Zohran Mamdani joined a long and strange New York City mayoral tradition Wednesday afternoon: navigating official encounters with British royals. Well, sort of: He mostly dodged having much to do with King Charles III on his official state visit, which the monarch began Monday in Washington, D.C. before descending upon Manhattan earlier this morning.
Mamdani did appear alongside Charles and other officials for a wreath-laying at the 9/11 Memorial this afternoon, before the King decamped to feed some chickens at an urban farm in Harlem. But overall, the mayor displayed little apparent interest in further dealings with the man. Asked by a reporter at an unrelated event on Monday about his plans for the visit, Mamdani confirmed his attendance at the wreath-laying and added firmly: "That will be the extent of my meeting with the king and with others who are present." At another event, the mayor added that if he were to speak to Charles privately, he would "probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond."
The image of a monarch coming face to face with the city's democratic socialist mayor is a particularly funny one. But there's really never been an easy answer for what New York City mayors are supposed to do with these people. Royal state visits are carefully negotiated by the British Foreign Office and the US State Department; mayors are, to some degree, swept along for the ride, and often these meetings have a distinct aura of unreality and even bewilderment. In 1939, Fiorello LaGuardia escorted King George VI to the futuristic World's Fair; in 1976, Abe Beame made Queen Elizabeth II an honorary citizen of the city and squired her around the Financial District among enormous lunchtime crowds; in 1989, Ed Koch turned up to meet Princess Diana at a black-tie gala, wearing a business suit. (He explained that he'd been at a town hall meeting in the Bronx.)
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