with Esposito.

Later that day, de Blasio announced that the city was going to look for a new OEM commissioner. But Esposito still didn’t leave: he was allowed to stay as OEM head until a replacement could be found. He ultimately left in June 2019.

“Looking forward to taking a vacation and a break from Twitter!” he joked on social media at the time.

Esposito’s wife Christine died just before he took the job with the Department of Buildings, colleagues said.