Cynthia Nixon hosted a fundraiser for Zohran Mamdani on March 17, 2025. Sixteen months later, the mayor she helped elect published her name and home address in a searchable government database for the entire internet to browse.
Welcome to the revolution, Cynthia.
Mayor Mamdani's Department of Finance uploaded a comprehensive list of every unoccupied, non-primary residence in the five boroughs valued at over $1 million — complete with the full names and addresses of every property owner. The database contains over 960,000 properties and individuals, despite the fact that only about 31,000 homes were supposed to be subject to the new pied-à-terre tax.
Mamdani wasn't shy about it, either. "When I ran for mayor, I said that I was going to tax the rich," he announced. "Well, today, we're taxing the rich." He followed up on social media with a message for second-home owners worth $5 million or more: "Check your mailbox when you're back in the five boroughs — you've got mail."
Notification letters started going out July 23rd. The database went live for anyone to search. And the names on it read like the donor rolls of every Democratic cause in Manhattan. Actress Cynthia Nixon. Former Vogue editor Anna Wintour. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, whose $238 million penthouse purchase made headlines a few years back. These aren't anonymous millionaires. These are people whose addresses are now one search away from anyone with a grudge and a Wi-Fi connection.
Council Minority Leader David Carr, a Republican from Staten Island, called it what it was: "It's a reckless and foolish move, especially considering there are potentially thousands of properties on this list that do not qualify as second homes."
He's right. The database is riddled with errors. Two dozen modest homes in the Bronx — valued in the mid-$500,000s to low $800,000s — ended up on a list meant for luxury vacation properties. Homes in Staten Island got flagged. The Breezy Point Shopping Center in Rockaway, Queens, which is an outdoor mall, was listed as a vacation home.
The Mamdani administration claims the Department of Finance is required by law to publish a property roll for public inspection, and that not all owners on the list will actually be taxed. City Hall projected $500 million in annual revenue from the levy. Democratic City Comptroller Mark Levine's office puts the realistic number closer to $340 to $380 million. The gap between those figures is large enough to suggest nobody actually ran the numbers before publishing nearly a million people's personal information.
Councilwoman Gale Brewer from the Upper West Side — a Democrat — found herself on the list despite living in her home full-time. "I've been living in my place 365 days a year since 1994," she said. So even Mamdani's own party members are getting swept up in a database they'll now have to petition to escape.
This is the same mayor who has backed $23 billion in new taxes since being sworn in. The same mayor who threatened a 9.5% property tax increase back in February. Governor Hochul and Albany Democrats handed him the pied-à-terre authority, and his first move was to publish a target list with a search bar attached to it.
Meanwhile, the Citizen Budget Commission has tracked New York City's millionaire share declining from 12.7% in 2010 to 8.7% in 2022, with roughly $11 billion in personal income tax revenue evaporating in a single year as high earners left. The policy question isn't whether the rich should pay more. It's whether publishing their home addresses on a government website is the best strategy for convincing them to stay.
Funny how "tax the rich" sounded like policy. Turns out it was a mailing list.
