7

Seeing as it has a population larger than many states and an area larger than a few depending what you include, has there ever been a serious push to make New York City (and possibly Long Island) it's own state?

Particularly, I am interesting in the arguments for and against a metro area becoming its own state.

Rick Smith
  • 35,501
  • 5
  • 100
  • 160
Hatman
  • 305
  • 2
  • 7

1 Answers1

5

The most appropriate Wiki links have been provided in the comments to the question above which should already provide context. I was going to let it go, therefore, until I saw this topic treated in FiveThirtyEight in this article.

They mapped out a potential State of New York City along the lines of Norman Mailer's 1969 New York mayoral platform:

enter image description here

Part of Norman Mailer’s 1969 New York mayoral platform was a petition for the city to secede and become the 51st state.

That's my reasoning for choosing this as the most serious push. The platform on which Mailer ran is further described here. Wikipedia further gives us these posters (this and this) from the campaign:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Mailer finished fourth in the 1969 Democratic primary, and not above fourth place in any of the five boroughs.

gktscrk
  • 1,664
  • 14
  • 29
  • Wow. In 1969, NYCers wanted to be free from the control of upstate folks who were trampling their needs. In 2020-2021, it's upstate New York that wants to be free of NYCers trampling their needs! – Mason Wheeler Jul 02 '21 at 02:30