Political Feud Leads to Launch of New Chelsea Democrats Club

A long-simmering political feud has caused a rupture in the Chelsea Democratic club landscape. The New Chelsea Democrats officially launched on June 7 in the backyard of Bar Veloce, 176 Seventh Ave., Attending residents and elected officials said the new organization could play a key role in shaping civic engagement and policy debates in Chelsea, Flatiron, and NoMad.

The club is a breakaway from the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club (CRDC), founded in 1958 and currently run by President Candice Hewitt. Layla Law-Gisiko, the club’s female District Leader, ran for the New York City Council District 3 seat in this year’s special election and lost to Carl Wilson, the former chief of staff to Eric Bottcher, who went from the City Council to the New York State Assembly.

The New Chelsea Democrats say they will focus on transgender rights, reproductive freedom, redistricting reform, immigrant communities, AI regulation, and climate change as well as housing.

Among those attending the launch of the Chelsea New Democrats were Congressman Jerry Nadler, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Assembly Member Tony Simone, newly elected City Council Member Carl Wilson, and Assembly Member Micah Lasher, who is now the Democratic nominee for the 12th Congressional District.

One source said he believed the New Chelsea Democrats’ philosophy is influenced by the 2025 nonfiction book “Abundance,” written by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, which urges a paradigm shift to solve big problems and criticizes the national Democratic party’s tendency to focus on processes instead of results.

Jesse Greenwald, co-founder of the New Chelsea Democrats, spoke with Straus News about the cause for the club’s breakaway from CRDC: “We had significant process issues,” he said, and it centered around political endorsements “and the way that they were counting votes for their endorsements--people had concerns about the validity of those votes.”

“It’s really important to me and it’s important to the other founders that we are a club that is open to debate,” said Greenwald. “People are there to hash things out, and to have policy differences be aired out, because that is how better policy is eventually made, when people disagree and talk about what they’ve learned, what they’re seeing, ideas they have.”

He added, “There needs to be a space for that kind of conversation and we were not finding that at CRDC.”

Another source of discord was CRDC’s endorsement of Assembly Member Alex Bores in the District 12 Democratic Primary for Congress. It was one of the few West Side clubs to endorse East Side Assembly Member Bores against the eventual winner, West Side Assembly member Lasher.

The New Chelsea Democrats welcomed Lasher’s victory, whose pro-housing initiatives align with the newly-founded club’s agenda.

One source close to the new club said, “They are YIMBY [Yes in My Backyard],” which he said supports more real estate development.

At the club’s launch, Comptroller Mark Levine explained that most New Yorkers support increased housing but do not want it built in their own communities. He said, “We need people who are going to step up and say that our community needs to be part of the solution, that we need to grow the city everywhere--yes, even in Chelsea, even in Manhattan, all over the city. Every neighborhood has to be part of this renaissance, and I think that’s in the DNA of this club.”

Levine, when he was Borough President, had installed a number of people belonging to a pro-development group called Open New York on Community Board 5, and bounced several opponents of development. The moves were controversial and triggered months of tension and departures from the CB5.

One of the big issues in the neighborhood is the future of the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses on West 16th and West 26th Streets in response to the city’s push to demolish the buildings and replace them with mixed-income and market-rate units overseen by the big developer, Related Cos. The housing projects are part of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and CRDC totally rejects the plan for demolition. The New Chelsea Democrats hold a neutral stance on the issue, although many of the politicos in the club have spoken in favor of the city’s plan to bring in a private developer.

”We feel we’re in a housing crisis and one of the ways out of the crisis is to build more affordable housing,” said Greenwald, “but we have not taken any position on any specific project.”

The city claims the cost of repairing and renovating the Fulton and Elliott projects is so sky-high that it would cost the same as demolition and building new housing. But one of the projects elected an anti-demolition candidate to lead its Tenants Association, which undermined the city’s contention that residents strongly supported the plan.

George Weaver, a resident of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses for 34 years with a background in politics and community development, outlined tenants’ opposition to the redevelopment plans. “They’re saying we’re gonna come back, that it’s gonna be affordable. It’s not gonna be affordable--it’s not. They have lied to us so many times. We are fine where we are at now. We just need more funding for Section 9.”

Section 9 is a federal program that provides federally subsidized and affordable rental units operated by NYCHA.

With a high population of Asian, Latino, and Black residents, Weaver believes that racial biases infiltrate many politicians’ push for redevelopment: “I’m African American. If my development was predominantly White, would you think they’d be talking about demolition?”

Weaver and more than 700 voters in the Fulton Houses supported Law-Gisiko’s campaign for City Council, which advocated for the protection of the units and their tenants. “Layla has brought a consciousness here that has woken up the tenants to vote and to participate in the political process,” said Weaver.

Responding to claims of unlivable conditions in the buildings, Weaver said, “Have we had some problems? Yes. When you don’t invest into Fulton and Chelsea, we’re gonna have some problems, but we’ve kept it up most of the time... It might be the top one or two best developments in the city.”

Ben Wexler, a composer who lives with his husband and daughter in Chelsea, spoke to Straus News about his involvement with the New Chelsea Democrats due to concerns about the loss of queer spaces and city-wide support for working artists. He said, “As a queer person who lives in a Chelsea that is getting less and less queer by the day, I feel the need to bring our energy back into the space. I miss a neighborhood that can support artists who are making a working wage.”

Wexler talked about the rapidity of people being financially displaced from Chelsea. “Chelsea is not what it was. And it’s our role as citizens to remember our past and rebuild places that changed—in my opinion—not for the better.”

The CRDC Executive Committee briefly responded to Straus News’ inquiries about the breakaway: “For nearly 68 years, the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club has been the grassroots voice for Chelsea residents, advocating for affordable housing for all, strong public services, and progressive Democratic values. Our focus remains where it has always been: serving our community, engaging our neighbors, and ensuring Chelsea residents have a seat at the table.”

While both CRDC and the New Chelsea Democrats are pushing for more affordable housing, they differ sharply on how to achieve it.