Corey Johnson Missing From His Hell's Kitchen District, Some Say

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — For years, Phil O'Brien had only good things to say about Corey Johnson, the City Council Speaker who has represented Hell's Kitchen and much of Manhattan's West Side since 2014.

"He had an amazingly good reputation before the pandemic," said O'Brien, the publisher of the popular Hell's Kitchen magazine W42ST. "I personally have always seen him as somebody who is suitable for really high office."

In recent months, however, things have shifted. Johnson, O'Brien said, has scarcely set foot in Hell's Kitchen, even as the neighborhood has been beset by a number of crises: a slew of attacks on Asian people, controversies over the city's placement of temporary hotel shelters, and a spate of business closures during the pandemic.

In an article published Wednesday morning, headlined "Where's Corey," O'Brien took the speaker to task over his alleged absenteeism, calling on him to commit to visiting Hell's Kitchen at least three times per week. If not, O'Brien said, he will create a petition demanding Johnson's "removal as the representative of this area."

In a statement, Johnson's office strongly defended his record in the neighborhood and said he had been avoiding travel during the pandemic for personal health reasons.

"As his constituents know, Corey is HIV positive and has been taking precautions to protect his health during this pandemic," said Jennifer Fermino, a City Council spokesperson. "With the city reopening and more people being vaccinated, he looks forward to attending more in person events."

"I did not see your voice"

Johnson has not visited Hell's Kitchen since August, O'Brien claims, based on conversations with community leaders. (Johnson lives in the lower part of his district, which also includes the West Village and Chelsea).

Long seen as a future candidate for mayor, Johnson received a wave of goodwill when he dropped out of the race last fall, citing his struggles with depression. In recent months, however, he has jumped back into the public realm, announcing a bid for comptroller and revealing to a Hell's Kitchen community board in January that he had begun taking night classes at Columbia University.

That meeting revealed some of the neighborhood tensions that persist into this week. Johnson was confronted by Delores Rubin, a board member who said his leadership had been missing during the battle over Hell's Kitchen's shelters.

"We would’ve expected that our council member would be our voice and I did not see your voice," Rubin said.

Johnson said he took offense at Rubin's tone, adding, "For whatever reason, you've always been slightly confrontational with me for years."

After board chair Lowell Kern broke up the squabble, Johnson touted his record on homelessness, citing a 90-point agenda he released just before the pandemic.

"Not a priority"

Reached for comment, Johnson's spokesperson shared a breakdown of the speaker's work in Hell's Kitchen during the pandemic — a list that includes enhanced sanitation services, working with schools to improve remote learning and delivering meals to at-risk residents.

Across the district, his office has delivered thousands of meals to seniors, and as speaker, he helped create the Open Streets program and secured small-business protections, among other reforms, Fermino, the spokesperson, said.

O'Brien said the motivation for Wednesday's article came from the constant stream of questions he gets from Asian residents of Hell's Kitchen who are worried for their safety. (Johnson has tweeted condemnations after several of the recent attacks.)

In addition to visiting Hell's Kitchen, O'Brien also called on Johnson to suspend his studies at Columbia and drop out of the comptroller's race, saying they were distracting from the job he was elected to do.

"Going for another position in this city that is a super serious position when you’re not doing the fundamental job of representing your district is in no way acceptable," he told Patch.

Johnson's team did not say whether he would take O’Brien up on any of the demands, but they shared statements from two Hell's Kitchen residents who praised his office's community work.

"When our neighborhood was dealing [with] chronic issues from a homeless shelter on our block, Corey and his team were incredibly responsive," said one resident, David Stuart. "They worked with the shelter operator to increase security, sanitation and communication with the block and we saw significant improvement."

Still, reached by Patch on Wednesday, Rubin said she had had "no engagement" with Johnson since January's testy exchange, and had not seen him at block association or NYPD community meetings.

"The perception is certainly that Hell’s Kitchen is not a priority for Corey Johnson," she said.