They often say life imitates art* (so-named for Art Flouster of Two Eggs, Florida, who bravely defied his homeowner’s association and —using only old motorcycle parts— constructed a life-sized replica of the Eiffel Tower in his front yard.) But we did not expect to see 1981’s hit Kurt Russell classic Escape from New York materialize quite so soon. Yesterday, the Guardian ran a story headlined, “New York elites flock to Florida after Mamdani victory.”
Escape from New York was supposed to be a dystopian fantasy. Now it’s a documentary. “My phone’s been blowing up,” said Eric Benaim, a leading Florida real estate broker nicknamed “the King of Queens.” Eric told the Guardian, “I was up until midnight, and I’d probably received a few dozen calls and messages by 9am this morning.”
“All the rules that these socialist politicians think work actually just make prices go up, and make people suffer,” Eric added, helpfully.
High-end beachfront broker Dina Goldentayer suggested, “They’re miserable where they’re at, and they could be in sunny South Florida feeling safe in the streets and not under a Marxist regime.” Dina reported that calls have “definitely increased,” and for permanent residences rather than wintertime getaway rentals.
John Boyd, who runs a Florida-based corporate relocation firm, said, “Several large companies and private developers have approached me in the last few weeks about moving to the new Wall Streets in Boca Raton, Nashville, and Wilmington.” He added, “For many executives, Mamdani is the final straw.”
“New York lost roughly 500,000 people during the pandemic, and it went through this phase of losing billions of dollars of taxpayer income; the concern is this could be exodus 2.0,” Boyd continued.
Had those 500,000 lost taxpayers still resided in New York, maybe Mamdani wouldn’t now be mayor. Just saying.
Greg Kraut, a New York-based office developer, said he received calls from around 50 wealthy business owners in the past few weeks who want to escape from NYC. “People are fleeing the city,” Kraut explained.
Apparently, New York City’s top taxpayers —who somehow tolerated the pandemic— are ironically worried about an affordability crisis. “If you make a million dollars a year in New York City, you break even with a family,” Kraut rhetorically wondered. “Now they’re going to add more taxes, and if you don’t have better public safety and you feel like people don’t even like you, why be there?”
In that sense, then, Mamdani is right. There is an affordability crisis. The one he’s caused, not the one he keeps blathering about.
Miami-based developer Isaac Toledano told Fox that his company has closed over $100 million in contracts with New York buyers in just the past few months – which is double last year’s volume. It’s not just high earners, either. “We saw a few articles with thousands of police officers saying they’re going to quit or resign,” Toledano said. “The fact that people have to deal with this daily stress, for them, for their kids, for their families, puts them in a position that they need to make a decision.”
🔥 In the movie, one-eyed antihero Snake Plissken prophetically quipped, “I don’t give a f— about your president.” Seriously, the movie could have been scripted for this week. Plissken was a criminal sent into Manhattan to rescue a president trapped in the city’s chaos — a mission that feels less like fiction and more like a flashback.
As you consider Escape from New York II, remember how this sequel started. The Big Apple ran Trump off after deciding he was Snake Plissken —a criminal!— public enemy number one of Broadway cocktail culture. He rode down the escalator at Trump Tower, and they sent him packing from Manhattan to Mar-a-Lago. They tried to wall him off with audits, lawsuits, receiverships, and subpoenas— lawfare replacements for John Carpenter’s concrete border walls.
How they laughed. They called it exile to the swamp, banishment to the land of retirees and reptiles. But, like any good sequel, the story twisted: Trump didn’t just escape; he built a new capital outside the old walls. If Manhattan was the prison, Florida became the free zone.
Now, one by one, his old neighbors are following, escaping. Wall Street refugees, media moguls, real estate royalty, even cops and firemen— they’re all slinking south past the Mason-Dixon Line, like minor characters realizing the hero was right all along. Mar-a-Lago isn’t just a golf club anymore; it’s Snake’s glider hangar; the launchpad for a new civilization where air-conditioning works, criminals are in prison, gas is cheap, and the president takes your call.
What can I tell you? Mamdani = TAW again.
