NYC NOW - Staten Island’s North Shore and the Future of New York’s 11th District

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

A state Supreme Court judge has ruled that New York’s 11th Congressional District unlawfully dilutes the political power of Black and Latino voters, triggering a high stakes redistricting battle with national implications. At the center is Staten Island’s North Shore, a denser and more diverse part of the borough that some residents say has more in common with Lower Manhattan than with the rest of Staten Island. WNYC’s Brigid Bergin reports on the lawsuit and what a potential redraw could mean for representation in Congress and for the future of the borough itself.

Hey everyone, welcome to NYC Now. I'm Elizabeth Shui. There's a redistricting fight brewing on Staten Island's North Shore, after a judge ruled the current congressional map disenfranchises black and Latino voters. Now, some residents are debating whether they belong politically with lower Manhattan instead of the rest of the borough. We'll explain what's at stake, but first, here's what's happening around the city. Mayor Zoran Mamdani has named five new members to the Rent Guidelines Board, including a new chair.

Deagan determined whether rents are frozen for about a million rent-stabilized apartments. The nine-member panel votes each year on how much landlords can raise rents. Mumdani campaigned on a pledge to, quote, freeze the rent, but he can't order that himself. The board makes that decision. Landlord groups say increases are needed to cover rising costs. Ten advocates say many renters are struggling and need relief. The new board will cast its first vote later this year. NYPD data shows that major crimes on the subway have increased 17% in the first five weeks of the year

compared to the same period last year. Both the NYPD and crime data experts say that dangerously cold temperatures have brought more people and more crime into the subways. Here's Paul Reaping, a public safety researcher with a nonprofit Vital City. I think that it makes complete sense, like a logical sense that perhaps like people who are committing these crimes are more likely to go underground right now, comparatively to be above ground because it's just warmer. Crime outside of subways during the same period is down 7.5%.

The increase in transit crime is another weather challenge for Mayor Mammondani, who's also facing criticism after a number of New Yorkers died during the recent cold. City lawmakers and budget watchdogs are pushing back against Mayor Moundani's budget ultimatum, even including some of his supporters. He says the more than five years, billion dollar budget gap must be closed by raising income taxes on the rich and corporations, which requires approval in Albany. If that doesn't happen, Mamdani says he'll be forced to raise property taxes. Councilmember Lincoln Wrestler supports Momdani's plan to tax the rich, but he says

he doesn't think raising property taxes is the only alternative. The city council has the authority to increase property taxes, it's not the thing that we want to do. It's not the optimal choice. And we'll be looking at every option to try and avoid that. The council will conduct its own review of city finances ahead of the budget oversight hearings next month. A final budget agreement is due by July 1st. Up next, a redistricting fight is unfolding on Staten Islands North Shore

that some say highlights disparities in the borough. More on that, after the break. I'm Jena Pierre. A state Supreme Court judge has ruled that New York's 11th Congressional District violates the state constitution by diluting the political power of black and Hispanic residents. And that has set off a redistricting fight over how Staten Island is represented in Congress. And questions about whether the island's North Shore has more in common with Manhattan than it does the rest of Staten Island.

WNYC's Bridget Bergen has been talking to residents along the North Shore about what, is like on their corner of the Rock. What's up, Bridget? Hey, Janay. So can you explain this lawsuit to us? It was filed back in October, and it was challenging the boundaries of the 11th Congressional District. A lower court judge ruled that the boundary lines were unconstitutional. The judge found that they actually disenfranchise black and Latino voters by diluting their votes.

And a majority of those voters live in the North Shore of Staten Island. He ordered that the district should be redrawn. There's a state commission that's responsible for drawing the congressional districts. But Republicans immediately appealed. And they actually appealed to both of the state's higher courts and warned that they would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And that's what they've done. So, yeah, Bridget, I remember there were a lot of court fights about redistricting back in New York a few years ago. What's the big deal with this one?

So, you know, this is a district that's represented by the only Republican member of New York City's congressional delegation, a woman named Nicole Malia Takas. And it really highlights just how much different the North Shore is from the rest of Staten Island. At the same time, we're seeing cases about redistricting play out across the country. There are cases in Texas, California, Florida. It's really, you know, kind of like this redistricting arms race where Democrats and Republicans are. basically pulling every trick out of the book to try and skew the maps in their favor because they want to take control of the House in these midterm elections. And with control of the House hanging in the balance, President Trump isn't mincing words about what a Republican loss could mean for him. You got to win the midterms. Because if we don't win the midterms, it's just going to be, I mean, they'll find a reason to impeach me. I'll get impeached. And I definitely thought, you know, gerrymandering was considered a bad thing, right? Yeah, except now with the Supreme Court opening the door to basically this type of gamesmanship,

it's just become a part of political life. You know, but we have to caution that there's a really strong chance that New York might get knocked out of being a player in this redistricting battle because of the timing of this court fight. I spoke with Jeff Weiss. He's sort of the local redistricting guru over at New York Law School. He runs a redistricting institute there. he said we're basically watching a national turf war play out state by state. Well, you know, we're seeing the national mid-decade redistricting wars play out, district by district, state by state.

