Zohran Mamdani Skips REBNY Gala

Will he or won’t he?

That was the question leading up to the Real Estate Board of New York’s annual gala on Thursday.

The trade group invited Mayor Zohran Mamdani to the event, but the new mayor didn’t show.

This wasn’t terribly surprising, given that last year the mayor — then an Assembly member — protested outside the gala, and indicated this week that he had no plans to attend this year’s party at the Waldorf Astoria New York.

Then again, mayors have turned up or canceled at the last minute in previous years, left before the dinner to meet with President Donald Trump or even berated industry guests for not offering support on specific policies.

However, members of the Mamdani administration, including Leila Bozorg, deputy mayor of housing and planning, along with Department of Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, were in attendance.

“We were pleased to welcome senior members of the Mamdani administration to tonight’s event,” REBNY President Jim Whelan said in a statement. “We look forward to hosting Mayor Mamdani at future events.”

As with last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul took the stage during dinner to address the crowd. She touted her State of the State priorities, including a proposal to reform environmental review.

“I’m going to continue working with all of you as an ally, to break down barriers, and create the incentives you need,” she said. “I, like you, am sick and tired of the red tape that makes sure that your projects go through hell and back before they ever get done.”

Hochul, who is running for re-election this year, also nodded to the perennial joke — but also fact — that gala guests often talk over whoever speaks at the event.

She said Karen Keogh, secretary to the governor, warned that she should expect a “feisty” crowd.

“My response was, ‘If they want me to listen to them when they come to Albany, they better listen to me tonight,’” she said.

At the end of her speech, she said the crowd wasn’t as bad as last year and that she would talk about policies with Whelan and REBNY Chair Jed Walentas.

The gala, which attracts the biggest names in real estate, can also be a temperature check, a way to gauge the political toxicity of the industry at the moment.

Other elected officials spotted during cocktail hour — either by TRD or fellow guests — included City Council Speaker Julie Menin, state Attorney General Letitia James, City Comptroller Mark Levine, Council member Kevin Riley, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, Assembly member Kalman Yeger, Council member Eric Dinowitz, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who plans to challenge Hochul, was also there.

The landmarked Waldorf Astoria was reopened last year after a $2 billion condo conversion. Part of the cocktail hour was in the Basildon Room, which offered any wallflowers a chance to admire the gold and silver leafing on the walls, the restored frescoes on the ceiling and the floral carpet, which is blessedly not original to the room but whose design is inspired by its predecessor.

Early in the night Soloviev Group’s Michael Hershman said the mayor’s absence was a “missed opportunity.”

“It’s in the best interests of the real estate community and the mayor to be able to sit down and talk about what’s best for the city, what’s best for the people of the city,” he said. “And if we do that with kind of an open mind, I think we can find common ground.”