Andrew Cuomo Was Bad at Being Governor

Disgraced New York governor Andrew Cuomo has finally left office. We look back at his emperor-has-no-clothes record, in which flashy infrastructure projects took the place of real improvements to the lives of working-class New Yorkers.

Governor Cuomo Provides Covid-19 Update And Tours East Side Access

Andrew Cuomo speaks during a media tour at Grand Central Terminal May 27, 2021. Angus Mordant/Bloomberg via Getty Images


One of the great myths of Andrew Cuomo’s eleven years in office was that he was tough, nasty guy who got a lot done. “There hasn’t been a governor who has done as much to improve, modernize and strengthen the state in probably fifty to eighty years,” New York University urban policy and planning professor Mitchell Moss told NY1 recently.

Cuomo, the myth goes, may have been alienating — but it was all in the service of the greater good. Personality doesn’t matter if a bridge or a train tunnel is completed. And Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace after he was accused of sexually harassing almost a dozen women, certainly had his fair share of ribbon cuttings for transportation and infrastructure projects.

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