Zohran Mamdani said a dumbfounding thing over the weekend. He told a gathering in Harlem that he would raise taxes on “richer and whiter neighborhoods.” That, he explained, would bring relief to “overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs.”
Could Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist who won the Democratic mayoral primary, be referring to us? No need to answer. The East Side is generally prosperous. No one will argue with that. But with the exception of the most expensive corners, the East Side is not more expensive than other expensive neighborhoods, some in the outer boroughs.
The left-fringe’s obsession with Manhattan, especially the UES, reflects the myth that it is an exclusive white enclave. It’s true that the East Side tends to be whiter and older and its people still dress nicely. Those are not crimes. Nor was preferring Andrew Cuomo in the primary, as did most voters in both the Upper East Side and Upper West Side.
As you can see from the above chart, though the city’s five richest zip codes are in Manhattan, none of them is on the Upper East Side or in Midtown East. A longer list of the most prosperous neighborhoods ranks at least two zip codes in Brooklyn — those covering Park Slope and Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill — higher than any of ours.
Set aside the astounding idea of linking tax rates to race. The reality is that all New York neighborhoods are racially mixed to some extent, many to a large extent. As for Manhattan, whites comprise only half of the borough’s population, and that includes Hispanic whites, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
State-assemblyman Mamdani lives in rapidly gentrifying Astoria. That Queens enclave, right over the East River from us, is 43% white.
An underreported aspect of the primary election is that June 24 marked the hottest day in Central Park since 1888. Triple-digit heat and high humidity made parts of the city feel like 126 degrees. No doubt many Cuomo supporters, comforted by polls showing their candidate with a commanding lead, thought they could take the day off from voting.
And much else. Mika over at the Vartali hair salon on East 57th Street tells us that many customers, especially older ones, canceled their appointments that day. We imagine there were a lot of cancellations at hair salons, doctor offices and restaurants.
We will be writing a lot more about the mayoral race. I discuss why I believe that Mamdani will not prevail in November in my latest syndicated column: Mamdani Probably Won’t be Mayor.