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Amazon is trying to quell rising opposition to its plan for offices in New York, hiring well-connected lobbyists to make its case in the corridors of power even as it mounts a block-by-block neighborhood effort against the grass-roots network that helped push Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to victory.

Company executives, setting up shop in a hotel in Long Island City, Queens, where Amazon wants to build a new campus, have been walking the streets, sometimes accompanied by city officials, to listen to residents and drum up support.

The extent of their reach could be felt at City Hall on Tuesday where two newly hired lobbyists, Mark Weprin, a former Queens city councilman, and Ed Wallace, another former councilman, conferred with city officials in the soaring marble rotunda and made the case for the company. The timing was not coincidental: Amazon executives are expected to face withering questioning before the New York City Council at a public hearing on Wednesday.

The packed hearing room in City Hall had the same tensions as on the streets. Lobbyists sat along with Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president for public policy, and Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s director of global economic development who lead the search for a new headquarters. Opponents sat in the balcony ready to pounce.