Come January 1, 2026, outgoing New York City mayor Eric Adams will presumably have a lot of free time on his hands. He’ll be free to take an extended trip to Turkey, open his own nightclub, or have more rendezvous with his shorty out in Far Rockaway. The world is Adams’ oyster, but if he needs any inspiration on what to do with his post-mayoral life, here’s a brief compilation of what his past 20+ predecessors have done after they left City Hall.
Robert Anderson Van Wyck
Like our most recent outgoing mayor, NYC’s first mayor post-consolidation left office shrouded in scandal, which ended his political career. At first, Van Wyck used his newfound free time to return to his law practice, but in 1906, he and his wife decided to trade New York for Paris, where he lived out the remainder of his life.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1918/11/16/archives/robert-a-van-wyck-dies-in-paris-home-first-mayor-of-greater-new.html
Seth Low
Low left the city’s top job at the end of 1903, but he wasn’t done being an executive. His post-mayoral career seemed to be devoted to collecting executive roles as though they were infinity stones, albeit the type of executive roles that would put him at the forefront of improving the lives of others. Among Low’s post-mayoral roles were president of the National Civic Federation, chairman of the Tuskegee Institute, founder and president of the Bureau of Charities of Brooklyn, vice-president of the New York Academy of Sciences, and president of the Bedford Farmers’ Cooperative Association.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1916/09/18/archives/seth-low-exmayor-of-new-york-dies-stricken-at-country-home-after.html
George B. McClellan, Jr.
Upon leaving the position of New York’s handsomest mayor in 1910, George “The ‘B’ stands for Beautiful” McClellan returned to his alma mater, Princeton University, to deliver lectures on public affairs, eventually joining the faculty as a professor of economic history in 1912. According to a profile in The New Yorker, McClellan was voted the most popular faculty member by the senior class in 1930, the year he retired from the university. Following that, he and his wife Georgiana Heckscher McClellan moved to Washington, D.C., where they resided in “one of the most beautiful residences in the Capital” and threw dinners that made McClellan regarded socially as “one of the bright lights in Washington.”
Further reading: https://archives-newyorker-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/de680d0e-8580-4877-984c-933230b7f6d1
William Jay Gaynor
Gaynor, who was in office from 1910 to 1913, never got to experience life post-mayoralty, nor was he ready to embrace life after City Hall. Gaynor was in the throes of running for reelection as an independent when he suffered a heart attack and died on a ship en route to Europe.
Ardolph Lodges Kline
After finishing out the late William Gaynor’s term as acting mayor, Kline spent four years as NYC’s Tax Commissioner for Brooklyn, from 1914 to 1918. In 1921, Kline achieved a feat that no other former NYC mayor has been able to achieve since: he ran for higher office and won, becoming New York’s Congressional Representative for the 5th District of Brooklyn. Following his short stint in Congress, Kline then managed the sea-service bureau of the United States Shipping Board.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1930/10/14/archives/exmayor-kline-dies-at-age-of-72-citys-chief-executive-a-few-months.html
John Purroy Mitchel
After losing his bid for reelection, the then 38-year-old Mitchel joined the Army Air Service as a flying cadet. But tragically, in 1918, Mitchel’s new air service career came to an end along with his life after Mitchel fell 500 feet out of a nosediving plane that he wasn’t strapped into.
Further reading: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/07/07/98268429.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
John Francis Hylan
After his term ended in 1925, Hylan became a Children’s Court justice in Queens.
Jimmy Walker
The first of only two mayors to ever resign in NYC history (as of December 2025), Jimmy Walker temporarily left New York, and his corruption scandal, behind while he and his then-girlfriend Betty Compton took an extended tour of Europe, starting in 1932. They married in Cannes, France in 1933. Once Walker was convinced that it was safe to show his face again in New York, the irrepressibly popular Walker fielded several job offers for the first two years back in the city, but accepted none of them. Instead, he and his wife tried their luck with a few business ventures, including running a flower shop and leasing a farm, where they attempted to breed Irish terriers and prize chickens. In 1939 Walker accepted a job as an arbiter of the women’s coat-and-suit-industry. He later left that role in 1945 to become the president of Majestic Records.
