He said Gracie Mansion, the official residence of New York City’s mayor, was haunted and that the minerals in the city’s bedrock infused it with a special energy. He promised to bring “swagger” back to the city and he somehow mentioned the Sept. 11 attacks in the same breath as the opening of a new business.

Mayor Eric Adams will be remembered as part showman, part comedian, who was likely to say just about anything, even if he was met with derision or his critics questioned the decorum or wisdom of his utterances. And he often fired off statements with an unflinching verve.

“If you’re going to hang out with the boys at night, you have to get up with the men in the morning,” he said often while answering questions about his love of the city’s nightlife.

While politics attracts its share of raconteurs, with Mayor Adams it was hard to predict when a routine news conference would deliver an instant meme. It happened so often that the unpredictable became commonplace.

“Part of Eric Adams’s downfall is what made him the 110th mayor of New York City: He is his own person,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “There is a certain level of freedom that some people appreciated but that a lot of people bristled at.”

On Sunday, Mr. Adams, sitting on a staircase in Gracie Mansion, announced by video that he would abandon his faltering re-election campaign. Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” played softly in the background and an enlarged photo of the mayor’s late mother was propped next to him.