Zohran Mamdani Is Moving to the Upper East Side
With the current state of housing as it is, there’s not much that could get a New Yorker to give up their rent-stabilized $2,300 apartment. Of course, there’s always the possibility that you’ll get a new job that will come with a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom historic mansion. In that case, you should probably take the new digs — Zohran Mamadani is.
The mayor-elect announced on Monday that he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, will be moving into Gracie Mansion once his term begins in January. In a statement posted to Instagram, Mamdani shared that, while he and Duwaji will miss their home in Astoria, they opted to make the move for their “family’s safety and the importance of dedicating all of my focus on enacting the affordability agenda New Yorkers voted for.”
In terms of security (and space), Gracie Mansion is definitely an upgrade. Mamdani is downgrading when it comes to neighborhood appeal, though. He lovingly described “the endless Adeni chai, the spirited conversations in Spanish, Arabic, and every language in between, and the aromas of seafood and shawarma drifting down the block” in Astoria. There’s not much of that at the mayor’s house — Mamdani will be moving to the farthest possible bit of the Upper East Side, past Yorkville and abutting the East River.
While Mamdani’s new spot is not in the liveliest neighborhood, he’ll still have some exciting new neighbors. Eric Adams famously insisted that Gracie Mansion is haunted, so at least Mamdani and Duwaji will be sharing their new home with all the ghosts of the building’s past. You never know, maybe they’ll have some good ideas about universal child care.
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