Faces on Inauguration Day Crowd Reflect a 'Lot of Hope' for Mamdani

Despite subfreezing temperatures, Zohran Mamdani supporters on Broadway thrill to the inauguration ceremony shown on one of the large overhead screens. Another 4,000 seated guests watched in person from the plaza in front of City Hall. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib 

Bunched together behind barricades and bundled up for hours against the subfreezing cold, tens of thousands of Zohran Mamdani’s passionate supporters lined lower Broadway from Barclay to Liberty streets on New Year’s Day, possibly the biggest mayoral inauguration crowd in New York City history.

Photos by Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

It was a scene that hardly lived up to the “block party” that Mamdani organizers had promoted. But gazing up at the huge overhead screens carrying the City Hall ceremony of speeches, music and swearing ins (which included Public Advocate Jumaane Williams), the cold could not chill this crowd’s enthusasm for the new mayor. 

Even Ashley Williams, 36, from Staten Island, declared no regrets. On a scale of zero to 100, Williams estimated her level of frigid discomfort at “10,000”— yet worth it. “Absolutely a thousand percent,” she said. “I was out for Obama’s inauguration, and when Bernie came to Brooklyn in 2019. If you believe in it you gotta come out for it.” 

Christina Cover, a Bronx public school teacher and member, like Mamdani, of the Democratic Socialists of America, cheered and occasionally wiped away a tear during the ceremony. “I think Mayor Mamdani’s leadership reflects everything that not only I believe we need as a teacher up in the Bronx but I think my students would aspire to,” she said.

“I have a lot of hope,” Cover added, “but also a lot of recognition that he can’t do it alone. There are so many entrenched powers that be. They were there long before today and will remain. So we’ve got to be clear-eyed and ready for a real fight ahead.”