Good morning. It’s Tuesday. Today we’ll look at Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s move from Astoria, Queens, to Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, a neighborhood in Manhattan where voters largely supported his opponent.
Sometime soon, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani will move from his 800-square-foot rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, Queens, to Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, where he will have use of 11,000 square feet of living and entertaining space, a spacious backyard overlooking the East River and full-time security. My colleague Nick Fandos wrote about Mr. Mamdani’s move from the diverse, middle-class neighborhood where he has lived since 2019 to the affluent Upper East Side, which strongly favored former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his main opponent in the mayoral race. (Mr. Mamdani secured a resounding win in Astoria.) “We will miss it all — the endless Adeni chai, the spirited conversations in Spanish, Arabic and every language in between, the aromas of seafood and shawarma drifting down the block,” Mr. Mamandi wrote in a wistful statement on Instagram announcing the upcoming move. “This decision came down to our family’s safety and the importance of dedicating all of my focus on enacting the affordability agenda New Yorkers voted for,” he added. The demographic differences between Mr. Mamdani’s old and new neighborhoods are stark. Over 70 percent of the people who lived on the Upper East Side between 2019 and 2023 were white, according to New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. That neighborhood, where Mr. Mamdani will move with his wife, Rama Duwaji, had the fourth-highest median income of any in the city in 2023. Astoria, meanwhile, was 48 percent white during the same period, and had the city’s 23rd highest median income in 2023. Electoral maps from November tell a related story. Mr. Mamdani won the borough of Queens, taking about 48 percent of the vote there, and actually fared better in Manhattan, where he received about 53 percent of votes. But some of the precincts that turned out the strongest for Mr. Cuomo in Manhattan were on the Upper East Side. In the precinct that includes Gracie Mansion, Mr. Cuomo got nearly two-thirds of votes. Mr. Cuomo won all of the Upper East Side precincts adjacent to Central Park. Some of the mayor-elect’s neighbors-to-be are still hostile. Adam Beckerman, who was walking his dogs on a recent morning near the mayoral mansion, was highly critical of Mr. Mamdani’s positions on Israel and capitalism. “He is an entitled, ignorant, anticapitalist, anti-Westernist ideologue,” said Mr. Beckerman, a 66-year-old businessman. Though they may soon be living in unfamiliar territory, Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Duwaji will be greeted by at least one familiar sight near their new home. A new outpost of Al Badawi, part of a Palestinian restaurant group whose establishments Mr. Mamdani has visited, opened up just three blocks from Gracie Mansion earlier this year. Hanifa Abbasi, a spokeswoman for the restaurant group, was hopeful the first couple would visit. “Wouldn’t it be cool to, like, cater for him and bring that spice that he needs to his life,” she said. “He’s a spicy man.” WEATHER Today will be mostly cloudy with a high around 33. Cloudy conditions will continue tonight and temperatures will drop to around 27. Wind advisory in effect. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Thursday (New Year’s Day). The latest New York news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. METROPOLITAN DIARY Ferry farewell
Dear Diary: On a February afternoon, I met my cousins at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. Their spouses and several of our very-grown children were there too. I brought Prosecco, a candle, a small speaker to play music, photos and a poem. We were there to recreate the wedding cruise of my mother, Monica, and my stepfather, Peter. They had gotten married at City Hall in August 1984. She was 61, and he, 71. It was her first marriage, and his fourth. I was my mother’s witness that day. It was a late-in-life love story, and they were very happy. Peter died in 1996, at 82. My mother died last year. She was 100. Peter’s ashes had waited a long time, but finally they were mingled with Monica’s. The two of them would ride the ferry a last time and then swirl together in the harbor forever. Cue the candles, bubbly, bagpipes and poems. Two ferry workers approached us. We knew we were in trouble: Open containers and open flames were not allowed on the ferry. My cousin’s husband, whispering, told the workers what we were doing and said we would be finished soon. They walked off, and then returned. They said they had spoken to the captain, and they ushered us to the stern for some privacy. As the cup of ashes flew into the water, the ferry horn sounded two long blasts. — Caitlin Margaret May Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. — C.B. P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
|
