A look back at New York City’s first flirtation with socialism City Journal•By Joseph Burns About Published by the Manhattan Institute, City Journal covers urban policy. Pedestrians walk past businesses in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, circa 1935. (Bettmann) Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s 112th mayor and a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has shown no signs of wavering in his commitment to socialism.