Jordan Wright, a professional canvasser and sometime customer service representative, moved to Astoria shortly after his new mayor did, and is among the many in the neighborhood visibly thrilled about the prospect of living in the new era of Zohran Mamdani.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt reminds me, maybe, on like a smaller scale, of how I felt about Obama becoming president. You know, with Zohran being the first Muslim American [mayor]. That\u2019s revolutionary,\u201d said Wright, currently unemployed and speaking at length with the Chronicle inside a McDonald\u2019s on Steinway Street, shortly after Mamdani was publicly inaugurated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I see Zohran, I\u2019m like, yes, this is who we need. And I\u2019m going to be there with him the whole ride,\u201d promises Wright, who has been around a political campaign or two, having picked up some work canvassing for Andrea Gordillo\u2019s failed City Council campaign last year, over in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
In fact, Wright says, he had been on the verge of picking up a canvassing job from the campaign of the race\u2019s then-frontrunner, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when he spotted the changing headwinds surrounding his local assemblyman, whose career Wright admitted he had not been following in any sense until hearing about Mamdani\u2019s suddenly insurgent mayoral campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmbarrassed to say, I was actually going to work on Cuomo\u2019s campaign. Once I found out about Zohran and everything, I literally refused to do that,\u201d said Wright, now a loyal convert to the winning side. \u201cI love how he talks. I love what he represents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Describing himself as a lifelong Democrat, born in Brooklyn and raised in Queens, Wright says Mamdani got the better of his high-profile meeting with President Trump.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis presentation, his demeanor, he didn\u2019t back down,\u201d said Wright. \u201cHe still was maintaining who he was. He didn\u2019t switch up. He maintained exactly who he was and his position and his convictions. And that\u2019s what I feel like Zohran represents. He represents everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before his mayoral campaign, Mamdani bested five-term incumbent Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas by fewer than 500 votes for a seat in the state Legislature in 2020.<\/p>\n
Gabi, who does operations work for a nonprofit and declined to give her last name when interviewed by the Chronicle at a nearby coffee shop, said she remembered looking up Mamdani\u2019s positions shortly after moving to the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he had some good points when he was running,\u201d she said. After he won, \u201cI started getting his newsletter and I liked the way that the writing was in that, and I thought it seemed personable, from someone who actually cares. I love that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of his supporters sounded realistic about the difficulty of enacting Mamdani\u2019s sweeping promises of greater affordability and instead appeared to appreciate the meaning behind the larger gesture of electing him. Things felt different, they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think his election is one of the few glimmers of hope from last year,\u201d said Alex, a software engineer who moved to Astoria last year, interviewed by the Chronicle in a nearby park.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, for me, I thought it was good enough of a sign or a message just electing him. I will take that. I\u2019m hoping it doesn\u2019t hurt,\u201d said Alex. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of expectations and I think anyone looking for a quick fix will be quite a bit disappointed, but it\u2019s very hard to get things done in this climate. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll do his best. I think it\u2019s at least a welcome change to have someone actually trying to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright, the canvasser, still remembers the victory speech Mamdani gave shortly after winning \u2014 or at least some of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forgot exactly what the thing that he said was, but I remember the feeling of the words,\u201d he said. \u201cI was just like, \u2018Yes. That\u2019s what I want to see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Wright is excited about free buses too, one of the signature promises animating Mamdani\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an atrocity,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have people living paycheck to paycheck, getting from point A to point B. I know for me, even recently, there\u2019s been times when I haven\u2019t had money to pay for it. And I had to do what I have to do because, maybe, I\u2019m trying to get to work. You know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
For some, the notion of Mamdani superseded even consideration of the possible; in a world of diminished ambition and decades of political cynicism and an overall poverty of the public imagination, it was enough that Mamdani existed, that he would try, publicly and very hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI moved to New York in 2012 and Zohran moved me to register to vote in this state for the first time,\u201d said Sarah Cook, a paralegal who made her way to Astoria in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited. I doubt he\u2019ll meet all of his campaign promises but \u2018campaign\u2019 might as well mean \u2018aspirational.\u2019 I bet no significant, living elected official has ever kept all of their promises. Our president sure hasn\u2019t,\u201d said Cook. \u201cZohran\u2019s efforts to move New York in a humane and equitable direction are bound to be net good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time for change. It\u2019s time to see someone new and someone different and someone, especially so young, whose values appear to be so good,\u201d said Marta, a paralegal who declined to give her last name and has lived in Astoria for about 18 years, interviewed by the Chronicle at a coffee shop on Steinway.<\/p>\n
