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These NYC ZIP codes will get more free child care seats for 3-year-olds, Mamdani says

By

Karen Yi

Published Mar 10, 2026

Modified Mar 10, 2026

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Summertime outside the Jewish Community Center in New York City, rows of empty baby strollers are parked for children enrolled for day camp and childhood programs run by the JCC.

 

Photo by: Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

By

Karen Yi

Published Mar 10, 2026

Modified Mar 10, 2026

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani will add more than 1,000 free preschool seats for New York City's 3-year-olds this fall in an effort to alleviate seat shortages in some areas and ensure children aren’t assigned to locations far from their homes.

The Mamdani administration said the new seats for the city’s popular 3-K program will be spread across 56 ZIP codes that include a mix of socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods, such as Park Slope, Canarsie, East Elmhurst and Parkchester.

The expansion will also reach Staten Island, after the borough was excluded from the city’s initial list of neighborhoods that will launch free care for 2,000 2-year-olds this fall.

The cost of child care across the five boroughs averages about $20,000 a year and has been driving young families who can’t afford to pay out of the city. While the city offers free care for 3- and 4-year-olds through its 3-K and pre-K programs, parents are often waitlisted for care or assigned to child care locations miles away from their homes. Meanwhile, some neighborhoods are sitting with empty seats.

“For a long time what characterized the city's approach was that it would rely on a technicality saying that a family had been offered a seat to 3-K without specifying that that family living in Parkchester was offered a seat in Park Slope,” Mamdani said during a press conference at the Richmond Pre-K Center on Staten Island announcing the new seats. “What we want to do is to actually meet the demand such that we’re not asking a 3-year-old to get on the train themselves to go to what should be something that their family can drop them off at in their own neighborhood.”

The New York Times first reported the addition of new seats.

Mamdani pledged to make child care free and universal during his mayoral campaign. Shortly after taking office, he announced a plan to expand the city’s free preschool program to 2-year-olds. Gov. Kathy Hochul has vowed to fund the first two years of the program and promised another $100 million toward 3-K after years of cuts under the Adams administration.

Mamdani in recent weeks has been pushing hard to encourage more families to enroll in the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs. He said getting names in the system will help his administration understand where the city needs to create more seats and to make sure all families know what resources are available to them. The city said enrollment numbers are still being crunched.

City officials said that as the new 3-K seats are confirmed, they will notify families in those neighborhoods. The city’s free 3-K program covers six hours of care throughout the school year from September to June. Families can pay out of pocket for additional extended hours if the program offers it.

The 3-K and pre-K programs are offered inside schools, centers and family child care providers who care for children in their home. But family providers, who are overwhelmingly women of color, were largely left out of 3-K and pre-K expansion efforts, which destabilized their businesses and plummeted enrollment.

“Home-based providers are a critical part of the network of early childhood care,” Mamdani said. “ These are at the core of what makes it possible for the city to meet the wide variety of needs. I'm speaking about needs, not just in terms of location, but also linguistic needs, cultural needs.”

Emmy Liss, executive director of the Mayor's Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education, said the city is working to bring more family providers into the system. It’s not yet clear whether the additional 3-K seats will include more family providers, who say they need to be part of the mayor’s universal child care plans or will be forced to close their doors.

City officials said potential provider capacity as well as previous enrollment data and early numbers of 3-K applications determined where the new seats will go. The additional seats will cover more than half of the city’s school districts and include the following ZIP codes and neighborhoods:

  1. Bronx (Districts 8 and 11)

    1. 10461 (Westchester Square, Pelham Bay, Morris Park)
    2. 10462 (Parkchester, Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Little Yemen)
    3. 10465 (Country Club, Edgewater Park, Throgs Neck)
    4. 10469 (Eastchester)
    5. 10475 (Co-Op City)

  2. Staten Island (District 31)

    1. 10302 (Port Richmond)
    2. 10306 (New Dorp, Bay Terrace, Richmond, Lighthouse Hill, Midland Beach, New Dorp Beach, Oakwood)
    3. 10307 (Tottenville)
    4. 10308 (Great Kills)
    5. 10309 (Charleston, Prince’s Bay, Pleasant Plains, Rossville, Woodrow)
    6. 10312 (Rossville, Eltingville, Woodrow, Arden Heights, Annadale, Aspen Knolls, Village Greens, Eltingville, Prince’s Bay)

  3. Brooklyn (Districts 13, 14, 15, 20 and 21)

    1. 11201 (DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn, Cobble Hill, Vinegar Hill)
    2. 11214 (Bath Beach, Gravesend, Bensonhurst)
    3. 11217 (Boerum Hill, Park Slope, Prospect Heights)
    4. 11218 (Kensington, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park)
    5. 11222 (Greenpoint)
    6. 11229 (Sheepshead Bay, Homecrest, Madison, Midwood, Gerritsen Beach)
    7. 11234 (Bergen Beach, Georgetown, Canarsie, Flatlands, Marine Park, Mill Basin)
    8. 11238 (Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Clinton Hill)

  4. Manhattan (Districts 2, 3 and 6)

    1. 10003 (Gramercy, Bowery, Ukrainian Village, NoHo, East Village, Union Square)
    2. 10010 (Gramercy, Flatiron, Kips Bay)
    3. 10011 (Chelsea, West Village)
    4. 10012 (Greenwich Village, SoHo)
    5. 10014 (Greenwich Village, West Village)
    6. 10017 (Midtown East)
    7. 10018 (Midtown West)
    8. 10021 (Upper East Side, Lenox Hill)
    9. 10022 (Midtown East)
    10. 10024 (Upper West Side)
    11. 10025 (Upper West Side, Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights)
    12. 10036 (Midtown West, Hell’s Kitchen)
    13. 10040 (Inwood, Fort George, Washington Heights)
    14. 10044 (Roosevelt Island)
    15. 10065 (Lenox Hill, Upper East Side)
    16. 10128 (Upper East Side, Yorkville)

  5. Queens (Districts 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 30)

    1. 11004 (Glen Oaks, Floral Park)
    2. 11105 (Ditmars-Steinway, Astoria)
    3. 11109 (Long Island City)
    4. 11356 (College Point)
    5. 11363 (Little Neck, Douglaston)
    6. 11365 (Fresh Meadows, Auburndale, Utopia)
    7. 11368 (Corona, Willets Point)
    8. 11370 (Jackson Heights, Astoria Heights, East Elmhurst)
    9. 11372 (Jackson Heights)
    10. 11375 (Forest Hills)
    11. 11378 (Maspeth)
    12. 11379 (Middle Village)
    13. 11385 (Ridgewood, Glendale)
    14. 11418 (Richmond Hill)
    15. 11420 (Ozone Park)
    16. 11423 (Hollis)
    17. 11426 (Bellerose, Bellerose Manor)
    18. 11432 (Jamaica)
    19. 11433 (Jamaica)
    20. 11436 (Jamaica, Ozone Park)

Elizabeth Kim contributed to this report. This story has been updated with more information.

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Politics

Zohran Mamdani

child care

new york city

Karen Yi

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Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.

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