NEW YORK CITY – Just moments after the New Year’s Eve ball descended in Times Square, Zohran Mamdani quietly stepped into office as New York City’s mayor, not in a grand hall above ground, but deep beneath the city, inside a long-abandoned subway station that once symbolized the ambition of a growing metropolis.
Mamdani, a progressive firebrand whose rise was fueled by a potent blend of charisma, digital fluency, and an unrelenting focus on affordability, was sworn in early Thursday morning during a private ceremony held at the former City Hall subway station. The location, sealed off to the public for decades, offered a striking contrast to the celebratory crowds aboveground ushering in the new year.
A larger, public inauguration is scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday on the steps of City Hall. That ceremony will feature two of Mamdani’s most prominent ideological allies: Senator Bernie Sanders, who will administer a ceremonial oath, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is set to deliver opening remarks.
A Setting Heavy With Symbolism
The private swearing-in took place inside one of New York’s most architecturally ornate transit spaces. Opened in 1904 as part of the city’s original subway system, the City Hall station featured tiled arches, chandeliers, and vaulted ceilings, a product of an era when civic infrastructure was designed to inspire as much as to serve.
The choice of venue was no accident. Mamdani, a vocal advocate for public transit who helped deliver free bus service to parts of the city during his time in the State Legislature, has long understood the power of imagery in politics. The setting underscored his belief that government should elevate everyday life, a sentiment he referenced by noting that leadership above ground exists to serve the millions who move below it.
Adding to the symbolism was the decision to have New York Attorney General Letitia James administer the oath. A prominent progressive figure and a frequent adversary of President Trump, James represented both institutional authority and ideological alignment.
Transit historians note that the ceremony also served as an unspoken acknowledgment of the laborers, many of them Italian immigrants and African Americans, who built the subway under harsh and often dangerous conditions. Their work, primarily overseen by Irish American supervisors, laid the foundation for the system that still moves the city today.
Hope, Expectations, and Hard Realities
If Mamdani’s campaign rhetoric is any indication, his administration will lean heavily on themes of compassion, possibility, and economic justice. For supporters like Bhairavi Desai, a labor leader with roots in India, a region connected to Mamdani’s own family history, his victory carried deep emotional weight.
She described his election as the first time in her life she believed New York would be led by someone who genuinely cares about people living in poverty. In her view, recent scandals surrounding Mayor Eric Adams and what she characterized as the racial politics of President Trump had left many New Yorkers deeply cynical. Mamdani, she said, feels different, defined by sincerity and empathy.
Whether those qualities will translate into effective governance remains an open question. The responsibilities ahead are immense. Mamdani now presides over a municipal workforce of roughly 300,000 employees across dozens of agencies, many of which are among the largest of their kind in the nation. He must confront the stubborn realities of housing costs, inflation, and economic forces far beyond City Hall’s control.
He will also inherit a complicated relationship with the Police Department, which he has previously criticized as structurally racist, and navigate tensions within the city’s large Jewish population, some of whom remain wary of his past involvement in pro-Palestinian activism and his refusal to repudiate language they interpret as inciting violence.
An Ambitious Agenda Meets Fiscal Constraints
Mamdani campaigned on a sweeping affordability platform: universal child care, a rent freeze for stabilized apartments, and fast, free city buses. The estimated annual cost of these initiatives, roughly $7 billion, will require significant state cooperation.
That support may be difficult to secure as Governor Kathy Hochul faces re-election pressures and looming federal budget uncertainties. Still, neither the private nor public ceremonies were designed to dwell on fiscal obstacles. Instead, they spotlighted the promise of a young leader whose rapid ascent has captured global attention.
From Midnight Formalities to Daylight Celebration
Shortly after midnight, Mamdani completed the formal requirements of office: filing his oath with the city clerk, paying a $9 fee, and signing a leather-bound registry that will authenticate his signature on official documents. With those steps complete, he emerged from the underground station, closed to passengers for nearly eight decades, as New York City’s new mayor.
Later Thursday, he will reappear in public at City Hall for a celebration expected to draw tens of thousands. Transition officials anticipate a crowd of roughly 40,000 people, including outgoing Mayor Adams, who chose to mark his final moments in office at Times Square rather than attend the private ceremony.
Across Lower Manhattan, near the halal food carts Mamdani once featured in a viral video highlighting rising living costs, optimism was already visible. Vendors expressed hope that the incoming mayor’s policies, particularly free buses, would ease financial pressures. For some, his election also carried historic significance.
“For years, I never imagined New York could have a Muslim mayor,” said one vendor who voted for Mamdani. “Now? It feels normal.”
As daylight breaks on his first day in office, Zohran Mamdani steps into leadership carrying both extraordinary expectations and the unforgiving scrutiny of a city that demands results as much as inspiration.
The Midtown Times wishes you all a happy New Year of 2026
