Nine men dressed as Mayor Zohran Mamdani gathered under the Washington Square Park arch on Sunday hoping to be crowned his best double, but NYPD officers cut the contest short, ordering the crowd to clear out because organizers never got a permit. Actor and comedian Amadeo Fusca ultimately took home the $100 grand prize anyway, finishing the competition on the sidewalk just outside the park after the group was pushed off park grounds.
Fusca won by leaning all the way into the bit, wearing a New York Knicks jersey underneath a suit and styling his hair and facial hair to match the mayor's, according to ABC7 New York. He told the station that he put on his regular clothes, showered, kissed his wife, and went to the park to be with the people, adding that dressing the part made him sweat bullets. After his win, Fusca took selfies with attendees and fielded cheers from the crowd, as reported by the Associated Press.
Suits, Rings and an Apron Referencing a Mamdani Music Video
The eight other contestants showed up in their own takes on the mayor's look, including brown suits, patterned ties, dark blue suits and silver rings. One participant went shirtless under an apron, a nod to a 2019 rap video Mamdani produced before entering elected office, the wire service reports. The crowd picked the winner by applause after each contestant answered a question about his favorite pizza.
The event was not the first time New Yorkers turned Mamdani's public image into a costume contest. A similar lookalike gathering happened in Brooklyn in 2025 while he was still campaigning for mayor, per the same wire report, well before he took office as a democratic socialist mayor who won the November 4, 2025 general election with more than 50 percent of the vote in a contest that drew over 2 million voters, as Hoodline has previously reported.
No Permit, No Problem — Crowd Just Moves
NYPD officers stepped in because organizers had not secured a special event permit for the gathering, forcing the crowd and contestants to relocate just outside the park's perimeter to finish things out, the AP account states. Under NYC Parks Department rules, any public gathering of more than 20 people in a city park requires a Special Events Permit, which comes with a non-refundable $25 application fee and must be submitted weeks ahead of time, according to NYC Parks.
The contest was organized and sponsored by Sonder, a social media networking app, to celebrate its New York City launch. Organizers used the invitation platform Partiful to coordinate RSVPs and offered a $100 grand prize alongside a $50 runner-up prize.
A Familiar Park, A Familiar Headache for Organizers
Washington Square Park has become something of a proving ground for this kind of stunt. Pop-up lookalike contests in the city's public spaces surged after an unpermitted October 2024 Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest drew thousands of fans to the same park, sparked police intervention, and inspired viral copycats across the city, as Hoodline has reported. The creator of that original Chalamet event was fined $500 for hosting without a permit.
The $100 top prize at Sunday's contest also carried a little extra symbolism given who it was modeled after. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority raised the city's base subway and local bus fare from $2.90 to $3.00 on January 4, 2026, meaning the winnings work out to roughly 33.3 bus rides. That detail lands close to home for Mamdani, who campaigned heavily on making city buses fare-free — a signature affordability pledge that helped define his campaign. Transit analysts at the Harvard Kennedy School Taubman Center estimate that eliminating bus fares citywide would cost between $700 million and $1 billion annually and would need funding approval from the state-run MTA, a jurisdictional and budgetary hurdle that has so far kept the proposal from becoming reality.
