NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York City mayor in the first minutes of the new year at the historic, long-closed City Hall subway station, setting a populist tone for his administration with a ceremony that highlighted working New Yorkers and his own insurgent rise. New York State Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath.
“Happy New Year to New Yorkers, both inside this tunnel and above,” Mamdani said beneath the station’s vaulted tiles and arched skylights. “This is truly an honor and a privilege of a lifetime.” The Uganda-born Democrat, 34, becomes the city’s first Muslim mayor.
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New York law starts four-year mayoral terms on Jan. 1, prompting the longstanding tradition of a small, just-after-midnight swearing-in to avoid any ambiguity over who is in charge of the nation’s most populous city. Mamdani’s team said the decommissioned Old City Hall stop — usually opened only for guided tours — reflected his “commitment to the working people who keep our city running every day.”
Mamdani campaigned on an affordability platform, promising a freeze on rents and free buses and childcare — planks that energized left-leaning voters and signaled a progressive approach to transit, housing and family expenses. He has been a sharp critic of President Donald Trump on immigration and other issues but has emphasized he intends to govern pragmatically at City Hall.
He won with 50% of the vote amid a record turnout of more than 2 million, finishing nearly 10 percentage points ahead of Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent, and well ahead of Republican Curtis Sliwa. The result capped a rapid ascent for the former state lawmaker from Queens who built a citywide coalition around cost-of-living concerns.
James, among Mamdani’s earliest high-profile backers, led the civil case that resulted in a 2024 ruling finding Trump had fraudulently exaggerated his net worth to obtain favorable loans. The Trump administration has targeted James during his second term, accusing her of mortgage fraud. Grant Reeher, a Syracuse University political scientist, said her role on Tuesday likely reassured core supporters that Mamdani intends to be “independent of the president.”
The choice of an attorney general to administer the oath also echoed precedent: Bill de Blasio was sworn in privately in 2014 by then–Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Mamdani’s public inauguration is scheduled for City Hall’s steps, with a program for 4,000 invited guests on City Hall Plaza. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive lodestar whom Mamdani cites as an inspiration, will preside, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is slated to appear. Tens of thousands are expected to watch a livestream from free viewing areas along Broadway for what Mamdani’s team is calling the “Inauguration of a New Era.”
Mamdani’s transition reported raising $2.6 million from nearly 30,000 contributors for staffing and inaugural events — more than other mayors this century both in total and in single donations, according to official disclosures that date back to Michael Bloomberg’s first term in 2001.
After the swearing-in, Mamdani embraced his wife, Rama Duwaji. He is set to move from his rent-stabilized one-bedroom apartment in Astoria to Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, a symbolic shift for a mayor who has stressed his own experience with the city’s affordability crisis.
Wall Street and other business leaders, wary of some of Mamdani’s rhetoric during the campaign, have since opened channels to the new mayor, exploring areas of cooperation on growth and public safety. New York has navigated similar ideological tensions before: during David Dinkins’ 1990-93 term, the city pared budget gaps and persuaded private businesses to remain, according to city archives.
For Mamdani, Tuesday’s subterranean ceremony was both a nod to New York civic ritual and a statement about whom he intends to serve. The real work begins aboveground, where he will be judged on whether his promises on housing costs, transit and childcare can survive the city’s fiscal headwinds — and whether his coalition holds as the glow of inauguration fades.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
