‘We will not wait’: Mamdani kicks off housing plans after inaugural party

New York, United States – Sprawling crowds, a seven-block-long party and chants to “tax the rich” in the world’s wealthiest city marked Zohran Mamdani’s public inauguration as New York City mayor on Thursday, as the metropolis welcomed a new year with a new leadership.

Political inaugurations are usually more stolid affairs. But, as he had in his campaign for the mayoralty, Mamdani flipped the script with his swearing-in events.

In act one, just after midnight, as the ball dropped in Times Square to ring in 2026, Mamdani took the oath of office in a small ceremony on the steps of the landmark New York City Hall subway station.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James administered the oath as Mamdani stood beside his wife, Rama Duwaji, on a staircase inside the transit hub, which has not been used for passenger service since 1945. He used a historic Quran borrowed from the New York Public Library for his swearing in, and a second one that belonged to his grandfather.

The public celebration arrived later, on New Year’s Day, when Mamdani repeated the oath on the steps of City Hall before a crowd that spilled across the surrounding plaza and into the streets. Despite the blistering cold, tens of thousands of supporters streamed into Lower Manhattan to watch the new mayor – along with the city’s comptroller, Mark Levine, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – formally assume office.

National political heavyweights, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, flanked the city’s new leadership and delivered speeches outlining the progressive movement’s governing ambitions in New York and the national reverberations the race has already sent to lawmakers across the country.

“The most important lesson that can be learned today is that when working people stand, when they don’t let them [the ultra-wealthy] divide us up, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish,” Sanders said before swearing in Mamdani.

While guests and the press gathered inside the City Hall grounds, the city staged a seven-block-long public block party – a new twist on the traditionally ticketed inauguration format. In addition to a closed event capped at a few thousand attendees, anyone willing to RSVP and endure the frigid air and blustering winds after a night of snowfall could try their luck at getting in.

And many did, bundled New Yorkers shuffled through security checkpoints, hoping to glimpse the swearing-in of a 34-year-old democratic socialist now charged with running the largest city in the United States, streaming on large monitors stationed throughout the surrounding area outside City Hall.

Some supporters told Al Jazeera they waited in line for hours, and many never made it through the checkpoints in time. While crowds cheered and horns blasted in solidarity from a distance, a handful of protesters lingered behind police barricades.

The block party in and of itself was symbolic in its effort to reach more New Yorkers who have normally been left out of the political process, Democratic strategist Nomiki Konst told Al Jazeera.

“It was a way of opening up something that hasn’t been accessible for anybody, you know, that wasn’t part of the inner circle of New York politics and media,” Konst told Al Jazeera.

“It was an opportunity to give back to the people who helped him get into office.”

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