Astoria, Queens, was once the home of Archie Bunker, the fictional 1970s archetype of a bigoted, blue-collar white man angry about the change happening around him.

Those days are long gone. Astoria now marks the northern border of the “Commie Corridor” that stretches down into Brooklyn. The stronghold of young, leftist and college-educated voters fueled the rise of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and one of its most-famous members, Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

“These areas are getting younger. Younger people are becoming even more politicized and that’s driving the change,” said Michael Lange, a political analyst, DSA member and author. He said he coined the term “Commie Corridor” to help people understand the movement, “how Mamdani won, and particularly the places he did so well.”

By Lange’s definition, the Commie Corridor stretches from Western Queens through North Brooklyn and down into Bedford-Stuyvesant. The highest concentration of card-carrying democratic socialists lives in these neighborhoods, where the winning candidates appealed to voters struggling to keep up with rising rents and angry at politicians in both parties who are sending their taxpayer money to conflicts abroad.

Gothamist toured the neighborhoods with Lange, visiting a handful of sites he and others said are linked to the politics of the Commie Corridor. Together, the spots captured a scene that is trendy, queer, accepting and radical — hinting at the broad appeal of the democratic socialist movement that is growing across the country.

Mamdani’s old rent-stabilized apartment

Before moving to Gracie Mansion, Mamdani lived in an apartment in the Princess Martha, a six-story building on a residential block of 35th Street near Broadway. A Greek flag hangs above a stoop a couple doors down.

“ For a long time it was kind of a bastion of white ethnic homeowners, Greeks, Italians. Archie Bunker is, of course, fictional, but he lives in Astoria,” Lange said.

Lange said the neighborhood is now a prime example of a powerful political constituency: the renter class.

“ As affordability has really become such a salient talking point and narrative in the Democratic Party, a renter is now a political identity of sorts, and this class has cohered into a real political bloc,” Lange said.

In New York City, renters tend to be younger residents. “They're really feeling the burden of this affordability crisis,” Lange said.

More than 80% of households in the neighborhood are renters, according to census data. Mamdani reportedly moved to the one-bedroom apartment in 2018.

The neighborhood was in the midst of an acute increase in the cost of living. Research by NYU’s Furman Center found real median rents in Astoria rose 35% between 2006 and 2024, more than the increase boroughwide or citywide.

Mamdani’s political identity reflects the leftist tilt of the area.

By 2016, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary in Astoria. In 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousted longtime Rep. Joseph Crowley for a congressional seat that at the time included only the Steinway Street portion of Astoria, known as Little Egypt. In 2020, voters elected Mamdani to the state Assembly.

King of Falafel & Shawarma

Just a few blocks from Mamdani’s apartment, King of Falafel and Shawarma sells falafel sandwiches for $11.

The owner of the Palestinian restaurant, Fares “Freddy” Zeideia, 60, catered Mamdani’s first campaign meeting. Mamdani told a small group of people that he was running for mayor.

“It wasn’t many people. It was 50, maybe,” Zeideia said.

The restaurant windows are plastered with political signs, including one for the NYC-DSA. Zeideia said he hung it because the DSA has stood against AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, and stood up for Palestinians.

Zeideia wants to encourage younger generations to keep fighting.

“Gaza actually woke up everybody and I want to be part of that movement,” Zeideia said.

Plus BKLYN

Lange said Greenpoint — which was once a predominantly Polish enclave — has become one of the youngest and most left-leaning neighborhoods in the city.

In 2020, the neighborhood elected 36-year-old environmental and housing activist Emily Gallagher to the state Assembly, ousting nearly five-decade incumbent Assemblymember Joe Lentol, whose father and grandfather held the seat before him. Gallagher joined NYC-DSA after her election.

She’s cultivated a relationship with Alexis Krase, the politically active owner of Plus BKLYN, a vintage and consignment shop for people size 12 and up. The store is also a queer space that caters to nonbinary people.

“Fat people, frankly, have been marginalized in many senses of the word, but specifically in fashion,” Krase said, sitting on a plush velvet couch outside the store’s fitting rooms.

At Gallagher’s suggestion, Krase hosted “Know Your Rights” trainings on what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up in the neighborhood.

“ We needed safe spaces for people to go and I would say that Alexis has created probably the safest space in all of New York City for a lot of folks who don't always have a place to go,” Gallagher said.

“ It did feel really empowering and natural, too,” Krase said, “because that's kind of what we had been doing all along, creating space for people to meet and congregate.”

Boyfriend Co-op

On Primary Night last year, Boyfriend Co-op in Bushwick was over capacity for a watch party hosted by the DSA’s local chapter. The worker-owned queer coffee shop and cocktail bar is a common site for fundraisers and other events. Several employees are DSA members.

“The first event I came here for was a trans rights campaign fundraiser,” said NYC-DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo, recalling the gathering shortly after President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning gender-affirming care to minors early in his second term. “Zohran back then was a very active supporter of the cause. This is a queer bar, so it was a natural fit.”

