NYC Gets Coronavirus ‘Recovery Czar’ For Post-Pandemic Efforts

NEW YORK CITY — A veteran of New York City’s government will lead and coordinate its efforts to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.

Lorraine Grillo is the city’s “recovery czar,” a senior adviser position newly created and announced Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Grillo, who currently heads the city’s School Construction Authority, made a three-word declaration that doubled as a summation of a long career in government and a promise for the future.

“I build things,” she said.

A “recovery for all of us” formed the backbone of de Blasio’s final State of the City address and has been a recurrent theme for initiatives he has announced since.

De Blasio hopes to piggyback efforts to tackle long-standing inequalities on top of the city’s work to fight back from the coronavirus pandemic.

Grillo will coordinate all those efforts through weekly “war room” meetings with deputy mayors, de Blasio said.

“I want to tell you I’m convinced that Lorraine Grillo will help us supercharge this recovery, put it in high gear and keep it going every single day,” he said.

Grillo ticked off accomplishments from her career — building schools for more than 80,000 students, leading nearly 4,000 capital improvement projects and managing budgets totaling $28 billion.

“I’m going to take the skills that I put in place to reopen our schools, build our universal pre-K and rebuild from (Hurricane) Sandy to help us rebuild from COVID,” she said.