Two of the city’s top elected officials condemned an ugly hate crime on the Upper East Side on Friday after someone scrawled a swastika onto the hood of a parked vehicle.
According to multiple reports, the car’s owner discovered the vandalism near the corner of East 85th Street and 1st Avenue just after 9 a.m. on June 26. The symbol of hate had been etched into the hood of a parked Tesla sedan.
The car’s owner, a 56-year-old woman, told police she had parked her Tesla at the location three days earlier, on the morning of June 23, and returned to her vehicle Friday morning to find it vandalized.
The Daily News reported that an Israeli flag had been displayed inside the vehicle at the time.
The incident was reported to the 19th Precinct. So far, police have not confirmed if any arrests have been made.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who rebuked the vandalism as a “despicable act of antisemitism” in a social media post, said that the NYPD is investigating the incident as a hate crime, and expressed confidence detectives would track down the suspects responsible.
“It is a hateful act of intimidation on our Jewish neighbors and on the values that make our city what it is,” Mamdani said. “To every Jewish New Yorker: Your city stands with you. We will confront acts of antisemitism wherever they appear with urgency and without exception.”
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who also represents the Upper East Side area where the incident occurred, similarly expressed outrage over the act of hate.
“This horrific, antisemitic symbol continues to appear across our city. Sadly, this isn’t the first time it’s been discovered in my district,” Menin wrote on social media. “Those responsible intend to cause fear among Jewish New Yorkers and division among all of us — but we refuse to let antisemitism be normalized.”
The scourge of antisemitism has risen to troubling heights in New York since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel. Though hate crimes across the state decreased in the past year, the Anti-Defamation League reported in April that New York state nonetheless had the most reported acts of antisemitism in the nation.
That was illustrated in May when bigoted vandals went on a spree in the Queens neighborhoods of Forest Hills and Rego Park, scrawling swastikas and other messages of hate against Jews onto homes, synagogues and even a memorial to Holocaust victims.
Those incidents were included among the 60 hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers that the NYPD reported in May 2026. Antisemitic hate crimes that month represented 61% of the 98 hate crimes reported citywide against all demographics that the NYPD tracks.
Menin said on Friday that the City Council remains committed to fighting antisemitism through various measures, from investing in Holocaust education programs to improving systems to report hate crimes. Earlier this year, the City Council passed two bills to institute protest buffer zones near houses of worship and schools after several high-profile, heated protests outside synagogues.
Mayor Mamdani allowed the bill protecting houses of worship to become law without his signature, and vetoed the bill on protest buffer zones near schools, citing concerns about potential infringement on First Amendment protest rights. The Council is said to be drafting a new bill to address those concerns.
In the meantime, anyone with information about the Upper East Side hate crime can call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS (for Spanish, dial 888-57-PISTA). You can also submit tips online at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (formerly Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