“We really value the places that have welcomed us when we fit easily into their walls,” added Grace Mausser, the other NYC-DSA co-chair.

Since the start of Mamdani’s campaign, DSA’s ranks have grown by more than two-and-a-half times, according to the organization.

“We’re drawing a much more normie cross-section of the city. It’s a more multiracial cohort of new members. It’s a broader sector of the working class,” Gordillo said.

The two democratic socialist leaders know who they’d like to see in the White House in 2028.

“Just to be clear, we think AOC should run for president, but the choice is hers, of course,” Mausser said. “ I'm very hopeful in 2028 that we not only see a presidential race, but also more socialists, ideally with DSA's backing, running across the country.”

Gordillo’s busy itinerary reflected DSA’s growing influence. Before speaking with Gothamist at Boyfriend Co-op, he had just done his first televised interview on Fox News and before that had lunch with Kathy Wylde, the influential former head of the business-aligned Partnership for New York City.

“ This is someone who really only found a path to politics through collaborating with the capitalist class, who's reaching out to us because she thinks we have some answers,” Gordillo said of Wylde.

Wylde confirmed the lunch and said Gordillo is “very smart and seems open to practical solutions.”

“His background as a Local 3 electrician suggests he wants to fix things,” Wylde said. “So we found common ground on issues like healthcare, affordable housing and wanting a strong economy,” she texted.

McGolrick Park

The Greenpoint greenspace has been a gathering place for many DSA politicians.

“This park has actually been a character in many Commie Corridor campaigns,” said Andrew Bard Epstein, who played a lead role in Gallagher’s state Assembly run, Mamdani’s mayoral campaign and Valdez’s primary campaign for Congress.

“I remember hugging Emily just over there,” Epstein said, recalling her 2020 win. The Valdez campaign launched multiple canvasses from the park as her volunteers knocked more than 300,000 doors across the district ahead of the election.

Only a few blocks away is McGuinness Boulevard, which is central to the political awakening of many activists in the neighborhood. Matthew Jensen, a local teacher who taught at P.S. 110 on the corner of the park, was killed in a 2021 hit-and-run on McGuinness.

Jensen's death inspired a fraught push for a redesign of the dangerous roadway that would add protections for cyclists and pedestrians. Influential local businesses opposed the project, which was watered down by then-Mayor Eric Adams and is now at the center of corruption allegations against one of Adams' top aides.

Epstein said the Adams administration’s interference in the project inspired him to join Mamdani’s nascent mayoral campaign in the fall of 2024.

“ Even knowing that his campaign would be a long shot, I was still excited about what he could bring to this race, what issues we'd be able to raise, what new voters we'd be able to turn out, how we'd grow this movement and infrastructure,” Epstein said.

After taking office, Mamdani ordered the redesign of McGuinness to be completed.

Sista’s Place

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, state Sen. Jabari Brisport pointed to Sista’s Place as evidence the democratic socialist movement is not filled with gentrifiers undermining Black political power.

“ I would say the complaints are coming almost entirely from people in tight political circles who are upset that their friends have lost elections,” Brisport said. “ No one on the streets, like everyday, regular people, are saying, ‘Oh, no, DSA is scary.’ That is something coming completely out of a Black establishment political class.”

The venue is a home for the December 12th Movement, a Black liberation organization founded in 1987. The group has fought for reparations and demonstrated against police brutality.

Brisport, a native Brooklynite and DSA member, has hosted multiple events at Sista’s Place, including a meeting of the other socialist state legislators in office in 2021. More recently, he brought his full staff there to learn from the elders of the December 12th Movement.

Brisport said his neighbors' concerns about displacement are real. But he blamed landlords and developers, while crediting NYC-DSA politicians for increasing tenant protections, fighting for a rent freeze and tackling issues like deed theft.

“ DSA is really returning these neighborhoods to their progressive values, their radical roots,” he said. “The nature of Bed-Stuy is Black radicalism.”

Peg’s Cavalier

Valdez, who is all but assured to be the next member of Congress representing a district that includes the heart of the Commie Corridor, has repeatedly visited this Ridgewood watering hole during her political career.

Immigrant worker attorney David Orkin met with her last year while considering whether to run for the assembly. He went on to defeat Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar as one of the candidates on the NYC-DSA slate in Queens.

But perhaps the most memorable night was Game 4 of the Knicks championship run, where she watched an incredible comeback with Mamdani.

“They were losing in the first half, came to Peg’s and they turned it around,” she said.

Peg’s is not a sports bar. It gives neighborhood joint vibes, with young, artsy patrons joined by older regulars.

“ We have millions of working-class people who do not feel like either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is speaking to their material interests, has made their lives better over the past few decades, and they're looking for a political home,” she added.

Valdez came back to Peg’s to celebrate her 20-point primary win over Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. She said that margin gives her the opportunity to go to the U.S. House of Representatives to fight for items like Medicare for All and universal rent control. She also has an eye on races in other parts of the country that signal the democratic socialist message is resonating beyond New York City.

“This is not a movement confined to the quote, unquote ‘Commie Corridor,’” Valdez said.