Bloomberg to meet Korean residents in New York

NEW YORK (Yonhap) -- New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to hold an unprecedented town hall meeting with Korean residents in the city next week, a move that apparently reflects the growing presence and influence of Koreans in the United States, a community group said Thursday.

Bloomberg, accompanied by other senior municipal officials, will have a meeting with several groups of Koreans at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday at the Flushing Library in New York, according to Korean American Community Foundation (KACF).

It would mark the first time for the mayor to have such a town hall meeting solely with Korean residents since taking office in 2002.

"The mayoral office notified us in mid-September of a plan for the town hall meeting," a KACF official said.

An estimated 2 million people with Korean origins live in the United States -- about 200,000 of them in New York and the nearby state of New Jersey, according to data.