New York Magazine July 14-27, 2025

1 After the surprise victory of Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, New York featured a collection of cover stories about the city’s responses. David Freedlander spoke with the candidate about how he pulled it off (“The Great Upset,” June 30–July 13). The tech CEO Adam Nathan credited Mamdani’s focus on affordability: “It’s why Trump won too. And while I disagree with many of their solutions, this is the right template.” Comparing Mamdani with Mayor Eric Adams, commenter dnyc wrote, “There is absolutely zero chance a well-intentioned, yet competent neophyte will do worse than this.” Viviandarkbloom countered, “Adams may be incompetent, but he’s not constitutionally opposed to the profit motive, free markets, police, and private property. Mamdani is a wild-eyed radical numbskull.” Erinabanks replied, “People get so riled up by racism…

BEFORE LAUNCHING IN EARLY July what he promised would be an all-out effort, one he would see “through the end, to the final day,” to keep Zohran Mamdani from winning the mayor’s office, Republican political megadonor John Catsimatidis had a phone call with the Democratic nominee himself. “I said to him, ‘Look, you’re a very nice guy and, you know, a very smart guy,’ ” the 76-year-old billionaire owner of the Gristedes supermarket chain told me. “And he says to me, ‘Oh, when you get to know me, you might like me.’ ” Catsimatidis had called me from D.C., where he was attending the Senate confirmation hearing for Kimberly Guilfoyle’s nomination as ambassador to his beloved Greece. “I try to be a very civilized person. I’ve hired company executives for…

THE WALDORF ASTORIA, opened in 1931 and shuttered since 2017, is about to reopen after a renovation that combines museum-quality restoration with a back-to-bare-steel rehab. Artisans have matched faded paint colors in the Basildon Room, touched up painted ceilings in the Silver Corridor, and replaced brittle plaster reliefs in Peacock Alley. Upstairs, the 1,400 old rooms are completely gone, replaced by 375 hotel suites and 372 condos. The Art Deco behemoth hasn’t just been fixed up; the renovation architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill calculate that they transformed 96 percent of it. In effect, a new building has sprung up in the tattered carapace of an old one. The irony is that those who pay for a taste of vintage luxury by association will get the least of both. The…

WHENEVER Allegra Pinkowitz is working a shift at the Brandy Melville store in Soho, rehanging rows of low-slung sweats, pointelle camis, and caps that say NANTUCKET, she feels the stares beaming in on her. Little groups of younger girls—she says that “they’re usually in eighth grade, maybe freshmen”—stop short at the sight of her and start whispering. “I try to smile—like, ‘I don’t bite!’ ” she tells me on a recent Wednesday afternoon, gripping a Celsius at a Joe & the Juice in Soho. It used to rattle her. But now Pinkowitz understands that all these strangers want is a photo with her, or a compliment on their outfit, or even just to come up and confirm what they and their friends all know: “Are you that girl from TikTok?”…

BEFORE MY INTERVIEW with the lobbyist Ches (pronounced chess) McDowell, a Republican operative called me with a prediction: McDowell would mention his friendship with Donald Trump Jr. within five minutes. In reality, it took less than two. “Don Jr. and I own a farm together where we bear hunt,” McDowell told me when I asked about the 700-pound stuffed bear that greets visitors in the lobby of his firm, Checkmate Government Relations. Next to the bear is a chess table with a sign bearing the office Wi-Fi password: TRUMPWONTHREETIMES! In case I hadn’t caught the point, he later told me, “When Trump got shot, my first thought wasn’t, Oh no, a candidate for president has been shot. It was like, My friend’s dad has been shot.” McDowell is a big…

In May, I reorıented my algorithms to flood me with Canadian content, turned on push notifications from The Globe and Mail, and temporarily moved my family north of the border. For months, Donald Trump had been casually threatening to annex Canada and turn it into a state, adding insult to the injury of the trade war he was waging on the country. One prime minister resigned amid Trump’s bullying, and another was elected because voters thought he could stand up to him. In the ordinarily placid provinces, feelings of bewilderment, anxiety, and offense hardened into a defiant resolve against the United States. “Elbows up,” went the nation’s new hockey-inspired mantra. As a Montreal journalist told me, Americans were preoccupied with “12 different crises.” In Canada, this was the crisis. Anti-American…