#Eric Adams must fight NYC street crime — at whatever cost

In the 1954 classic film, Godzilla was a city-destroying, malevolent monster who lays waste to Tokyo. 

When tanks and rockets fail to fell the dinosaur, a scientist invents the “oxygen destroyer” — a volatile chemical weapon deadly enough to kill the creature, but so horrific the inventor resists using it, fearful it could fall into the wrong hands. 

A colleague urges him to deploy it, arguing: “You have your fear which might become reality. And you have Godzilla, which is reality.” 

New York City is now facing a real-life Godzilla — the plague of street violence that seems to worsen each week. Our likely next mayor, Eric Adams, is the only human who can stop the beast’s rampage, and he must use any and all means to bring the monster to heel — no matter how many looney-lefty elected officials, judges and criminal advocates he offends. 

Too many elitist voices worry more about what proper law enforcement theoretically might bring: “disproportionate” minority arrests and imprisonments. Only ex-cop Adams has the city’s priorities right. 

This week he stood next to Gov. Cuomo at a press conference and correctly stated that “we have surrendered our city.” To turn the tide, Adams isn’t afraid to unleash his version of the oxygen destroyer — a re-energized NYPD that knows the mayor has its back and a willingness to challenge Cuomo on criminal-empowering laws that passed with the governor’s blessing. 

Adams wants to bring back the undercover anti-crime unit that was indispensable to taking guns off the street but was axed on de Blasio’s watch. He says stop-and-frisk can be a useful deterrent if used properly. He had the guts to say, “We need to look at all these new laws that are taking place” even though Cuomo has expressed no enthusiasm to reverse or dilute the laws he signed off on. 

The worst of those laws eliminated bail for most criminal suspects, including those armed with guns, and required cases involving youths under the age of 18 be heard in kid-gloves Family Court. The resulting carnage has devastated the city’s poorest, predominantly minority neighborhoods while mostly sparing its more affluent precincts. 

De Blasio has presided over the most catastrophic quality-of-life plunge ever to occur over so short a time. Unable to undo the state laws, he needed to give the NYPD every ounce of support he could. Instead he emasculated it with frequent cop-bashing language, dismantling the designated anti-crime unit and caving to the City Council and other left-wing pressure to mostly abandon “broken windows” policing. 

With homicides in the five boroughs up 37.2 percent and shootings up 105.4 percent over the past two years, de Blasio blames everyone but himself. The feds for not stopping the flow of guns into the city. The state for not changing laws. He even blames the coronavirus. 

Next he’ll pin it on Central Park carriage horses. Three animals were punched out last week by one of the violent psychos whose legions have swelled on de Blasio’s watch and who seem to be more common on streets than cops. 

De Blasio breathtakingly said on Thursday that Times Square business leaders who complain the city isn’t doing enough to make the area safe again were motivated by “politics.” Gee, I thought they were motivated by stray bullets that wounded an ex-Marine in front of horrified witnesses outside the city’s largest hotel, the Marriott Marquis, two weeks ago. 

While Adams sounds too soft on ridding the streets of squeegee men, he’s strong and consistent on taking our streets, parks and subways back from the really bad guys. 

It will take a steel constitution for Adams to make good on his commitment. He told a Democratic gathering that was also attended by de Blasio on Friday, “I am the mayor.” Problem is, assuming he beats GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa in November, he won’t be mayor for more than five long months. 

He then must cope with a “progressive” new Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who wants to end “mass incarceration”; an equally radical new comptroller, Brad Lander, who wants to defund the NYPD; Albany lawmakers in thrall to racial-identity politics; and Gov. Cuomo’s unwillingness to change the state’s weak-on-crime agenda. 

They’ll use every trick in the woke bible to wither Adams’ resolve before he spends a day on the job. 

He must remember the lesson of Godzilla. 

Nothing less than the city’s fate depends on it.