New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stood outside a billionaire's penthouse on April 15, filmed a video promoting his plan to tax wealthy part-time residents, and named hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin by name. Within days, Griffin's firm signaled it might walk away from a $6 billion office project in Midtown Manhattan, and the street food vendors who make their living off the foot traffic in that neighborhood are now watching their livelihoods hang in the balance.
The standoff between Mamdani and Citadel captures a pattern playing out across New York City: a mayor who campaigned on soaking the rich, a business community pushing back hard, and working people caught in the middle with no say in the outcome.
Mamdani's April 15 video showed him outside Griffin's Manhattan penthouse, which the Citadel founder purchased for $238 million. The mayor pitched what he called an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million whose owners do not live full-time in the city. FOX Business reported that Mamdani said in the video:
"This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million, whose owners do not live full-time in the city. Like for this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million."
Griffin, whose net worth is reported at $51 billion, called the video a "personal attack" and said it showed a "profound lack of judgment." The reaction from Citadel was swift and concrete.
On April 23, Citadel COO Gerald Beeson sent an internal memo to employees. The memo laid out what was at stake, and introduced a pointed caveat. As Newsmax reported, Beeson wrote:
"We are about to commence the redevelopment of 350 Park Avenue, creating 6,000 highly paid construction jobs and supporting the creation of more than 15,000 permanent jobs in Midtown New York. The project, if we move forward, will entail more than $6 billion dollars of spending."
That two-word qualifier, "if we move forward", landed like a warning shot aimed directly at City Hall.
Beeson did not stop at the jobs numbers. He called Mamdani's use of Griffin's name "shameful," arguing that the mayor singled out someone who has already paid heavily into city and state coffers. Beeson stated that Citadel's principals and employees paid nearly $2.3 billion in New York city and state taxes over the past five years.
That figure puts the mayor's rhetoric in a different light. Mamdani framed the proposal as making the wealthy pay their "fair share." Beeson's memo countered that Citadel's people are already among the largest individual taxpayers the city has. Whether the proposed pied-Ã -terre tax would generate enough revenue to offset the loss of a $6 billion development project and thousands of jobs is a question Mamdani has not publicly answered.
The Partnership for New York City has already been preparing to challenge the mayor's broader agenda, and the Citadel standoff adds real-world stakes to that fight.
At the end of April, Griffin met with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to discuss what FOX Business described as the "future direction of New York" amid Mamdani's tax proposals. The meeting itself signals how seriously Albany is taking the business community's alarm.
The 62-story tower at 350 Park Avenue sits near the center of Midtown Manhattan's Turtle Bay neighborhood. If Citadel's redevelopment goes forward, it would bring thousands of construction workers and, eventually, permanent employees into the area. If it doesn't, the streets around that block stay quieter, and the people who feel it first are the ones selling food on the sidewalk.
Maria runs the Eggstravaganza food truck on the corner of Park and East 52nd Street. She has been bringing her truck to Midtown for 13 years. She told FOX Business, shortly after noon, what the project could mean for her:
"If the owner brings more people, it's gonna be a lot of business. Like, about now, this time is supposed to be easier."
Maria described how Midtown foot traffic has changed since the pandemic. Before COVID, she said, business was so brisk she could barely stop to talk. Now companies have scattered, to SoHo, Hudson Yards, elsewhere. "A lot of companies are moving to different places," she said. "So if this building brings in a lot of customers, that would definitely help."
The trend Maria described is not unique to her block. Major Wall Street firms have been eyeing second headquarters in Texas and Florida, drawn by lower taxes and friendlier regulatory climates.
Next to Maria's truck, Ash works the Rafiqi's food cart. He has been running his business in Manhattan for 25 years. He was blunt about what a canceled project would mean.
"Canceling such a business, of course, will affect our business as well because we depend on the traffic from the people around here."
Ash described a business environment already under strain. Prices have gone up. The international situation, he cited conflict involving Iran, has driven costs higher. And he cannot raise his own prices to match.
"Prices went up, it follows the new government here... it affects us a lot. The international situation, the [war in Iran], affects us as well. Everything goes up. It's hard for us. We have to keep our prices as well, we can't change a lot of our prices."
A third vendor, who asked not to be named, runs a Greek halal cart on 51st Street. FOX Business spoke with the vendor, who expressed similar concerns about the potential loss of foot traffic in the area.
The Citadel threat does not exist in isolation. Midtown Manhattan has already absorbed one major disruption this year: the 2025 shooting at 345 Park Avenue, which prompted Blackstone to temporarily shutter its offices and send more than 3,000 employees to work from home. That incident alone pulled thousands of daily customers away from the vendors, restaurants, and shops that depend on office workers.
Now Mamdani's tax proposal risks adding a second blow. And the broader migration of firms out of New York continues. FC Barcelona recently relocated its North American headquarters from Manhattan to Miami. Tech companies have followed a similar path.
Breitbart reported that Mamdani has shown no sign of backing down. The mayor declared: "When I ran for mayor, I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today, we're taxing the rich." That line drew applause from his political base. It drew something very different from the people who build and occupy the towers that keep Midtown's economy running.
The exact terms, rate, and legislative status of the proposed pied-Ã -terre tax remain unclear. Whether Citadel has formally canceled or merely threatened to halt the 350 Park Avenue project is also unresolved. FOX Business reached out to representatives for Mamdani, Hochul, and Citadel for additional comment.
Other major companies have already voted with their feet, relocating headquarters to states that welcome capital rather than punish it.
Mamdani later thanked Griffin for funding a memorial wall set to open later this year, a gesture that sits oddly beside the April 15 video in which the mayor used Griffin's home as a prop for a tax campaign. The whiplash between publicly targeting a man and then publicly thanking him captures the incoherence of the mayor's approach to the city's largest employers and taxpayers.
Griffin founded Citadel in 1990. The firm's planned redevelopment of 350 Park Avenue would represent one of the largest private investments in Midtown in years, 6,000 construction jobs, more than 15,000 permanent positions, and $6 billion in spending flowing through a neighborhood that vendors like Maria and Ash say has never fully recovered from the pandemic.
None of those vendors were consulted before the mayor filmed his video. None of them have a seat at the table where Griffin and Hochul discuss New York's future direction. They just work the corners, serve the food, and hope the next policy coming out of City Hall doesn't cost them their customers.
When politicians campaign on punishing the rich, the bill rarely lands where they promise. It lands on the people selling breakfast on Park Avenue.