While tens of thousands of New Yorkers will be in Times Square for the countdown to 2026, the city’s mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, has said he will be sworn into office in an underground midnight private ceremony at an abandoned subway station built during the gilded age.
Mamdani, 34, plans to take the oath of office on New Year’s Eve in a disused subway station beneath city hall that acts as turnaround for the local 6 train. The unusual choice of venue for the ceremony, Mamdani said, is symbolically resonant of the “inauguration of a new era”.
