New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani was sworn into office at an abandoned subway stop below City Hall on New Year’s Eve to pay tribute to the “lifeblood” of the Big Apple.
Mamdani, a Democrat, was sworn in as the first Muslim leader of America’s biggest city, placing his hand on a Quran as he took his oath.
“This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime,” Mamdani said in a brief speech.
The private ceremony took place at Old City Hall Station just before midnight on Thursday, and Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath of office to the democratic socialist.
In Mamdani's first speech as mayor, he said the old subway station was a “testament to the importance of public transit to the vitality, the health and the legacy of our city" as he announced the appointment of his new Department of Transportation commissioner, Mike Flynn.
Mamdani had earlier explained the meaning behind the location of his private ceremony in a public statement.
“When Old City Hall Station first opened in 1904 – one of New York’s 28 original subway stations – it was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples’ lives.
“That ambition need not be a memory confined only to our past, nor must it be isolated only to the tunnels beneath City Hall: it will be the purpose of the administration fortunate enough to serve New Yorkers from the building above,” Mamdani said.
The new mayor closed: “Thank you all so much, now I will see you later,” he said with a smile before heading up a flight of stairs.
Mamdani will be sworn in again, in grander style, in a public ceremony at City Hall at 1 p.m. by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and one of the mayor’s political heroes. That will be followed by what the new administration is billing as a public block party on a stretch of Broadway known as the “Canyon of Heroes,” famous for its ticker-tape parades.
Usually, just 4,000 ticketed guests would be allowed to attend the ceremony, but, in addition to these guests, Mamdani has invited all New Yorkers to celebrate with a block party on Broadway.
James and Sanders have become allies of Mamdani, endorsing him during his run for mayor as the Democratic nominee against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was running as an independent, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.
Mamdani won the November 4 election with roughly 50 percent of the vote. Cuomo received about 41 percent of the vote, and Sliwa roughly 7 percent.
After months of attacking Mamdani as a “communist," President Donald Trump in November said he will be “a really great mayor” for his home city after a closed-door meeting at the White House.
Seated behind his desk in the Oval Office while Mamdani stood next to him during what became a half-hour love-fest between the two men, Trump told reporters he’d congratulated his hometown’s next chief executive and pledged to help him bring prices down for New Yorkers.
“I think you're going to have, hopefully, a really great mayor — the better he does, the happier I am,” Trump said.
For his part, Mamdani described the meeting at the time as “productive” and “focused on a place of shared admiration and love” between he and Trump – New York City – and “the need to deliver affordability to New Yorkers, the eight and a half million people who call our city their home, who are struggling to afford life in the most expensive city in the United States of America.”
Ahead of Mamdani’s swearing in, James wrote on X, “I'm honored to swear in @ZohranKMamdani at the Old City Hall subway station at the turn of the new year.” She added, “Our subways connect us all, and they represent exactly what our next mayor is fighting for: a city every New Yorker can thrive in.”
