Mayor Adams promotes Fabien Levy as new deputy mayor for communications

Mayor Adams named his press secretary, Fabien Levy, as deputy mayor for communications on Monday, the first time someone has been appointed to such a role in city government since Mayor Bloomberg’s administration.

Levy, who served in the press office of New York Attorney General Letitia James before joining the Adams administration, said he’d be focusing more energy toward the city’s agencies “to get out their message as much as possible.” His tenure starts today.

“We have to expand direct to the consumer,” Levy said in an allusion to the mayor’s efforts at bypassing the traditional press to connect with constituents directly. “Let’s meet New Yorkers wherever they are.”

Levy, who is currently being paid about $211,000 a year, will get a raise in line with what Adams’ other deputy mayors make, just under $252,000 annually.

The last time a city official filled a similar role was when Howard Wolfson served as Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

Adams made the announcement Monday morning in the City Hall rotunda where current and former co-workers gathered to cheer the announcement. The mayor praised Levy for his work ethic and attention to detail, saying that they’ve been in the “foxhole” together since the administration’s inception in January 2022.

“What we discovered, probably after the first year, the disjointedness of the message coming from the large number of agencies. There was no real, clear, concise message,” Adams said. “We realized we needed a deputy mayor to hold this position, to communicate and bring the entire family under one umbrella — and, really, there was no second guess or looking in any other direction.”

As press secretary, Levy managed the mayor’s press office and interacted frequently with the City Hall press corps. Prior to joining Adams, he worked for DA James, who offered her praise Monday. Levy worked for Gov. Hochul, during her previous congressional run, and was a press secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Obama.

It was not entirely clear Monday who would replace Levy in the now-vacant press secretary post.

He suggested he’d continue to handle incoming calls from reporters in his new role, but dodged a question from the Daily News on whether he’d spend more time answering reporters’ questions that are not connected to the main thrust of any given press event — so-called off-topic questions.

“I’ll commit to letting the press secretary make that decision,” he said.