Zohran Mamdani’s public inauguration as New York City mayor on Thursday marked the city’s first year with a new leadership. Sprawling crowds, a seven-block long party, and chants to “tax the rich” were part of the city’s wealthiest city.
Political inaugurations typically have a more stodgy tone. However, with his swearing-in events, Mamdani flipped the script, as he did with his campaign for mayor.
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In Act One, which took the oath of office shortly after midnight as the ball dropped in Times Square in the year 2026, Mamdani swore a modest ceremony on the steps of the famed New York City Hall subway station.
Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, took the oath as Mamdani sat next to his wife Rama Duwaji as they took the stairs inside the transit hub, which hasn’t been used for passenger transportation since 1945. He swore in both a historic Quran from the New York Public Library and a second one that belonged to his grandfather.
Later that night, Mamdani took the oath in front of a crowd that poured down into the streets and the surrounding plaza. The celebration took place on New Year’s Day. Tens of thousands of supporters poured into Lower Manhattan to watch the new mayor take office in the midst of the blistering cold, along with Mark Levine, the city’s comptroller, and Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Vermont, both of whom are leaders of the city, delivered speeches praising the progressive movement’s governing goals in New York and the national repercussions the election has already had on lawmakers across the country.
Before swearing in Mamdani, Sanders said, “The most important lesson that can be learned today is that when working people stand, when they don’t let the wealthy divide us up,” Sanders said.
A seven-block-long public block party was held inside the City Hall grounds, a new twist on the frequently ticketed inauguration format. Anyone who can attend a closed event with a few thousand attendees and endure the chilly air and blustering winds after a night of snowfall could try their luck at getting in.
And many did as bundled New Yorkers scurried through security checkpoints in search of a 34-year-old democratic socialist who was tasked with overseeing the country’s largest city, watching on large monitors stationed all over the city’s perimeter outside City Hall.
Some supporters claimed they spent hours waiting in line, but many never made it through the checkpoints. A few protesters sat behind police barricades while crowds cheered and horns blared in solidarity from a distance.
Democratic strategist Nomiki Konst told Al Jazeera that the block party’s attempt to reach more New Yorkers who otherwise would not be a part of the political process was symbolic.
According to Konst, “It was a way of opening up something that wasn’t previously accessible to anyone, you know, that wasn’t a part of the inner circle of New York politics and media.”
“It gave me an opportunity to give back to the people who helped him win office.”
A common goal and affordable goal
Mamdani, Williams, and Levine appeared alongside faith leaders from various different religions, including Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, and made remarks in English, Spanish, Hebrew, and Greek about unity for all New Yorkers.
There are three swearings in. one by a leader who uses a Quran, one by a leader who uses a Christian Bible, and one by a leader who uses a Hebrew Bible. After taking the oath of office, Levine said, “I am proud to live in a city where this is possible.”
That sentiment was shared by Mamdani.
We’ll bring this city together closer. We’ll switch from rugged individualism to collectivism, which is more chilly. Let this government foster it, Mamdani said in his address, “if our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity.”
As we strive to make this city more likeable to its citizens each day, “We will deliver nothing less.”
The campaign’s underlying message, however, was the same one that Mamdani, Levine, Williams, Sanders, and Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly echoed: that the ultra-rich should pay higher taxes.
It is not radical to demand that the wealthy and the largest corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. Sanders remarked as his supporters chanted, “Tax the rich! ” and that is exactly what the right thing to do.
In addition to a 2 percent higher in taxes for those who earn more than $1 million annually, one of Mamdani’s main promises was to raise the corporate tax rate in New York City from 7.25 percent to 11.5 percent, which is equivalent to that in neighboring New Jersey. The governor’s approval would be required for any tax plan to proceed.
“Taxi cab depots and Amazon warehouses, DSA]Democratic Socialists of America] meetings and curbside domino games were the origin of this movement,” according to the eight-and-a-half million people who attended the “taxi cab depots and Amazon warehouses.” The powers that be had been hiding these locations for a while, if they had even known about them, and so they dismissed them as nowhere. There is no where and no no one in our city, Mamdani said, where every corner of these five boroughs is in charge.
Mamdani’s affordability message was at the heart of housing policy. One of his signature campaign promises was to freeze the rent for the city’s rental stabilized apartments, which make up about half the rental housing stock in the city.
Because we will freeze the rent, Mamdani said in his remarks, “Those living in rent-stabilized homes will no longer detest the most recent rent increase.”
A list of executive orders, all of which were directed at housing, was introduced just hours later.
At a press conference, Mamdani said, “We will not wait to deliver action on the first day of this new administration, on the day when so many rent payments are due.
In a rent-stabilized building in Brooklyn, he made three executive orders, including one for the creation of two new housing policy task forces: one to identify ways to encourage development and the other to take inventory of city-owned land that could be used for housing.
Our affordability crisis is at the heart of our affordability crisis, according to the statement. We will be focusing on a number of things, including preventing landlord abuse, pursuing bad landlords, and creating more housing. Prior to announcing the new policies, Leila Bozorg, the deputy mayor for housing and planning, told Al Jazeera that a major part of our housing crisis is “building more affordable housing across the city.”
Source: Aljazeera
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