The race for New York City mayor took an extraordinary turn on Wednesday as the leading candidate, Eric Adams, gave reporters a tour of a Brooklyn apartment he owns, while rival campaigns questioned his residency and fitness for office.

A day after a Politico New York story raised questions and highlighted apparent discrepancies regarding where Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, resides when he is not sleeping in Brooklyn Borough Hall — he owns properties in Brooklyn and Fort Lee, N.J. — Mr. Adams held an emotional news conference outside a residence in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, joined by his son, Jordan.

“How foolish would someone have to be to run to be the mayor of the city of New York and live in another municipality,” Mr. Adams said.

He led a tour of a wood- and brick-trimmed apartment, showing off what he referred to as a “small, modest kitchen” and “small, modest bathroom” while reporters inspected the refrigerator, and feverish speculation swirled on social media about whether it matched pictures of refrigerators he had shared in earlier years, when he said he was at home in Brooklyn.

The highly unusual event unfolded as the race entered a tumultuous, increasingly rancorous final stretch, less than two weeks before the June 22 Democratic primary that is almost certain to determine the city’s next mayor. Mr. Adams, a former police captain, has drawn criticism for his decision to skip a new debate among the top candidates scheduled for Thursday, saying that he would instead attend a vigil for a 10-year-old killed in gun violence in Queens.

He has topped a number of recent polls as he presses a message focused on public safety, a top priority for voters, polls show.

But the race appears fluid even in the final days. It will be decided by ranked-choice voting, and it is difficult to predict what the electorate in a post-pandemic June primary will look like.

A Spectrum News NY1/Ipsos poll released earlier this week showed Mr. Adams leading the Democratic field, followed by Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, and Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner.

But the poll was conducted in the second half of May, and there has been little data since to capture how a number of major recent developments are registering with voters, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Saturday endorsement of Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Jumaane D. Williams, the New York City public advocate, endorsed Ms. Wiley on Wednesday, the latest effort to consolidate left-wing support around her candidacy in the homestretch.

“We must unite to elect and rank Maya Wiley to be the second Black and first woman mayor of the city of New York,” Mr. Williams said.

At the joint appearance, Ms. Wiley called the controversy over Mr. Adams’s residency “bizarre.”

“I think there’s some straight-up questions that are fundamental about, where do you live, Eric?” she said.

Indeed, questions about where Mr. Adams, 60, spends his time when not on the campaign trail injected another element of uncertainty into the race and offered fresh fodder for his opponents. Early voting begins on Saturday.

“Eric Adams has a problematic record of not being fully honest or transparent with the voters of New York,” Ms. Garcia said in a statement on Wednesday. “As we recover from Covid, the last thing we need is a career politician with a hidden agenda at City Hall. Our city cannot recover if the mayor lacks integrity.”

Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, called on Mr. Adams to release records related to his residency, and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, called the developments “the most recent in a series of significant ethics allegations.”

And in a rare display of cross-campaign comity, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign managers released a list of questions for Mr. Adams on Wednesday that, they noted, was intended to add to questions raised by Ms. Wiley’s team the day before.

“Why would anyone vote for a candidate who can’t even be honest about where he lives?” asked Sasha Ahuja and Chris Coffey, Mr. Yang’s campaign managers, as they detailed a list of ethics concerns. “How are the traffic problems in Fort Lee? What are you hiding?”

A day earlier, Ms. Wiley’s campaign manager, Maya Rupert, had asked, “WTF?!?! Does Eric Adams live in New Jersey?” On Wednesday, Madia Coleman, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams, fired back, releasing a series of questions about Ms. Wiley’s record, concluding, “I mean, seriously, WTF…”

Earlier Wednesday, a crowd of journalists gathered outside Mr. Adams’s Bedford-Stuyvesant townhouse, where a table was set up with coffee and vegan pastries for reporters. (Mr. Adams is a vocal vegan.)

At one point, Mr. Adams appeared unable to speak for more than a minute as he retold a story of being shot at when he was speaking out against racism in the police department, just days after his son, now 26, was born.

Mr. Adams said that was the reason that he tried to be private about his home life.

“I realized the life I was living, my advocacy, was going to take his dad away from him,” he said. “Throughout my entire police career, none of my colleagues knew I had a son. I wanted to shield him from the reality of what I was doing. I became very private.”

As he led reporters down to the basement level where the bedroom is, Mr. Adams warned reporters to watch out for the creaky first step. There were a pair of African masks on the ledge of the stairway looking as if they were ready to be hung and a dusty-looking smoke detector. A vacuum and broom were at the bottom of the stairs.

The bedroom smelled a bit damp, and there were some suit jackets in the closet. Three pairs of sneakers were perched on a ledge next to a bed, with a few pairs of slippers next to the closet. The blue comforter on the bed was rumpled, and there were at least five pillows.