And New York has become, you know, one of those states in play. So from what you've told me, it's obvious to me that the Democrats have brought this case. But what exactly do they want here? Yeah, it was filed by four Democratic voters, two big law firms, but the name to note is the Elias Group. And that is a law firm led by Mark Elias. Okay. Yeah, Mark Elias is basically this hot shot Democratic lawyer. You know, he's worked for a couple of Democratic presidential candidates.

You know, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit actually made a suggestion. They proposed changing the district lines to combine Staten Island with lower Manhattan. And that's because there have been demographic shifts that have made their populations more similar. Okay. what does the North Shore and Lower Manhattan have in common? The plaintiffs would argue that it would give Black and Latino residents in the North Shore an opportunity to actually elect a candidate of their choice, which they've been unsuccessful in doing in recent elections, as opposed to the way the district is currently drawn, which is all of Staten Island combined with a portion of South Brooklyn, which they argue is diluting the votes of these Black and Latino voters. And can you describe the North Shore for us? When you think of Staten Island, you might think suburbs, you might think cars.

The North Shore is different from that. This neighborhood St. George, where I was, you're right near the Staten Island ferry. It's much denser. You've got apartment buildings and Nica complexes, along with some single-family homes. There's a lot of diversity. So why don't I just take you there and introduce you to some of the people I met? Hey. I'm from a podcast.

Yeah, a radio station. Sort of like an old-fashioned podcast. I met a woman named Bao Chin Keen. She's about 40 years old. She told me she is not into politics, but she knows her own experience. And what she thinks is different between the North Shore and the rest of Staten Island.

And as I was talking to her, she was with some friends. They duck into a liquor store. And I asked her, you know, what was it like to live there? I mean, what do you think about this area? Oh, I look at this. like Gotham City.

Tell me more. I feel like it's Gotham City because there's a mixture of everything down here. I know people watch D.C. because you got the theater. It's like they're trying to build like upper class down here, but it's look at it.

I just feel like I'm living in Gotham City. When you say Gotham City, yeah. We need a Batman. We could all use a Batman. Yeah. I mean, because what she's staying there, Janais, is she needs a hero, right? Yeah.

So do you feel? like this area doesn't get the kind of support other parts of the city get? This park gets too much attention to be honest. It's too quiet on the other side of the island. So much stuff going underneath their noses, they don't even know. Because they're so paying attention to everything else that's really going on. There's a lot of action going down here, especially with some of the police and some of them are just aggressive. I feel like some of them abuse their badges. You got the good ones. And then you got the ones that just, oh, this is why you became a cop, that that was.

was your deal? Because you just wanted to hide behind a badge, you know? I mean, this is where Eric Garner died, right? Yeah, that was sad. Wow. All right. So tell me, why are black and Latino people more concentrated on the North Shore than the rest of Staten Island? So there were some experts who submitted evidence in this case. And part of what they found is there's a history of racial segregation and really redlining of neighbor. and Staten Island that is part of the reason why so many black and Latino residents are concentrated

in the North Shore and the Staten Island Expressway, that's another part of it. It serves as, you know, this geographic dividing line that just slices the North Shore off from the rest of Staten Island. So people think of the rest of Staten Island in kind of two different ways. There's the Mid Island and then the South Shore. In both cases, the population tends to be much whiter, more Republican, you know, Staten Island is the only borough in all five boroughs, Jeanne, that voted for Trump all three times he was on the ballot. In each of those cases, Trump won everywhere in Staten Island except the North Shore. Yeah, there's a huge difference between those areas. Yeah, exactly.

So you mentioned you talked to people who were new to Staten Island. Why did they move there? Well, Jenae, I mean, we have talked about the affordability crisis in the city, you know, many, many, many times. And it is real for people who are trying to find a place to live, who are trying to buy their first place. It's mostly younger families. People who like us were looking to buy a place, but found Manhattan and Brooklyn completely unaffordable. I talked to this couple, Janos Martin and Christina Gonzalez. They moved from Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively, as a couple to live in the North Shore.

It was the only part of Staten Island they would consider. They're both really active Democrats, but they're also both people of color, and they wanted to live in a community that had a flourishing community of people of color. And so that's part of the reason that they ended up on the North Shore of Staten Island. Just down the street, I could go to an African grocery store,

a Mexican grocery store, a South Asian grocery store, and just get ingredients from all sorts of cuisines. That is how I think many of us think of what New York City is, but not necessarily what we think of is Staten Island. And so part of the issue, I think, in this particular lawsuit, is related to, you know, the votes of black and Latino and Asian voters being diluted the way the district is drawn, the 11th congressional district.

