It was just after 1:30 a.m., and Jessica Tisch was walking the eerie quiet of 345 Park Avenue, surveying the detritus of a deadly attack.
As the scrunch of broken glass cut the silence and blood still glistened on the floor, a distraught Tisch confronted her most challenging moment yet as New York City’s police commissioner. Mere hours earlier, a lone gunman with an assault rifle stalked this very space, ending the lives of four people before taking his own.
Tisch’s critical role had already placed her at the nexus of business, law enforcement and politics. Now, the city’s worst mass shooting in 25 years intersected with her deep ties to the New York establishment, thrusting a deeply personal moment into the open.
Strands of fate connected Tisch, 44, to the victims of Monday evening’s rampage. Didarul Islam, killed in the lobby, was an officer in the police force she leads. Blackstone executive Wesley LePatner, shot after trying to take cover behind a column, was her personal friend.
The setting itself held weight for Tisch. The 44-story tower is owned by Rudin Management, run by a 100-year-old property dynasty that has been closely linked with Tisch’s billionaire real estate family for generations. Julia Hyman, an associate at Rudin, was killed on the 33rd floor by the gunman, after he shot building security guard Aland Etienne.
“Aland, Julia, my beautiful friend Wesley, and police officer Didarul Islam — they were taken from our arms in violence,” an emotional Tisch said at a vigil this week.
The shooter had intended to target the offices of the National Football League, an employee of which was seriously injured. The NFL’s New York Giants team is owned by another member of the Tisch family.
Commissioner Tisch has previously touted dropping crime rates in New York City, and has presided over a 6% reduction in major crimes during the first half of the year. Her steady hand in the top job — she was appointed in November last year — has already made her a flashpoint in the ongoing mayoral race as business leaders seek assurances she will retain her role even in a new administration.
“Given her family dynamic, there were people in city government who didn’t know her and frankly didn’t expect much before working with her,” said Eric Phillips, a former colleague of the commissioner and an aide to former Mayor Bill de Blasio. “Her name may have opened some doors, but she’s the real deal, and even her critics privately admit that.”
Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic candidate for mayor and a vocal critic of the police force in the past, has more recently struck a conciliatory tone. He lauded the response to the attack and even reached out to have a conversation with Tisch after the shooting, according to a spokesperson.
With the city on edge, Tisch is the right person for the job, according to Amanda Hindlian, who has held senior roles at Goldman Sachs and the New York Stock Exchange — two of the city’s most prominent symbols of commerce.
“New Yorkers still have to contend with violence, whether in an office building or a CEO walking outside of a hotel in Midtown Manhattan,” Hindlian said. “She has the trust of the business community.”
For Hindlian, it’s critical that Tisch stay on the job as police commissioner as a “check and balance” to a potential Mayor Mamdani, who has set out a flurry of proposals — ranging from tax hikes to rent freezes — that have dismayed the city’s moneyed class.
Indeed, if it were up to Wall Street and the business community, the real estate heiress would be the next New York City mayor.
“There are a lot of people who feel like, if given a choice we’ll all vote for her as a mayor,” said Tom Glocer, the former head of Thomson Reuters and a visible figure in the city’s business circles.
“Since she’s from a prominent family, she’s not counting on a public office salary for her next meal,” he said. “It breeds a sense that she’s in it for public service.”
Tisch declined to be interviewed for this article.
Tisch’s tenure as NYPD Commissioner — the fourth person in that role under Mayor Eric Adams— has largely been seen as a bright spot within the current administration, after the previous two police commissioners were enmeshed in scandal.
George Walker, who runs the $538 billion money manager Neuberger Berman from its headquarters just blocks away from the shooting, says his workforce’s No. 1 concern is safety.
“Commissioner Tisch has been extremely impressive and has engendered great confidence,” Walker said. “The next mayor — whomever it is — would be wise to retain her.”
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is running as an independent after being vanquished in the Democratic primary, as well as Mamdani have said they would consider keeping Tisch as commissioner.
Harvard to NYPD
The real estate advocacy group, The Association for a Better New York, got its start in 1971, led by the Rudin family. Its inaugural meeting took place at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue, in what came to be known as the original power breakfast. That has given the Tisch family-owned Loews Regency its standing in the city as the convening spot for movers and shakers.
Jessica Tisch, however, has so far stayed away from the family business.
While Tisch — a puzzles enthusiast — has held other roles within the country’s largest police force, she has never been a uniformed police officer. After earning a law degree from Harvard University — where Senator Elizabeth Warren taught one of her classes — she started her career in counterterrorism and later took on a key tech role at the NYPD under de Blasio.
That stint has been credited with modernizing policing methods at the NYPD to combat crime, even though it alienated some longstanding officers used to the old ways, according to a former colleague.
That tech instinct didn’t translate into all aspects of Tisch’s life: She has joked that even well into her adulthood, her grandmother’s daily calls used to serve as her morning alarm.
Intensely focused, and typically unflappable, Tisch is also seen as fiercely loyal and protective of her team.
Tisch, who decorated her office with gizmos tied to her IT reforms and a bowl of treats for visitors, would often have lunch catered for her team from the landmark 2nd Avenue Deli.
‘Rats Don’t Run the City’
While she has eschewed the limelight, her stint as trash boss was a source of amusement for those around her.
As sanitation commissioner, Tisch’s ultimatums to the rodent residents of the city caught fire on social media as she spearheaded an effort to help NYC rebound from the pandemic.
“Rats are absolutely going to hate this announcement, but the rats don’t run the city — we do,” she said in one viral missive.
Just a few days after Adams gave her the reins to the police department, Tisch faced her first major test. In early December, UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive Brian Thompson was murdered on his way to an investor conference in Midtown Manhattan.
A manhunt ended with the arrest of Luigi Mangione, and both state and federal prosecutors are now pursuing cases against him. He has pleaded not guilty.
Thompson’s killing occurred just a few blocks from Monday evening’s shooting at 345 Park Avenue. In the early hours of Tuesday, as she walked through the scene, Tisch was accompanied by Adams and Bill Rudin, the building owner’s co-executive chairman.
Evidence markers identified over 20 shell casings still littered across the lobby.
At the funeral service on Thursday for officer Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh, Tisch eulogized him for more than 15 minutes.
She spoke of Islam’s bond with his police partner, who is from the Dominican Republic. And in doing so, she evoked a vision of New York City as she saw it.
“Two journeys, two traditions, two lives shaped continents apart, and yet here, in this city,” Tisch said. “And that is the most New York story there is. Because only in this city do those differences become strength. Only in this city does a partnership like that feel not just possible but inevitable.”
