Zohran Mamdani, 34, just won the New York City mayor’s race in November 2025. It’s a big deal for a lot of reasons.
When he takes office on January 1, 2026, he’ll be the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian descent, and the first born in Africa. That’s three historic firsts in one go.
He ran on the stuff that actually keeps people up at night: rent being insane, housing shortages, crappy public transit, and the gap between rich and poor getting wider.
It clicked with a lot of voters, especially younger ones and longtime residents who are tired of the same old promises.
But right as everyone’s celebrating this milestone, a weird little history nerd fight popped up. Turns out the city might have been counting its mayors wrong for the last couple hundred years.
Some historian named Paul Hortenstine dug into old colonial records and found that a guy called Matthias Nicolls served two separate terms back in the 1670s (1672-73 and then again 1674-75). Official lists today only count him once. If you add that missing term back in, every mayor since then is off by one number.
That would make Mamdani the 112th mayor instead of the 111th.
The city’s official books, the Green Book, websites, everything still says 111th. City Hall knows about the research but hasn’t done anything about it yet. They’ve fixed this kind of thing before (back in 1937 they added a forgotten mayor to the list), but there’s no rush this time.
Realistically, it changes nothing about Mamdani’s job or power. He won fair and square. It’s just a question of whether the plaque on his desk and the history books should say 111 or 112.
Some people want the record fixed for accuracy. Others say it’s not worth the hassle and confusion. Either way, when he gets sworn in next month, he’ll probably just be called “Mayor Mamdani” and get to work.
The numbering thing will stay a fun footnote for history buffs, and maybe one day the city will quietly update the list. Or maybe not. Doesn’t really matter to the millions of New Yorkers who just voted for change.
