Back To the Future: “Affordability” Wins On The Lower East Side and Elsewhere
by John McNamara
Down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Grand Street the words of Sidney Hillman are inscribed in stone outside the coop complex named for the legendary labor leader.
“We want a better America,” the quote goes, “an America that will give its citizens, first of all, a higher and higher standard of living so that no child will starve for food in the midst of plenty. We want to have an America where the inventions of science will be at the disposal of every American family…..”
Hillman, the 20th century labor leader and New Dealer, and Zohran Mamdani, the upstart state legislator and leading Democratic candidate for Mayor, are worlds apart generationally and otherwise, but their ideals seem very much in sync in 2025.
From the Lower East Side arose sweat shop reforms 100 years ago and the labor movement led by Hillman’s garment workers that led eventually to worker protections, social security, unemployment insurance and a social safety net now under assault in Washington.
By my reckoning Mamdani’s “affordability” platform of living wages, fair taxes and rents, accessible childcare and transportation is a 21st Century version of the New Deal of the 20th century. Other Mayoral candidates like Andrew Cuomo and City Comptroller Brad Lander addressed affordability issues and fending off Trump authoritarianism too, but not in a way that mobilized the Democratic base and the higher turnouts of the young and working-class New Yorkers that Mamdani’s campaign pulled off on June 24.
The youthful Mamdani, who went to Bronx High School of Science and graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine, is the son of upper middle-class parents. His mother is a successful filmmaker and father a professor at Columbia University. They met in Uganda where Zohran was born before the family moved to NYC when their son was 7. In college Mamdani helped co-found a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and as a Muslim American and state legislator it is a cause he embraces in a city where an estimated 750,000 Muslims live.
Mamdani’s “inexperience” and “pie in the sky” Democratic Socialist ideas were fodder for the campaign of former Governor Cuomo whose corporate-backed comeback promoted his ability “to get things done” hoping voters would ignore his forced resignation over sexual harassment charges and other improprieties four years ago. Cuomo, however, shamefully with his PAC millions went after Mamdani’s unapologetic support for Palestinian rights by adding fuel to Islamophobic attacks against Mamdani that conflate antisemitism with opposition to the Israeli government for its human rights violations at a time when antisemitic violence is on the rise and in the aftermath of Hamas’ atrocities on October 7, 2023.
Against the threats and attacks Mamdani is steering the debate back to “all politics is local” and his affordability platform, saying he will be a Mayor for all New Yorkers including the city’s close to one million Jewish residents.
A compelling and unifying story for New York City coming out of Primary Day was the Mamdani-Lander coalition formed in a contest decided by rank-choice voting. The Muslim Mamdani urged his supporters to pick Lander for second and Lander, the city’s highest ranking Jewish elected official, returned the favor.
In his campaign Lander called out “cynical approaches from opportunistic politicians” in a not-so-subtle denunciation of the demonizing of Mamdani.
“Antisemitism is rising, and we must fight it,” Lander told a West Side Institutional Synagogue audience. “But we must not fall for cynical approaches from opportunistic politicians – in some cases, politicians who aren’t even Jewish, trying to demonize leaders who are. Like when Donald Trump smeared Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in American history. Or when Andrew Cuomo, who has been sued for antisemitic discrimination and caught using anti-Jewish slurs, came to this very shul and attacked me, the highest-ranking Jew in New York City government, trying to weaponize antisemitism for his own political gain – right out of the Donald Trump playbook.”
The Mamdani-Lander coalition showed up on Primary Day upending the favored Cuomo. In the 65th Assembly District (Chinatown and the Lower East Side) where passersby see Sidney Hillman’s “we want a better America” inscription every day Mamdani swamped Cuomo 10,108 to 5,791.
If Mamdani wins the mayoralty that alliance with Lander may be the governing coalition for New York City over the next four years bringing the Jewish and Muslim communities closer together.
John McNamara is a Ward 4 Alderman and the New Britain Common Council Majority Leader.
NB Politicus 