In a year of seemingly unprecedented primaries, there is nothing too strange about a Democratic state assemblywoman from Manhattan facing a well-financed challenger.
But Yuh-Line Niou is not your typical entrenched incumbent. She is not a decades-long lawmaker derided as too moderate for a rapidly evolving district. Elected only four years ago, she has been regarded as a member of Albany’s progressive vanguard. She even unseated an incumbent of her own to get there.
Niou, however, is fighting for her political life in Lower Manhattan, where she faces a primary challenge from Grace Lee, a local businesswoman and activist who out fundraised her in the most recent filing period. Lee is not necessarily running against Niou from the left or right—rather, unlike most other insurgents across the city, she is homing in on a particular hyperlocal issue: mercury in the soil at the South Street Seaport.
“A lot of people are disappointed in Yuh-Line,” Lee told Gothamist. “If she wasn’t going up to Albany to fight for our community and fight for safety of the children in this district, I decided I was going to do it myself.”
Lee, a resident of the Financial District, sends her daughter to the Blue School, a private school near a parking lot at 250 Water Street. The lot was acquired by the Howard Hughes Corporation with development in mind.
Underneath the parking lot sits the toxic remnants of a 19th century thermometer factory. Parents at nearby schools fear that when Howard Hughes plans to clean up and develop the area, children could be exposed to toxic mercury vapor, which can cause tremors, neuromuscular damage, and poor performance on tests of mental function. Lee, along with other parents, began organizing against the project.
“My mom friends, and I went down to the city archives and saw the lot once had the largest thermometer site in country. The soil is contaminated with mercury,” Lee said. “It was extremely concerning to us.” (A Howard Hughes spokesperson said that the developer supports an independent review of the site's soil.)
Lee claims Niou has been missing in action during the fight, a charge Niou strenuously refutes. On other fronts, Lee’s rhetoric is similar: whether it's homelessness, the deterioration of public housing, or lack of preparation for the next superstorm in the waterfront district, Lee faults Niou’s alleged lack of visibility in neighborhoods that still require aggressive community outreach.
The Lower Manhattan district is diverse. While it includes the high-powered Financial District and Battery Park City, home to many six-figure and millionaire households, it also ropes in immigrant-heavy Chinatown and the gentrifying Lower East Side, where public housing developments still loom.
For nearly 40 years, the district was best known for being represented by Sheldon Silver, the all-powerful Assembly speaker. A corruption conviction forced Silver from office in 2015 and a hand-picked successor, Alice Cancel, was installed to replace him.
Cancel, however, couldn’t hold onto her seat, and Niou triumphed in a crowded 2016 primary, winning with the backing of the left-leaning Working Families Party and influential politicians like City Comptroller Scott Stringer.
Niou arrived in Albany as a fresh face, and on the big-ticket progressive items prized by activists, she did not disappoint. She has fought to add state funding to NYCHA and combat predatory lending practices.
She was a reliable ally in the pitched battle over strengthening tenant protections last year. She gained recognition for coming forward as a victim of child sex abuse, leading the charge in the Assembly to pass the Child Victims Act, which allowed survivors of abuse to file civil charges against their abusers decades after the acts took place.
“We really changed the landscape,” Niou said of Democrat-controlled Albany. “Now we have the ability to pass things like strengthening our rent regulations and the Child Victims Act and GENDA [Gender Expression Non-Discrimination] and made huge progress. Hopefully this is a change our community wants to continue to see.”
On major issues in Albany, the two Democrats are largely aligned. Lee, for example, is a strong supporter of the New York Health Act, which would bring a single-payer healthcare system to New York. Lee, like Niou, doesn’t want to see the new bail reform laws change, despite skepticism from conservatives and moderate Democrats.
One area of difference, where Lee may veer slightly to the right of Niou, is on tenant issues. Niou is a supporter of legislation, known as the “good cause” eviction bill, that would make it much harder to evict tenants in market-rate apartments. Lee wouldn’t confirm she’d vote for it, telling Gothamist she had been “learning more” about it and couldn’t yet formulate an “official stance.”
Even with her funds, Lee faces an uphill battle in the June primary. Though she outraised Niou in January, $155,933 to $118,925, Niou still has more than $150,000 in the bank, compared to Lee’s roughly $86,000. Local power brokers like Stringer and labor unions remain in her corner. On Wednesday, 32BJ SEIU, the formidable building workers’ union, announced their endorsement of Niou.
“I don’t think Grace has the experience just yet,” said Daisy Paez, a Democratic district leader in Lower Manhattan and a Niou supporter.
Paez is particularly irked that Lee has chosen to send her children to private school instead of local public schools. “How can you represent public schools or want to represent public schools if you don’t think the schools here are worthy for your own children to go to? That’s my opinion as a parent,” she said.
Class has been an undercurrent in the race, though both Niou and Lee are Financial District residents. Lee’s average donation is much higher than Niou’s—$380 compared to $179 per last month's filings—a point Niou stresses when talking about her smaller dollar fundraising. Lee noted Niou loaned her own campaign $50,000 in 2018.
Despite challenging the establishment, Lee isn’t entirely without local political support. She outhustled Niou to win the backing of a prominent local club, the Downtown Independent Democrats.
Richard Corman, DID’s president, said Lee’s politicking and visibility paid off with club members, who narrowly chose her over the incumbent.
“Grace put a lot of work in. This is really democracy,” Corman said. “She worked hard, she organized. She worked to get out the vote.”
