Elizabeth S. Crowley (born November 27, 1977) is an American politician and trade association executive who has been president and chief executive officer of the Building Trades Employers' Association since 2023. She was previously the New York City Council member for the 30th district from 2009 to 2017, representing the neighborhoods of Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village, Ridgewood, and parts of Woodside and Woodhaven, in the borough of Queens. Crowley was both the first woman and first Democrat to hold the seat. Crowley was a 2021 candidate for Queens Borough President. She is a cousin of former U.S. Congressman Joseph Crowley. Crowley lost her Council seat to Robert Holden in 2017 and was subsequently an unsuccessful candidate in the Democratic primaries for Queens Borough President in 2020 and 2021 and for the New York State Senate in 2022.
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Early life and education
Crowley was born in Queens, the 14th of 15 children in a politically active family. Her father, Walter, was a local Democratic district leader and City Council member during the 1980s. Crowley's mother, Mary, served on the local School Board 24 for a number of years. Following Walter's death in office in 1985, Mary was appointed to complete the remainder of his term. This made Crowley the third member of her immediate family to serve in the City Council.
She grew up in Elmhurst, Queens.
Crowley is the cousin of former U.S. Congressman Joseph Crowley, who served as vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus and as Democratic Party chair in Queens County.
Crowley holds a B.A. in restoration and preservation from the Fashion Institute of Technology and an M.S. in city and regional planning from Pratt Institute. Before entering office she worked as a restorative painter on historic preservation projects, including at Radio City Music Hall and St. Patrick's Cathedral. She is a member of District Council 9 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.
Career
City Council elections
Crowley first sought elected office in 2001, at the age of 23, entering the Democratic primary for the 30th district seat, which was being vacated by the term-limited Republican Tom Ognibene. Her opponents were Robert Cermeli and Linda Sansivieri. The seat was won that year by Republican Dennis P. Gallagher, who held it until 2008.
On March 17, 2008, Republican City Council Member Dennis P. Gallagher resigned after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of sexual abuse, creating a vacancy in the 30th district. Mayor Michael Bloomberg subsequently called a special election for the following June 3 to fill Gallagher's vacant seat. On May 8, Crowley announced her candidacy, joining a crowded field that included Gallagher's predecessor Tom Ognibene, a Republican who held the seat until term-limited from office in 2001, city Elections Board Commissioner Anthony Como, civic leader Charles Ober, and attorney Joseph Suraci. Crowley and Como received the backing of the county Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, with Ober picking up the Independence Party line. Neither Crowley nor Como appeared at a candidates' debate held during the campaign. Como led by about 70 votes on election night, with the outcome dependent on absentee ballots; he was subsequently certified the winner by 41 votes.
Four months after Como's close victory, Como faced Crowley in the 2008 general election. Crowley expected to benefit from a higher turnout due to the candidacy of Barack Obama in a district where registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 2-to-1. On election day, Crowley defeated Como by 4,369 votes. Her win formed part of a wider Democratic gain in Queens that November, in which the borough's Republicans lost several seats.
For the third time in 17 months, Crowley ran for the 30th District during the 2009 citywide elections. This time, Crowley faced Ognibene, who had sat out the second 2008 race after the county Republicans passed him over by endorsing Como, despite his stated interest in running. Ognibene criticized Crowley's tenure in the Council as "ineffective", while Crowley described her challenger as "out of touch". Crowley outraised Ognibene and won the November election with 59.8 percent of the vote.
In 2012, Crowley ran for the Democratic nomination in New York's 6th congressional district, which was won by Grace Meng. In July of that year she received the smallest discretionary funding allocation of any Queens member of the City Council. Crowley was re-elected to the Council in 2013, defeating the Republican Craig Caruana. Citizens Union made no endorsement in the district.
Later campaigns
Crowley finished second to Donovan Richards in the June 2020 Democratic primary for Queens Borough President and conceded on July 21. In the same month, the New York City Campaign Finance Board denied her campaign's petition to reconsider a determination on public matching funds.
