On January 1, the blocks around City Hall will sound more like a festival than a formal hand-off.
Zohran Mamdani’s team announced Sunday that Broadway between Liberty and Murray streets will shut down for a public block party, complete with music, food trucks, and jumbo screens, all leading up to the moment he raises his hand and becomes New York’s 112th mayor.
Gates open at 11 a.m., the ceremony starts at 1 p.m., and anyone who wants inside the fenced area must reserve a free ticket through the transition website; the same sign-up grants access to the live-stream if people would rather watch from home under a blanket.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Comptroller-elect Mark Levine will stand beside Mamdani on the City Hall steps as he takes the oath, a visual signal that the left flank of city government intends to move as a single unit.
The choice of location breaks with recent tradition.
Eric Adams loved the bright lights of Times Square and took the oath minutes after the crystal ball dropped in 2022; Bill de Blasio and Mike Bloomberg both used the quieter City Hall plaza with a few hundred onlookers braving January wind.
Mamdani wants thousands, not hundreds, and he wants them close enough to high-five.
Organizers promise hot coffee, holiday cookies, and a rotation of local DJs spinning everything from salsa to drill, a playlist meant to stress that the new administration will celebrate the city’s mix of cultures rather than a single VIP room.
Security will be tight: everyone passes through magnetometers, bags are searched, and the NYPD will have extra officers on overtime fresh from their New Year’s Eve shift.
But the campaign says the mood should feel like a neighborhood fair that just happens to end with a mayor, a Bible, and a constitutionally required sentence.
Vendors have been told to keep prices low—two dollars for coffee, three for a knish—and volunteers will hand out pocket-size “People’s Program” booklets that list the new mayor’s first-100-day promises in English, Spanish, Bengali, and Mandarin.
Rain, snow, or shine, the show goes on; organizers have ordered clear ponchos printed with the city seal and the words “112th Mayor” just in case the weather turns cranky.
Mamdani joked last week that he was briefly confused about the number—city archivists found an extra mayor from the 1830s everyone had forgotten—but said he is happy to serve as either 111 or 112.
On January 1, the only digit that will matter is the one he’ll draw in the air after the oath: a promise that city government now belongs to the people spilling off the sidewalks and dancing in the street.
