Alicia Glen, Deputy Mayor Who Helped Woo Amazon, To Leave Post

NEW YORK — Alicia Glen, Mayor Bill de Blasio's longest-serving deputy who helped land the city's controversial Amazon deal, is leaving City Hall. Glen will be "moving on to new challenges" after five years as deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said Wiley Norvell, a City Hall spokesman.

"From StuyTown to Brooklyn Bridge Park, from East Midtown to East NY, (from) Google to Amazon, she's left her mark on the city," Norvell said on Twitter.

A former Goldman Sachs executive who also worked under former mayor Rudy Giuliani, Glen has managed a wide-ranging portfolio that includes the Economic Development Corporation and the New York City Housing Authority — which was just named the city's "worst landlord."

Glen was involved in wooing Amazon to open one of its new headquarters in Long Island City, a landmark economic development deal that's expected to create more than 25,000 jobs. She's also helped implement de Blasio's sweeping affordable housing plan and launch the city's new ferry service.

Glen has reportedly been praised as a hard worker and strong deal-maker. But her approach to affordable housing development has drawn criticism — a coalition of advocacy groups wrote a letter to de Blasio last year demanding her ouster.

Glen's responses to such critics have sometimes been brusque. She once called City Council members "not that smart" during a deposition in a lawsuit over the city's affordable housing lottery, Politico New York reported. And as she addressed opposition to the Amazon deal, she told CNBC that eventually "all New Yorkers will be thanking us for having brought them."

Glen's departure marks the latest personnel change at the upper levels of the de Blasio administration.

Within roughly the past month, the Democratic mayor has fired Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters and moved to push out Emergency Management Commissioner Joseph Esposito. On Wednesday, he named Dr. Oxiris Barbot the permanent replacement for the former health commissioner, Dr. Mary T. Bassett, who recently left for a job at Harvard University.

(Lead image: Alicia Glen speaks at an event in New York City in July 2015. Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for New York Times)