Zohran Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, securing 50.4 percent of the vote, in the race for New York’s mayor. He would be the first Muslim and South Asian mayor of the Big Apple.
“The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate,” Mamdani, 34, told the crowd at his election night rally. “I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim, I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologise for any of this.”
He continued: “New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change.”
However, despite his impressive victory, there are rumours that Zohran Mamdani will never actually become the 111th mayor of New York.
The speculation started with history enthusiast Paul Hortenstine, who suggested that a centuries-old error might mean Mamdani should technically be counted as New York City’s 112th mayor.
Hortenstine stumbled on the detail while researching ties between past city leaders and the slave trade. His findings, which have now been backed by other historians and several historical organizations, indicate that Matthias Nicolls, officially listed as the city’s sixth mayor, actually served two nonconsecutive terms. Nicolls, whose family settled in Long Island in the 1600s, held the office once in 1672 and again in 1675.
Just like with presidents who serve nonconsecutive terms, Nicolls’ return to office should have been counted twice.
His second stint was recorded only in the archive of Edmund Andros, New York’s colonial governor, which is why it was overlooked. By that logic, Mamdani would actually be the 112th mayor, not the 111th, with every mayor after the sixth off by one.
Hortenstine has since reached out to the mayor’s office to request a correction, noting, “This was in 1675,” and adding, “So then, when I later looked through the official list of the city, I noticed that they had missed this term.”
Hortenstine’s finding has been confirmed by a research conducted by historian Peter R. Christoph who wrote, “Edward I. Koch is the 105th Mayor of New York. The City Of New York Official Directory says so. So does The New York Times. But they are wrong: He is the 106th.”
In his 1989 essay, Record of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, Christoph added, “Not only is he misnumbered, but so is everyone else after Mayor No. Seven. It is a mind-boggling thought: 99 mayors misnumbered, most of them gone to the grave, secure in the knowledge of their place in history, but all of them numerically out of whack.
“How could such a thing happen?”
We are yet to see how New York lawmakers will respond to Hortenstine’s request.
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