Christopher Marte (born April 26, 1989) is an American politician who is a member of the New York City Council for the 1st district, elected in November 2021. His district includes all or parts of

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north ...

, Chinatown,

Civic Center A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...

, East Village,

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mil ...

Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies and other related finance corporations have their head offices. In major cities, financial districts are often home to s ...

Governors Island Governors Island is a island in New York Harbor, within the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is located approximately south of Manhattan Island, and is separated from Brooklyn to the east by the Buttermilk Channel. The National Park ...

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

Liberty Island Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States. Its most notable feature is the Statue of Liberty (''Liberty Enlightening the World''), a large statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi that was dedicated i ...

Little Italy Little Italy is a general name for an ethnic enclave populated primarily by Italians or people of Italian ancestry, usually in an urban neighborhood. The concept of "Little Italy" holds many different aspects of the Italian culture. There are ...

, Lower East Side,

NoHo NoHo, short for North of Houston Street (as contrasted with SoHo), is a primarily residential neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is bounded by Mercer Street to the west and the Bowery to the east, ...

Nolita Nolita, sometimes written as NoLIta and deriving from "North of Little Italy",Roberts, Sam"New York’s Little Italy, Littler by the Year"''New York Times'' (February 21, 2011) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. No ...

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stree ...

, and the

West Village The West Village is a neighborhood in the western section of the larger Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. The traditional boundaries of the West Village are the Hudson River to the west, West 14th Street to th ...

Early life and education

Marte was born and raised on the Lower East Side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. He attended

St. Agnes Boys High School Saint Agnes Boys High School was a small, all-boys, private Catholic high school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was run by the Marist Brothers in conjunction with the Archdiocese of New York. The mascot of St. Agnes was t ...

and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in international economics and politics from LIU Global.

Career

After graduating from college, Marte worked in finance for IBM. He then joined Arena, a Democratic-affiliated political action committee that trains candidates and campaign staffers. He later co-founded Neighbors United Below Canal, a non-profit organization.

New York City Council

Marte ran for City Council in 2017, losing narrowly to incumbent

Margaret Chin Margaret S. Chin (born May 26, 1953) is a Hong Kong American politician who served as a council member for the 1st district of the New York City Council. A Democrat, she and Queens Council member Peter Koo comprised the Asian American deleg ...

. He ran again in the 2021 Council elections, which were the first New York City elections to use ranked-choice voting. In the Democratic primary, Marte won 34.9% of the votes in the first round of voting and 60.5% of the votes in the final round. Marte won 72.1% of the vote in the general election. Marte's campaign was bolstered by anger within the district at Chin's ties to real-estate developers, as well as by name recognition he had gained while attempting to primary Chin in the previous council election. In 2022, Marte filed a lawsuit to prevent the construction of four tower developments in

Downtown Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

on the basis that the dense housing construction was "environmental racism" and violated people's right "to clean air and water, and a healthful environment."

References

American politicians of Dominican Republic descent Living people Long Island University alumni New York City Council members New York (state) Democrats People from the Lower East Side 1989 births {{NewYork-politician-stub