Mayor Zohran Mamdani caught some Italian heat Wednesday after releasing a map of the Big Apple’s ethnic enclaves that includes places like Little Palestine — but ignores historic Little Italy and other notable Irish and Jewish immigrant nabes.
The map, titled “New York City Immigrant Enclaves,” highlights 30 areas across the five boroughs, ranging from Koreatown in Manhattan to Little Pakistan in Brooklyn and Little Yemen in The Bronx.
But critics were quick to roast the socialist mayor for overlooking the city’s very own “original Little” — a nationally recognized historic district that brought you everything from meatballs to the mafia.
The Mayor’s map of New York City’s immigrant neighborhoods.New York City Tourism + Conventions “No italians. … Give me a break,” one observerfumed on X Wednesday.
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said snubbing Little Italy, which was established in the late 19th century, was a major flub.
“They were able to get a Little Bhod-Tibet in there, but what about the original ‘Little neighborhood,’ Little Italy?” Ariola told The Post.
“And what about areas like Woodlawn, in the Bronx, which are home to plenty of Irish immigrants? Do the Irish and Italians not count for the Mayor’s office?”
Joseph Scelsa, founder of the Italian-American Museum on Mulberry Street, called the exclusion of Italian-American enclaves a “terrible mistake.”
“To respect one is to respect all,” he said.
“Italian-Americans are still a major population in New York City. To not recognize where Italian-Americans came from and settled is a terrible mistake. I don’t understand why Little Italy isn’t included. I hope it’s an oversight.”
The map, which appears to have been released in May, also includes Little Guyana in Queens, Little Mexico in Staten Island and Little Dominican Republic in Manhattan.
Kevin McCabe, a former City Council chief of staff, said the map shamefully leaves out generations of folks hailing from The Emerald Isle.
“I guess they never heard of Woodlawn or Sunnyside but that’s OK, the Irish are everywhere, the way it’s supposed to be,” McCabe, an original Working Families Party operative, told The Post.
“The British Empire at the height of its powers couldn’t cancel the Irish, I’m not too worried about a couple of ill-informed bureaucrats.”
Others slammed Mamdani for ignoring neighborhoods such as Brooklyn’s Borough Park, which is home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities outside of Israel.
“The Mayor’s Office made a map of NYC’s immigrant enclaves: Little Africa, Little Poland, Little Palestine. But they just couldn’t figure out how to represent 11% of the city. Couldn’t decipher where the Jews are from,” writer Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidtfumed on X.
“Huge riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
State Assemblyman Kalman Yeger, who represents heavily Orthodox Jewish southern Brooklyn, said it’s not the first time Hizzoner has tried to “erase” the Jews.
“Mr. Mamdani’s erasing Jews is an essential part of his brand. No surprise,” Yeger said.
In a statement, a City Hall spokesperson said the map wasn’t designed to highlight religious enclaves in the Big Apple, adding it instead “highlights neighborhoods in New York City that have substantial foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world.”
“It does not highlight religious groups,” the spokesperson told The Post.
“Little Odessa, which is featured in the map, has a substantial Jewish population.”
The guide is designed for tourists to experience some of the vibrant cultures in New York City, but is not considered a full list of “all of the rich diversity across the city,” the spokesperson added.
“The immigrant enclave series began during the [Eric] Adams’ administration, and we are planning to add more neighborhoods in the upcoming months.”
The late-stage miss is “surprising,” Stifel analysts said, given that Wainua’s mechanism of silencing transthyretin protein expression has previously proven effective.
AstraZeneca and Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ antisense therapeutic Wainua failed to show significant cardiovascular benefit in a Phase 3 study of patients with transthyretin-mediated amyloid cardiomyopathy.
The companies didn’t provide specific data in their news release Thursday morning, revealing only that Wainua, when added to standard of care, “did not meet the primary efficacy endpoint,” which was a composite of cardiovascular (CV) mortality and recurrent CV clinical events vs. placebo after up to 140 weeks of follow-up.
The failure is “surprising,” Stifel analysts told investors in a Thursday note. “The study here was expected to work since we know TTR [transthyretin] silencers are effective,” the firm added. H.C. Wainwright, in a June 25 note, ascribed a “75% probability of approval” for Wainua in transthyretin-mediated amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM).
Wainua in ATTR-CM was “a key valuation driver” for Ionis, Stifel noted Thursday, adding that the disappointing outcome is “obviously a negative” for the biotech. Ionis is down 20% in premarket U.S. trading, while AstraZeneca took a 9% hit on the British stock exchange.
The partners will conduct a full analysis of the results and present their findings at an upcoming medical congress next month.
Wainua was first approved in December 2023 for the treatment of polyneuropathy associated with hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis (hATTR-PN). The drug was originally discovered and developed by Ionis and came to AstraZeneca in December 2021 when the pharma dropped $200 million upfront for the right to jointly advance and commercialize the product. This deal also included a $485 million payment upon regulatory approvals and up to $2.9 billion in sales-related milestones, plus royalties.
The companies ran CARDIO-TTRansform to assess the therapeutic value of Wainua in patients with ATTR-CM. The trial enrolled more than 1,400 patients who were already receiving available standard of care, and who were then randomly assigned to receive add-on Wainua or placebo.
AstraZeneca and Ionis on Thursday made no mention of their regulatory strategy going forward for Wainua in ATTR-CM. However, Stifel in its note said that “trying to approach regulators here on these data would seem like a stretch.”
CARDIO-TTRansform’s disappointing result comes after BridgeBio last week released posthoc data suggesting that its transthyretin stabilizer Attruby preserved kidney function in patients with ATTR-CM—a benefit that analysts say could set it apart from other therapies in this space. BridgeBio is up nearly 10% in pre-market trading Thursday.
The kidney benefit “adds differentiation” to Attruby, Jefferies said in a July 2 note, adding that the magnitude of renal improvements even “looks competitive to kidney-targeted therapies.
“Cardiorenal protective effects seem distinct from other therapies,” Jefferies added, pointing to Pfizer’s Vyndaqel/Vyndamax. “Ultimately, slowing down kidney progression could improve hospitalization/mortality outcomes.”
Meanwhile, the failure of Ionis and AstraZeneca’s trial is “absolutely the most complicated possible outcome” for another key competitor, Alnylam, which markets Amvuttra for ATTR-CM, Stifel wrote.
On the one hand, “not having [Wainua] launch in TTR-CM in 2027 should represent a significant tailwind for vutrisiran relative to expectations,” the analysts wrote. However, Alnylam has another asset, nucresiran, in Phase 3 trials for the disease. The general expectation is that patients in Alnylam’s trial will be on background therapy, as was the case for AstraZeneca and Ionis’ trial, which Stifel said it had been watching for “to affirm this combo synergy.”
Alnylam shares were up nearly 18% in premarket trading on Thursday.
Qatar has paused efforts to rapidly revive production at the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facility after an attack on one of its tankers in the Strait of Hormuz raised fears that transit through the key waterway remains too risky, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