Crowley ran for borough president again in 2021, in the first such contest conducted under ranked-choice voting. The count remained close through successive rounds of tabulation, and she conceded to Richards on July 19, 2021.
In February 2022, Crowley announced a campaign for the New York State Senate in the 59th district.
Legislative work
In 2010, when the city faced serious budget cuts and the Bloomberg administration planned to close as many as 20 firehouses, Crowley, as chair of the Council's Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services, joined other elected officials and community members in opposing the planned closures. Funding for the fire companies was restored in the adopted budget, an outcome for which the Council claimed credit as a body. Crowley criticized both the Bloomberg and de Blasio administrations over the reliability of the city's 911 system and the way the Fire Department reported ambulance response times. The city's overhaul of the 911 system was later found by the Department of Investigation and the city comptroller to have been affected by extensive outsourcing and cost overruns.
As chair of the Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services, Crowley also held oversight of the New York City Department of Correction and Rikers Island. In October 2014, following a report by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York that found a pattern and practice of excessive force against adolescents in the city's jails, her committee held a hearing at which members characterized the treatment of young detainees, including their placement in solitary confinement, as torture. In March 2015 the committee questioned the performance of the jails' medical provider.
Crowley supported efforts to preserve and expand city health services for women and sponsored legislation to expand access to HPV vaccinations, birth control and other women's health services. Crowley pressed the Fire Department to increase the number of women serving as firefighters, who at the end of 2014 numbered 44 out of about 10,500. She sponsored legislation, enacted as Local Law 44 of 2016, requiring companies receiving city contracts to report the gender and racial makeup of their board members and executives.
In March 2013, The New York Times reported that Council Speaker Christine Quinn had confronted Crowley over a statement to community newspapers in which Crowley took credit for saving local firehouses without crediting Quinn, and that Council funding for senior centers and youth sports programs in Crowley's district was cut days afterwards. Quinn said Crowley had committed "a completely inappropriate, attention-grabbing act", and, asked whether the funding cut was retaliation, replied, "It is what happened that year."
Post-Council career
Crowley co-founded 21 in '21, later renamed The New Majority NYC, a nonprofit organization formed to increase the number of women serving in the New York City Council; the Council reached a female majority for the first time in its history in 2021.
In 2023, Crowley became president and chief executive officer of the Building Trades Employers' Association, a New York City construction industry group founded in 1903, succeeding Louis Coletti and becoming the first woman to lead the organization. In the role she has spoken for contractors on workforce and construction safety issues and has campaigned for changes to New York's Scaffold Law. In June 2026, she was named to Council Speaker Julie Menin's advisory group on housing affordability.
Controversies
In April 2017, Council Member Eric Ulrich filed a complaint with the city Conflicts of Interest Board alleging that Crowley had used her office to prompt enforcement action by several agencies against a bar outside her district following an altercation involving her sons. A spokesman for Crowley said the complaint was politically motivated and noted that Ulrich had received campaign contributions from a part-owner of the bar.
During the 2021 borough president primary, Crowley's campaign sent leaflets designed to resemble eviction notices to addresses in Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Corona. Assembly Member Catalina Cruz said the campaign could have made the same point without playing on residents' fear of eviction, and Crowley's campaign manager defended the mailing.
In July 2021, Borough President Donovan Richards publicly accused Crowley of racism during the campaign, alleging among other things that she had said she would win because the Black Lives Matter movement would fade, and that she had pressed him for a job. Crowley denied the allegations and described them as slanderous and untruthful.
In January 2020, ahead of her first borough president campaign, Crowley pledged not to accept campaign contributions from real estate developers. In August 2022, NYC Forward, a super PAC funded in equal parts by the political arm of the Real Estate Board of New York, two real estate firms and two painters' union committees, spent about $250,000 in support of her State Senate campaign.
Personal life
Crowley was married to Dennis O'Hara, a New York City police officer. They have two sons, Dennis and Owen. She lives in Glendale, Queens with her sons.