Twenty Years Apart

In November 2018, City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer landed at JFK airport and picked up his phone. A reporter was calling: Amazon had just chosen Long Island City — his district — for its second headquarters. Three billion dollars in tax breaks for the richest company in the world, announced without his knowledge. Within 24 hours, he was holding a press conference against the deal.

Two months earlier and twelve miles south, a 26-year-old campaign manager named Zohran Mamdani was learning what it felt like to lose. His candidate, journalist Ross Barkan, had run a field-first State Senate campaign in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn — knocked thousands of doors, mobilized real grassroots energy. It wasn’t enough. Bay Ridge in 2018 looked a lot like Astoria had twenty years before: an old ethnic enclave, slowly changing, but not yet ready for the kind of progressive politics sweeping through western Queens.

Chapter 02 is a story about two campaigns and two neighborhoods separated by twelve miles and two months — but connected by the same question: how long does it take for a community to be ready for change? Jimmy spent twenty years building the relationships and credibility that made the Amazon fight possible. Zohran took the lessons from losing in Bay Ridge and carried them forward. And Tim stood outside at Jimmy’s press conference that cold November morning, thought about pitching an article, and went back to the bar.

This is an episode about distances — the ones that separate us, and the ones that bring us together.

In November 2018, Amazon announced it would build a second headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, subsidized by roughly $3 billion in tax incentives negotiated by Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. A coalition of local elected officials, unions, and grassroots organizations — including the Democratic Socialists of America, RWDSU, and the Alliance for a Greater New York — pushed back. On the final day of City Council hearings, Amazon refused to commit to remaining neutral if workers attempted to organize. It was a scandal. Two weeks later, on February 14, 2019, Amazon pulled out of the deal.

Not all of organized labor was opposed. 32BJ SEIU, a major building service workers’ union, supported HQ2, believing New York’s existing labor density could be leveraged to open the door to collective bargaining for Amazon workers.

Ross Barkan’s 2018 State Senate race, managed by Zohran Mamdani, tested whether the grassroots energy that had elected AOC in Astoria could work in a neighborhood on a different political timeline. They earned 42% of the vote on field work alone, but sent no mailers — a tactical decision Mamdani would learn from two years later when running for State Assembly. The Democrat who defeated Barkan in the primary went on to beat the Republican incumbent in the general, confirming that the district was winnable.

The episode draws a parallel between Amazon’s 2018 deal and piano manufacturer William Steinway’s 1872 effort to build a company town in Queens — relocating workers from the Lower East Side to escape union organizing. Steinway’s factory still operates in Astoria today, proudly union strong.