Mayor Zohran Mamdani slapped New York’s Italian American community in the face again Saturday — snubbing Brooklyn’s annual Columbus Day Parade and ghosting organizers of a similar event in Queens.
Members of the Federation of Italian American Organizations of Brooklyn, which organizes the parade along 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst honoring the famed but controversial explorer, said the Mayor’s Office confirmed on Thursday that Mamdani declined their invitation sent out weeks earlier.
But at least Brooklyn’s organizers got an answer.
Organizers of the annual Queens Columbus Day Parade in Astoria said the mayor never responded to an invitation to attend their parade — leaving them hanging as it concluded Saturday near the Columbus statue by Astoria Boulevard, the same monument Mamdani famously flipped the bird to in 2020.
And the mayor is also unlikely to attend the larger Columbus Day Parade in Manhattan on Monday, sources said.
The Columbus Citizens Foundation, which runs the famed parade along Fifth Avenue, got plenty of heat from other Italian American groups for trying to extend an olive branch to Mamdani by inviting him to the event despite the socialist mayor’s past rocky relationship with Italian Americans.
Christopher Loiacono, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, and other leaders of the group did not return messages.
But Angie Markham, executive director of FAIO of Queens, which organizes the Astoria event, said Mamdani not attending the Astoria parade “isn’t gonna make or break the event for me.”
“People wanna change history,” she said. “It is what it is. This is the day we chose to [honor] Italian heritage. The Spanish have a whole month. The blacks have a whole month. We have one day. Leave us alone!”
Jerry Iannece, a criminal court judge and parade chairman, said Mamdani and other far-left pols’ disdain for Columbus is “misguided,” adding that “there’s a lot of people who want to rewrite history.”
Carlo Scissura, vice chairman of the FAIO of Brooklyn, declined to address Mamdani’s snub at the Bensonhurst parade but said, “We are proud and excited to host our annual parade, a powerful celebration of Italian American heritage, pride and culture.”
Many Brooklyn patrons said they were upset — but not shocked — Mamdani snubbed Big Apple Italian Americans yet again.
“It’s very disappointing because we elected him the mayor, and he is supposed to be representing everybody,” said Albert Esposito, 72, a retired school teacher.
“It’s a slap in the face to the Italian American community,” said Paul DeSpirito, 53, who runs a neighborhood Italian sandwich and catering business.
Others said they were glad Mamdani was a no-show.
“F– you! He wouldn’t be welcomed,” ripped one man who wanted to remain anonymous.
The Mayor’s Office did not immediately return messages.
The mayor came under fire in July after his administration left Little Italy — along with other beloved ethnic neighborhoods — off a newly released city map of immigrant enclaves despite it being a nationally recognized historic district.
Mamdani insisted the list wasn’t “exhaustive” and said future versions would be amended to include Little Italy. But the friction with Italian Americans goes back further.
A Mamdani social media post from 2020 surfaced during last year’s mayoral race showing the Ugandan-born pol flipping the bird to the Christopher Columbus statue in Astoria. Mamdani, who that same year successfully ran to represent the neighborhood in the state Assembly, included the caption, “Take it down.”
Council Speaker Julie Menin, a moderate Democrat whom Mamdani has repeatedly clashed with while trying to push his far-left agenda, was grand marshal at the Brooklyn parade.