Further reading: https://archive.org/details/BeauJames/mode/2up
Joseph V. McKee
After his flash-in-the-pan four-month-term as mayor from September through December of 1932, McKee resumed his role as president of NYC’s Board of Aldermen, a predecessor to today’s City Council, until May 1933 and then (temporarily) ended his political career. McKee then became president of an insurance company, a role he ran back to after briefly re-entering politics to run for mayor in 1933 as the candidate of the Recovery Party. His presence in the race ended up splitting the Democratic vote and helped make way for Fiorella La Guardia’s victory. Later on, in 1949, Mayor William O’Dwyer appointed him to be the Commissioner of Commerce.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1956/01/29/archives/jv-mkee-is-dead-served-as-mayor-president-of-old-aldermanic-board.html
John P. O’Brien
After only serving as mayor for a year, O’Brien returned to his law practice.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1951/09/23/archives/exmayor-obrien-dies-at-home-at-78-former-corporation-counsel.htmlhttps://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2010/02/mayor-john-obrien-his-heart-is-as-black.html
Fiorello La Guardia
With just shy of two years out of office before dying of pancreatic cancer on September 20, 1947, La Guardia spent part of his time as the director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, which hustled to get food to starving European countries in the aftermath of World War II. The ever-outspoken La Guardia also hosted two series of radio broadcasts where he discussed the week’s local and national events. Unfortunately, the sponsor of his national commentary show was not a fan of La Guardia’s candid statements and it pulled the plug on the show after five months, stating that it “could no longer afford to have its name linked to Mr. La Guardia’s ‘reckless and irresponsible statements.’” When pressed about which of La Guardia’s statements went against their policies, the sponsor’s spokesperson said, “All of them.”
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1946/05/30/archives/la-guardia-loses-a-radio-sponsor-magazine-calls-his-talks-reckless.html
William O’Dwyer
To get ahead of the dire situation he would be in once the news of his involvement in a police corruption scandal got to the public, O’Dwyer resigned from office in 1950 and immediately accepted an ambassadorship to Mexico from President Harry Truman. O’Dwyer only held the role until 1952, but he remained in Mexico until 1960, working as a legal consultant in Mexico City. O’Dwyer was reportedly “one of the best-liked Ambassadors Washington ever has sent to Mexico,” who, along with his wife, the model Sloan Simpson, “charmed Mexicans with their forthright, easy-going manner and their obvious delight in many Mexican customs,” according to a New York Times article from 1952. O’Dwyer returned to New York solo in 1960 (he and the missus split in 1953) to operate the New York branch of his law firm, O’Dwyer, Bernstein & Correa.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1952/11/27/archives/odwyer-expected-to-stay-in-mexico-envoy-is-popular-and-a-career-as.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/23/nyregion/sloan-simpson-80-an-ex-model-who-married-a-new-york-mayor.html
Vincent Impellitteri
Upon O’Dwyer’s resignation, Impy, as the press called him because the name ‘Impellitteri’ took up too much space when writing headlines, first became acting mayor of NYC, then defied his own party to win a special election that allowed him to serve the remainder of O’Dwyer’s term from 1950 to 1953. However, in seeking re-election, he was bested by Robert Wagner, Jr, who appointed his former political opponent as a justice of the Court of Special Sessions. Impellitteri told The New Yorker in 1958 that although he enjoyed being mayor, he had no regrets about his much slower-paced post-mayoral life, where after dealing with forty cases a week concerning paternity suits, “statutory rape, simple assault, impairing the morals of minors, and unlawful entry,” he got to go home, via the subway, to his apartment on West 16th Street and watch the $64,000 Question with his wife every night.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/30/obituaries/vincent-impellitteri-is-dead-mayor-of-new-york-in-1950-s.html
https://archives-newyorker-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/9b65d731-93b4-4972-8843-8c4835050312
Robert Wagner, Jr
After his three terms as mayor –among the best terms New York has ever seen, some argue– Wagner went on to become the US ambassador to Spain for a few months from 1968 to 1969. He had another diplomatic stint from 1978 to 1981, when he served as Jimmy Carter’s personal envoy to the Holy See. In between his time abroad, twice Wagner tried to reprise his role as mayor of New York, but the city, or rather the city’s Democratic Party, had moved on. Wagner then spent his time practicing law and consulting other politicians.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/13/obituaries/robert-wagner-80-pivotal-new-york-mayor-dies.html
John V. Lindsay
Lindsay went into City Hall as an idealist celebrity-politician and left it rejected and dejected, but life still continued to dish out humble pie to him. Lindsay, who was often noted for having Hollywood good looks, initially pursued post-mayoral careers in entertainment and writing. He was a guest correspondent on the short-lived predecessor to Good Morning America, AM America, played a senator in the 1975 film Rosebud, in addition to writing a novel about a Congressman trying to save America from being taken over by a military junta. Said the New York Times on the ex-mayor’s foray into fiction: “The trouble with “The Edge” is that it is as dead‐serious as a $100‐a-plate dinner of gray meat and frozen candidates’ smiles. Dialogue is served up with all the style and flourish of a weather report read off a Teleprompter, and only the grimaces tell you that the speaker is being shown ‘live.’” Ouch. It appears that the universe waited till the end of Lindsay’s life to deliver its cruelest blows. In the 1990s, the two law firms he had worked for post-mayoralty went out of business, leaving him with shaky finances and no health insurance at a time when Lindsay’s health was deteriorating. Fortunately, then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani appointed Lindsay as special counsel to the City Commission for the United Nations, which paid $25,000 a year and granted him health care coverage.
