Royal Visit Puts NYC's First Lady on World Stage

The eyes of the world will follow the Duchess of Cambridge on her first visit to New York when she tours a children's development center in Harlem next week.

And for much of that global audience, that moment will be their introduction to the duchess' companion: Chirlane McCray, New York City's most powerful and divisive first lady in generations.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has repeatedly said that his wife is his closest adviser, one who influences him on staffing and policy and who "is the person with whom I've built everything I've done."

"You could say that I am Bill's conscience, confidant, or adviser ? but none of those words are exactly right," McCray told The Associated Press in an email interview. "We are partners in love and work. There is only one Mayor, but when he needs help I'm there for him, and vice versa."

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She runs the Mayor's Fund, which raises private money for the mayor's agenda. She shares her views on a website modeled after Eleanor Roosevelt's "My Day" newspaper column. She was one of the lead figures of City Hall's massive universal pre-kindergarten expansion, which she calls the administration's "crowning achievement."

And McCray, who is black, is a beloved figure in New York's communities of color. On a pre-Thanksgiving Day campaign trip to a Brooklyn hair salon, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand went virtually unrecognized while the first lady was greeted like a rock star.

"She doesn't carry herself like royalty. She carries herself like a regular person," said Christina Greer, a political science professor at Fordham University. "A lot of New Yorkers think: 'If anyone in politics can really understand me, it's her.'"

McCray's role has been the center of some debate. She, and the couple's two children, played a big part in de Blasio's mayoral campaign, and her husband has not discouraged comparisons to a "vote for one, get two" mantra like the one that surrounded Bill and Hillary Clinton.

But a Quinnipiac University poll released last month suggested New Yorkers were not so sure. It found that 34 percent of respondents thought a mayor's wife shouldn't be involved at all with shaping public policy, while 37 percent said she should only have a minor role.

Administration officials said McCray's position is misunderstood. They suggested that she is not often in nitty-gritty policy meetings but rather helps shape the administration's big-picture priorities and liberal spirit. The mayor frequently seeks her counsel, whether over the phone, at home or during quiet moments at City Hall.

McCray is now focused on mental health initiatives. Her stop Monday with the former Kate Middleton is at a clinic that provides mental health services for impoverished children. And the administration just launched a $130 million effort to steer those suffering from mental illness away from the criminal justice system.