Staff Reports
New York City is being asked to rip the late Mayor Ed Koch’s name off the Queensboro Bridge — again. This week’s flare-up centers on a liberal club’s renewed push and a campaign questionnaire in which Mayor Zohran Mamdani answered “Yes, I support renaming.” The result: a lot of sound and fury, predictable moralizing, and a very useful distraction from real city problems.
What actually happened: the Jim Owles push and Mamdani’s answer
The Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club has publicly urged the city to remove Ed Koch’s name from the Queensboro (59th Street) Bridge. The club’s president, Allen Roskoff, called the naming “a slap in the face” to people who lived through the AIDS crisis — and that is the argument driving their campaign. Journalists pointed to a candidate questionnaire Mamdani filled out during his 2025 run where he checked “Yes, I support renaming.” City Hall, though, has told reporters that stripping Koch’s name is not an immediate priority for the administration.
Why activists want the renaming
Activists cite Mayor Koch’s record during the 1980s AIDS epidemic as the reason for seeking accountability. That is a subject worth serious historical debate. It is not, however, the same as a plan to fix subway delays, rising rents, or the surge in public-safety complaints that actually affect millions of New Yorkers’ daily lives.
Why this fight smells mostly like politics
Here’s the blunt truth: renaming a bridge is easy theater and hard work. Changing a sign doesn’t build housing, reopen shuttered schools, or make streets safer. Many elected officials who answered “support” on questionnaires during the campaign have either stepped back or said the bridge doesn’t need renaming right now — including the speaker whose district contains the bridge. That flip-flop pattern is what happens when politicians try to have both the woke virtue and the practical vote at once. If Mayor Mamdani truly meant it when he answered the questionnaire, he should say so plainly and propose legislation. If he didn’t, he should stop pretending a checkbox on a club form equals a governing plan.
Where this goes from here
To change the bridge’s name would require a City Council bill, committee votes, and a mayoral sign-off. So far, no sponsor has stepped forward to take that ride. Meanwhile, New Yorkers deserve elected leaders who focus on transit, schools, affordable housing, and public safety — not symbolic gestures that feed headlines. If the mayor wants to build a legacy, he should do concrete things people can feel and see, rather than playing historical referee from a campaign questionnaire.
