{"id":12992,"date":"2026-08-01T07:21:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/gop-candidate-blasts-mamdani-for-erasing-little-italy-from-map\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T07:21:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T04:21:36","slug":"gop-candidate-blasts-mamdani-for-erasing-little-italy-from-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/gop-candidate-blasts-mamdani-for-erasing-little-italy-from-map\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Candidate Blasts Mamdani for Erasing Little Italy from Map"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bruce Blakeman<\/strong>, currently serving as Nassau County Executive, on Friday condemned Mayor <strong>Zohran Mamdani<\/strong> for excluding Little Italy from a map titled &#8220;New York City Immigrant Enclaves,&#8221; according to <strong>Marie Pohl<\/strong> and <strong>Victor Nava<\/strong> writing in <em>New York Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The map showcases 30 immigrant neighborhoods across New York&#8217;s five boroughs, including Koreatown in Manhattan, Little Pakistan in Brooklyn, and Little Yemen in The Bronx. However, the famous Italian-American enclave in Lower Manhattan was conspicuously absent, triggering widespread criticism since early July.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at an event in the overlooked neighborhood, Blakeman argued the exclusion extended beyond Little Italy. He pointed out that Little Odessa in Brooklyn, Greek-American Astoria, and Irish-American Hell&#8217;s Kitchen were also left off the map.<\/p>\n<p>The Nassau County executive characterized the omission as part of a deliberate approach by Mamdani of <em>denigrating the immigrants that came here before and built this city<\/em>, adding that the mayor has no respect for those who hold different views.<\/p>\n<p>Blakeman cited additional examples to support his claim of a pattern. Mamdani canceled the traditional Puerto Rican Day breakfast at Gracie Mansion last month, declined to attend the Israel Day parade in May, and skipped the installation of New York&#8217;s new archbishop, <strong>Ronald Hicks<\/strong>, in February.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mike Crispi<\/strong>, president of the Italian American Civil Rights League, addressed approximately 100 attendees holding signs reading &#8220;Little Italy Forever.&#8221; He emphasized that Italian Americans throughout the tri-state area\u2014from Arthur Avenue to Staten Island, Howard Beach, and Queens\u2014felt insulted by the map&#8217;s exclusion.<\/p>\n<p>Crispi declared that Italian Americans have contributed enormously to the city and will not allow their community&#8217;s identity to be stripped away.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month, Mamdani attempted to deflect responsibility for the controversial map onto his predecessor, former Mayor <strong>Eric Adams<\/strong>. The current mayor claimed the map was originally created by the previous administration in 2023, and his office merely added a few additional neighborhoods after inheriting it.<\/p>\n<p>Mamdani acknowledged the map does not represent an exhaustive list of the more than 200 ethnic enclaves in the city, and promised future revisions would include Little Italy.<\/p>\n<p>The event was sponsored by Turning Point USA. At its conclusion, Sicilian artist <strong>Sergio Furmari<\/strong> unveiled a statue of <strong>Charlie Kirk<\/strong> that he intends to display in Times Square on September 10, marking the one-year anniversary of the conservative activist&#8217;s assassination.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New York Post<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman accused New York City&#8217;s socialist mayor of deliberately excluding Little Italy and other traditional immigrant neighborhoods from an official map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":12991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[9030,5301,10630,10629,10628,2448,2638],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-12992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-gop","tag-immigrant-enclaves","tag-italian-american-heritage","tag-little-italy","tag-new-york-city","tag-zohran-mamdani","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12992"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=12992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}