A couple of Atlantic Yards-adjacent bits in the Eric Adams controversies: Winnie Greco and Greenland; AI company and Barclays

Winnie Greco, Mayoral Aide Under Investigation, Steered Adams’ Relations With China for Almost a Decade, The City and Documented reported yesterday, detailing yet installment of important but belated reporting on a character who was clearly ethically dubious a decade ago.

(Why didn't anyone investigate further? Not enough journalists, and publications, to do so, I guess.)

Greco, for example, tilted Adams toward the Chinese government and away from anything to do with Taiwan, which China does not consider independent. From the article:

Despite serving as an unpaid volunteer, Greco early on was treated as something more than this. Just months into her tenure, she was shown designs for a business card by Borough Hall staffers that identified her as the “American/Chinese Ambassador” for Adams. The card contained an image of the Brooklyn seal, according to a mockup contained in the emails.

She would later get a government email address to go with it: ChinaAmbassador@brooklynbp.nyc.gov.

The machine translation for her email signature, I reported, was "Director, China-U.S. Affairs Department" of the "Brooklyn Borough Government, New York, USA."

It's worth noting that Chinese political culture--as we learned with three rounds of EB-5 fundraising for Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park--values official governmental endorsement, so no wonder Greco sought "proclamations, letters and invitations for people in the Chinese government or the Chinese American community."

Curiously enough--and worthy of a red flag long ago--she had no publicly reported income.

Greenland, too

At a Lunar New Year celebration at the New Spring Garden Restaurant in Sunset Park, hosted by Adams in March 2015, Greco used the event to fundraise for a friendship arch in that neighborhood, according to the article.

Among the half-dozen recipients of citations was not just Greco's Archway association but also Greenland USA, the newly incoming lead partner in the Greenland Forest City Partners joint venture for Atlantic Yards, recently renamed Pacific Park.

From the article:

Adams also awarded citations to Greenland USA, the Chinese construction firm that had newly taken over the Atlantic Yards development in Prospect Heights. He had sought to meet the company’s representatives in China on a trip with Greco the previous year.

I previously reported on that trip.

A Barclays connection

Politico reported Sept. 29, Adams aide — and a close personal friend — pushed city officials to hire tech firm, with the subheading "Timothy Pearson insisted that fire officials meet with an AI company at the same time he had a personal relationship with a consultant for the firm."

Could that be part of why Pearson resigned the next day? Or was the reported claim that he thought he deserved his "crumbs" from migrant contracts.

From the article:

[Remark’s CEO, Kai-Shing Tao] has had some success: Remark’s AI has counted crowds for the Barclays Center and inked a weapons detection contract for Las Vegas public schools. In 2020, it sold a thermal imaging kit to the Las Vegas Police Department, according to an invoice obtained by POLITICO from Wolfpack Research.

More on the Barclays engagement here.

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