Sophia, her child, aged 12, was more critical, and reported that Mamdani would be facing some opposition among certain gifted elementary school students in Astoria to some plans announced during his candidacy. Those entail reversing the Adams administration\u2019s move to maintain the gifted program for elementary school students, which previous mayor Bill de Blasio promised to phase out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all upset about the gifted program,\u201d reported Sophia, who says that it\u2019s the talk of the schoolyard.<\/p>\n
Matt Scho, a high school history teacher in Astoria and Mamdani supporter, interviewed by the Chronicle while photographing his dog, said he wants to see Mamdani use the Department of Education to develop \u201ca clearer stance on how schools should be supporting the large immigrant population\u201d in the schools in the area. That, he says, is something the DOE under just-departed Mayor Eric Adams shied away from.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur schools don\u2019t seem to have a collective response,\u201d said Scho.<\/p>\n
Mamdani\u2019s critics told the Chronicle they were maintaining a kind of skeptical, distant, if wary hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a fan of anything that he\u2019s done, because I don\u2019t know anything that he\u2019s done. And he represented Astoria. I haven\u2019t seen anything,\u201d said Lisa Pitts, a part-time program assistant who has lived her entire life around the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, and was among the million New Yorkers who voted against Mamdani. Pitts declined to say whom she voted for, with opposition to the Assemblyman split last November between Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of the platform that he ran on is not attainable, it\u2019s not new ideas. But I\u2019m still willing to give him a chance. I know he can\u2019t do any worse than Adams,\u201d said Pitts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to give him room so that if he does well, then I\u2019m happy for him,\u201d said Cal Vargas, who works in cybersecurity and recently moved to Astoria. He said he didn\u2019t vote in the last election at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to deliver, or anyone could. I think just politics in general in New York are so ingrained in a specific way of doing things and you can fight that system,\u201d said Vargas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to see someone not apathetic about trying to fix things,\u201d said Ryan Jones, an audio engineer and Mamdani supporter.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan he raise his taxes? Can he do those things? It\u2019s going to be a fight. It\u2019s going to be a hell of a fight. A lot of things that he wants to do are going to have a lot of pushback. But at least he\u2019s somebody that\u2019s trying. Because I know Adams didn\u2019t do anything,\u201d said Jones, interviewed while walking his dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate how he\u2019s taking the time to actually get to know locals,\u201d said Natalie Rice, who worked, briefly, for the de Blasio administration, as a sous-chef at Gracie Mansion. (\u201cHe would always ask for lots of popcorn,\u201d Rice remembers of the former mayor.) Interviewed by the Chronicle inside a different Astoria coffee shop, Rice said she was supporting Mamdani too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want him to make an example of bad landlords,\u201d said Rice, who lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, like Mamdani had been since moving to the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was at the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden on the day he got elected. It was like some of the best energy I\u2019ve been around in a long time,\u201d recalled an ebullient Lydia Winter Grosswendt, a part-time bartender and actor who moved to Astoria last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cA year ago, basically, no one knew who he was, and now everybody does and I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to change because people know his name now. I think that he\u2019s the kind of person who will stay consistent and stick to his word and do what he can and try his best … I\u2019m into socialism, I\u2019m into everything that he\u2019s talking about.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m mostly hoping for is that people start to see more hope and feel like it\u2019s possible to create change. I think just the general attitude of New Yorkers is going to change,\u201d said Grosswendt, still beaming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan Wright, a professional canvasser and sometime customer service representative, moved to Astoria shortly after his new mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[3814,609,9,24,63,87,122,124,123,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-95729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-astoria","9":"tag-government","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-nyc","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95729","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=95729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}