It's interesting. Christina brought up the immigrant owned businesses where people do their shopping around here because we moved here. not long before the migrant crisis debates around that started. And the tenor of that on Staten Island was incredibly racist, hostile. I think at the time there were only a few dozen African men who were sort of waylaid here at a former school. And they had these massive protest campouts where they would just say these terrible things, I think more Mid-Iland.

And it was really striking to us, like, how could people be so hostile to immigrants? You know, the North Shore is so immigrant heavy that it seemed so inconsistent with the character reconciling these two different parts of the island. So in that way, I feel like the North Shore is culturally more connected to literally any other part of New York City, whether the bodegas and the random restaurants and dive bars and buses rolling in to pick people up. Like, it feels like the rest of New York City when you're in parts of this. in these neighborhoods. Which is why you chose to live here as opposed to

why, you know, you're not living. There are a young couple, you know, they're surrounded by young families, and the North Shore was a way for them to kind of get a foothold in a community that felt like the rest of the city more than the rest of Staten Island. Were they aware of their voting power?

Well, part of the reason they felt comfortable is because they wanted to be in a place where they felt like they had like-minded neighbors. You know, this is a community that Zoran Mamdani won with 60% of the vote. The rest of Staten Island went for Andrew Cuomo. You know, it's also a community that has other Democrats. There's a Democratic City Council member. There's a Democratic Assembly member.

And both Martin and Gonzalez, you know, they care about being active within their community. You know, they even talked about some of what's been happening in the community related to some of President Trump's immigration raids and some of the pushback and protests that they are seeing in the Mid-Iland and South Shore and how different they're seeing their own community react, how, you know, there's a neighborhood WhatsApp where they're trying to alert if there's any sense that they're, you know, ice at the Staten Island ferry so that they can help out their neighbors. We got word that ICE was at the St. George Terminal, and we just texted that chat, just to see if someone could go and have eyes, at least on the drivers, like,

the men that pick up people arriving home from the terminal. And we can do that here. I don't imagine that they're doing that in other parts of the island. While there are people who believe that ICE is doing atrocious things in other parts of the island, they're not as numerous as they are here. So Bridget, you mentioned that the district is currently represented by Nicole Malia Takas. How has she and her party responded to all of this? So Malia Takas and her party have appealed.

And as we mentioned, they've gone all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. But I think it's also important to remember how people within the district talk about how they feel about their representation. I took a trip to the first Central Baptist Church, which is in Stapleton, and spoke with a pastor there, Reverend Dr. Demetrius, Carolina. Good morning, welcome, welcome. Thank you. Good morning. It's interesting. He says, you know, he likes Meliataqa's personal.

He said she's visited the church, but he still feels like within his community, which is a predominantly black community, that they just aren't getting the representation that they deserve. Congresswoman Nicole Melianatakis is great. I love her as an individual. I do not always agree with the policies of her politics. And I think that it would be wise to have a congressperson who understands, who lives, who breathes what residents of the North Shore deal with on a daily basis. And I think that if we are one man, one vote, then our vote should count like anyone else's vote in the borough of Staten Island. If you look in the definition in the dictionary for underserved communities, the North Shore of Staten Island would come up. Because for years, this area in Staten Island has gone underserved and underdeveloped. I think that it is important that we have representation that reflects the community and so that we can have meaningful and lasting change. So what happens now?

Well, now we're going to wait and watch a little bit. The ruling that we talked about is currently under appeal. If it were to stand, then potentially this independent commission in New York would redraw the district lines. But what's more likely is that it's going to take one of these other potential routes through the courts. One option would be that this intermediate court could issue a ruling, which would likely get appealed to the state's highest court by either of the parties that felt like they were on the losing side. It could also get sent back down to the lower court with, you know, an instruction that there needs to be more fact-finding. One of the things that the judge did not do was say how the district should be redrawn. The judge just ordered the district to be redrawn.

Or the U.S. Supreme Court could weigh in. Experts tell me that it's not clear that there's really a federal question at the moment, so that seems potentially unlikely. but really, no matter what happens, there's a real key date that everyone is watching, which is February 24th. And that's when candidates who are running in their party's June congressional primary need to start gathering signatures from voters in their district to get on the ballot for the June primary. So if the 11th congressional district lines were to change, that could affect districts that are next to it. So it's more than just the parties in this case that are going to be watching to see, what happens next. This is something that has a lot of eyes and people are waiting for the final decision. All right, Bridget, I have to be honest. First of all, are you familiar with Kendrick Lamar?

I mean, I, of course, watched the halftime show the Super Bowl last year. Oh, that was definitely a good one to watch. But Kendrick Lamar and Drake had a big rap beef about two years ago. And Kendrick had a song called Not Like Us. And considering everything that you just broke down about the North Shore neighborhood and how it's unlike the rest of Staten Island, I can't help but think about it. I mean, I have to be honest, that song was in my head when we wrote the headline for this story. I knew it. I knew it. That's WMYC's Bridget Bergen. Thanks a lot, Bridget.

Thanks, Jeney. And thank you for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. See you next time.