Upper East Side's Congressional Lines Are Redrawn: What To Know

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — After weeks of suspense, New York lawmakers have released their plans to redraw the state's congressional districts following the 2020 Census — and some notable changes are coming to the Upper East Side's maps.

Released late Sunday, the maps were drawn by Democrats in the State Senate and Assembly after New York's independent redistricting commission failed to agree on any of its own proposed maps. The new proposals are expected to easily pass the state legislature this week, and will be in effect for June's primary elections.

One basic takeaway: the Upper East Side will remain entirely within the 12th Congressional District, now represented by Carolyn Maloney, who is running for a 16th term this year.

But the district's boundaries are shifting. For one thing, it will now contain part of the Upper West Side, leaping across Central Park to include dozens of blocks between West 59th and 84th streets, east of Columbus Avenue. That will surely come as a shock to West Siders who have grown accustomed to Rep. Jerry Nadler's representation over the past 30 years.

Use the slider on the map below, courtesy of CUNY's Center for Urban Research, to switch between the district's current and proposed lines:

The 12th District will also expand further south and west into Manhattan, now covering parts of Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea and the West Village. Those Manhattan gains come at the expense of the district's former territory in Astoria, Queens and Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, which have been shrunken in the new map.

The new district's voting-age population is whiter than the old one: 65.2 percent compared to 62.8 percent, according to census data compiled by CUNY. Its partisan leanings are roughly unchanged: both areas voted 85 percent for Joe Biden in 2020.

The new map is likely to please Maloney, since those outer-borough neighborhoods had widely been seen as her weakest areas in the face of a progressive primary challenge. Most other Democratic members of congress largely retained their bases of support in Democrats' new maps — with the exception of Republican Nicole Malliotakis, whose Staten Island district now includes liberal areas like Park Slope, Brooklyn.

New district maps for the State Senate and State Assembly have not yet been released, but those, too, could spell significant changes for Upper East Siders. For example, one draft Assembly map from the now-defunct independent commission proposed lumping Roosevelt Island in with Queens: a major shift for a neighborhood long associated with the East Side of Manhattan.

In all, the newly proposed maps are a clear bid by state Democrats to improve their party's standing in Washington. While Republicans now control eight of New York's 27 congressional districts, that number will likely drop to just four once the new maps take effect, according to analyst Dave Wasserman.

Six candidates are running in the June 28 Democratic primary for District 12, including Maloney and progressive challengers Rana Abdelhamid and Maya Contreras. Suraj Patel, who lost narrowly to Maloney in 2020, has expressed interest in running again.