New York City's 1st City Council district is one of 51 districts in the

New York City Council The New York City Council is the lawmaking body of New York City. It has 51 members from 51 council districts throughout the five boroughs. The council serves as a check against the mayor in a mayor-council government model, the performance of ...

. It is currently represented by Democrat Christopher Marte, who took office in 2022.

Geography

District 1 is based in the farthest southern neighborhoods 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 ...

, covering the

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 ...

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Aust ...

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 ...

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 deve ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, NoHo, and part of the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

. Also in the district are

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Washington Square Park Washington Square Park is a public park in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. One of the best known of New York City's public parks, it is an icon as well as a meeting place and center for cultural activity. ...

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

, and the World Trade Center. The district overlaps with Manhattan Community Boards 1, 2, and 3, and with New York's 7th,

10th 10 (ten) is the even natural number following 9 and preceding 11. Ten is the base of the decimal numeral system, by far the most common system of denoting numbers in both spoken and written language. It is the first double-digit number. The re ...

, and 12th congressional districts. It also overlaps with the 26th and 27th districts of the

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan comp ...

, and with the 65th and 66th districts of the

New York State Assembly The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits. The Ass ...

. With New York's original

making up a significant portion of its population, the district has a higher proportion of

Asian Americans Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous peopl ...

than any other district in

. When she was elected in 2009, Chin became the first Asian American woman to serve on the City Council, and remains one of only two Asian American members in the body.

Recent election results

2021

In 2019, voters in New York City approved Ballot Question 1, which implemented ranked-choice voting in all local elections. Under the new system, voters have the option to rank up to five candidates for every local office. Voters whose first-choice candidates fare poorly will have their votes redistributed to other candidates in their ranking until one candidate surpasses the 50 percent threshold. If one candidate surpasses 50 percent in first-choice votes, then ranked-choice tabulations will not occur.

2017

2013

History

New York City was divided into wards in 1683; all of the wards were located in what is now the 1st district, and each ward except for the "Out" Ward had the entirety of its territory in the modern-day 1st district. Wards were given numbers in 1791, and the previous "South" Ward was given the 1st ward number. By 1808 the 1st ward had expanded to encompass all of Manhattan south of Maiden Lane. By the middle of the 19th century wards no longer elected aldermen or other municipal representatives, who were elected instead by Assembly district. Upon consolidation in 1898, a bicameral Municipal Assembly was installed wherein the upper Council elected members from specialized districts and the lower

Board of Aldermen An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members them ...

continued to elect its membership from State Assembly districts. This arrangement proved to be short-lived, however, as a unicameral Board of Aldermen was established in its place in 1902. This Board had districts that usually but not always corresponded to Assembly districts; throughout this time the 1st aldermanic district was coterminous with New York County's 1st Assembly district. These districts were abolished in 1938 in favor of borough-wide proportional representation, but were restored in 1947 to prevent Communist council members from being elected.

Previous councilmembers

* Martin F. Tanahey (1922–1930) * ''Proportional representation'' (1938–1947) * Saul Sharison (1965–1974) * Anthony Gaeta (1974–1977) * Nicholas LaPorte (1977–1985) *

Frank Fossella Frank Vincent Fossella (November 6, 1925 – August 18, 2014) was an American politician and land developer. He was of Italian descent. Life and career Frank Fossella represented parts of Staten Island as a member of the New York City Council ...

(1985) *

Susan Molinari Susan Molinari (born March 27, 1958) is an American politician, company executive, journalist and lobbyist from New York. A member of the Republican Party, she sat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1990 to 1997, representing Staten Island ...

(1986–1990) * Alfred Cerullo (1990–1991) * Kathryn E. Freed (1991–2002) *

Alan Gerson Alan Jay Gerson (born November 1, 1957) is a former Democratic Party member of the New York City Council, first elected in 2001, and reelected in 2005, to represent the 1st district in Manhattan. Prior to that Gerson served as Chair of Manha ...

(2002–2010) *

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 ...

(2010–2022)

References

{{New York City Council New York City Council districts