{"id":362854,"date":"2026-10-02T14:16:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362854\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T14:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:16:30","slug":"are-you-a-new-yorker-the-department-of-new-yorker-verification-will-now-decide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362854\/","title":{"rendered":"Are you a New Yorker? The Department of New Yorker Verification will now decide."},"content":{"rendered":"

For those who weren\u2019t born and raised in New York City, how long must you live in the five boroughs to qualify as an official New Yorker? What if you were born in the city but have moved away? Can you still claim citizenship? The perennially contentious question of who may claim the city as their own can now be decisively answered. By whom? The Department of New Yorker Verification<\/a>, which is now accepting formal applications.<\/p>\n

On its website, the DNYV explains that it \u201cexists to answer \u2014 on the record, and by evidence \u2014 a question the city has argued about for 400 years. What makes a New Yorker? Residence is an address. The title is earned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franz Aliquo, a Bayside-born, Roosevelt Island-raised creative director and artist who\u2019s been organizing participatory hijinks around NYC and beyond since the late 1990s, currently runs all aspects of the department. He built the site this summer, inspired by native New Yorkers who are \u201cdicks\u201d and gatekeep the New Yorker identity, including current Los Angeles resident Jennifer Lopez and himself. In a viral June Subway Takes video<\/a>, she declared, \u201cYou have to be born in New York to be a New Yorker\u201d and the conversation it spurred also inspired the site\u2019s creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, there should be someone or something that can decide who’s a New Yorker, because otherwise there\u2019s too many different theories of what qualifies. Why not have an agency that decides it for everybody?\u201d Aliquo explained. Also, \u201c\u200aI like the idea of having an agency that initially has absolutely no power, but if people use it, then they are giving me their power, and then I can be the one that decides who’s a New Yorker or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The website itself is straightforward in its design and very convincingly looks like a City website \u2014 a bit too convincingly, in fact.<\/p>\n

So far, the only applicant has been a rackets investigator from the Brooklyn district attorney\u2019s office who found the site\u2019s verisimilitude to be potentially problematic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me what I was doing was \u2018a little shady\u2019 and encouraged me to \u2018change some stuff.\u2019 So I changed some stuff,\u201d said Aliquo.<\/p>\n

The DNYV homepage now states \u201cNot the City of New York\u201d at the bottom, and has a reminder that \u201cActual Official websites use nyc.gov\u201d (as opposed to DNYV\u2019s .nyc) at the top.<\/p>\n

But just like on a city agency site, you have to submit documents to the DNYV to get your license. To prove your New York authenticity, Aquilo requires applicants to show they \u201ccame of age\u201d in the city. As proof, Aliquo accepts high school transcripts, signed affidavits from parents, teachers, friends, bodega owners and \u201canyone on the block.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aliquo is still finishing the application system for determining if current city residents not born in the boroughs are New Yorkers or not. \u201cThat should be live in probably a couple of weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Once completed, that application will involve testifying to various point-coded life facts and experiences: Every year of NYC residency is worth 50 points, for a maximum of 500 points. Individuals also must report at least 250 \u201csuffering points\u201d for enduring Big Apple nightmares like getting bed bugs, getting scabies, getting mugged, waking up early to move a car for alternate-side parking (\u201cthat\u2019s not gonna give you a lot of points though\u201d) and falling into a subway grate and getting attacked by a rat (\u201cthat\u2019s a lot of points\u201d).<\/p>\n

For those who accrue 1,000 or more points or can prove they were born here, thus meeting \u201cthe stringent standards of being a New Yorker,” Aliquo said, “I will press the verify button, and you\u2019ll get sent a totally sweet PDF certificate that you can frame, and a digital ID,\u201d free of charge.<\/p>\n

Aliquo has so far made two honorary IDs and certificates, for J. Lo and his late friend and photographer Ricky Powell<\/a>, whom Aliquo called \u201ca solid New Yorker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the awarded certificate never expires, the department also maintains the ability to revoke verification if the individual is found to be disrespectful, racist, or otherwise hateful of the City and its people. This goes for natives, as well as transplants. \u201cA person raised in a borough who holds the City’s people in contempt is recorded as a person from New York, but not a New Yorker,\u201d declares the site\u2019s Code of Conduct page<\/a>. \u201cGeography is an accident. Respect is a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aliquo plans to have a list of New Yorkers who\u2019ve had their verification revoked. In doing this, he hopes to encourage respect. Though he knows his verifications are not city-sanctioned, he seeks the approval of one very official New Yorker.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200aUltimately, I just really want Mamdani to say something.\u200aI’d like him to apply,\u201d Aliquo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For those who weren\u2019t born and raised in New York City, how long must you live in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-362854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}