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/21/nyregion/john-v-lindsay-mayor-and-maverick-dies-at-79.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/02/01/archives/the-edge.html
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2000/dec/21/guardianobituaries
Abraham Beame
The moneyman-cum-mayor who had the misfortune of being at the helm during the city’s worst fiscal crisis left City Hall at the end of 197 and spent the next 25 years as a senior investment advisor at Sterling National Bank. According to his obituary in the Guardian, Beame also lunched “twice a month on margherita pizzas with a group of old political friends at Scotto’s restaurant on East 52nd Street.”
Further reading: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/feb/13/guardianobituaries
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/11/nyregion/abraham-beame-is-dead-at-94-mayor-during-70-s-fiscal-crisis.html
Ed Koch
What did Ed Koch do after he left City Hall? Everything, it seems. The former mayor took the precedented path of becoming a partner at a law firm (Robinson, Silverman, Pearce, Aronsohn, and Berman) a political commentator, and teaching positions at New York University and Brandeis University, as well as becoming a murder mystery writer, movie reviewer (in print and on YouTube), a restaurant critic, and a judge on reality courtroom series The People’s Court.
Further reading: https://lithub.com/the-nyc-mayor-fiction-canon-or-why-adams-should-probably-write-a-crime-thriller/
David Dinkins
After leaving City Hall in 1994, Dinkins spent the next 26 years imparting the knowledge he gained from decades as a public servant onto the students of Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs. From 1994 until 2013, he also hosted “Dialogue with Dinkins” on WLIB, a radio show where Dinkins, his guests, and callers would discuss socio-political issues. Echoing his mayoral campaign premise that New York City is a “gorgeous mosaic,” in 2013 Dinkins released a memoir titled “A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic.”
Further reading: https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/nyregion/best-ex-job-city-after-13-months-office-dinkins-basking-affection.htmlhttps://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/david-dinkins
Rudolph Giuliani
Most ex-mayors stop generating headlines after they leave office, but Giuliani can’t seem to stay out of the news, at least since 2018. After leaving City Hall at the end of 2001, Giuliani, capitalizing on his reputation as “America’s mayor,” published a book on leadership in 2002, founded a security consulting firm, and became a partner at a Texas law firm. In 2008, he briefly reemerged onto the national scene when he unsuccessfully ran for president. Speaking of presidential runs, Giuliani was an early and vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s White House bid in 2016, leading President Trump to choose Giuliani, first, as his unofficial cybersecurity advisor, and later, in 2018, as part of his legal team representing the president in the Department of Justice’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election. After Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, Giuliani led the charge to challenge the election results, making unfounded claims alleging voter fraud. As a result of his “demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large,” as stated by the Appellate Division of the NY State Supreme Court, Giuliani’s New York State law license was suspended in 2021 and he was permanently disbarred from practicing law in Washington, D.C. in 2024.
Further reading: https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad1/calendar/List_Word/2021/06_Jun/24/PDF/Matter%20of%20Giuliani%20(2021-00506)%20PC.pdf
https://abcnews.go.com/US/giuliani-permanently-disbarred-practicing-law-district-columbia/story?id=114184836
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rudy-Giuliani#ref351659
Michael Bloomberg
Once he left City Hall in 2014, Michael Bloomberg initially resumed his pre-mayoral role as CEO of Bloomberg LP, his financial software and media company. He stepped down briefly in 2019 to run for president, but once he realized that the public wasn’t willing to scratch his higher office inch (despite him spending an unprecedented $935 million of his own money to fund his five-month campaign), he returned to Bloomberg LP, running it until 2023. One wonders if Bloomberg spends most of his day writing checks and making wire transfers from his accounts: since 2014 he has donated $4.55 billion to his alma mater Johns Hopkins University, and has given additional money to Harvard University, Cornell Tech, the Success Academy charter schools, and several historical Black medical schools. His other post-mayoral philanthropic efforts focus on climate change, albeit through umpteen task forces and summits. In 2024, President Joe Biden awarded Bloomberg the Presidential Medal of Freedom, citing his entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and his tenure as mayor of NYC, where he “transformed New York City’s education, environment, public health, and the arts.”
Further reading: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/05/03/president-biden-announces-recipients-of-the-presidential-medal-of-freedom-2/https://www.bloomberg.org/team/michael-bloomberg/
Bill de Blasio
Upon leaving City Hall, de Blasio was a visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in 2022 and was also the Winter 2024 Policymaker in Residence at the University of Michigan. He’s also subjected the public to too many details about his love life, announcing in July 2023 that he and his wife Chirlane McCray would be separating, though not divorcing, and would continue sharing their Park Slope home while dating other people. More recently, in November 2025, de Blasio’s love life made headlines again when he was exposed for cheating on his girlfriend with the mayor of South Tucson, Arizona.
Further reading: https://www.thecut.com/article/why-did-bill-de-blasio-nomiki-konst-break-up.html