Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good evening, my fellow New Yorkers. What a privilege it is to look out onto a room full of friends, old and new, of the incredible city workers who drive our buses, teach our children, and tend to our parks — a room full of New Yorkers. I want to thank every elected official here — whether at the city, state or federal level. I want to thank every labor leader, faith leader, organizer, and activist who shapes the communities that make our city what it is. To put it simply, I want to thank everyone for being here.
It is a Sunday night in New York City. And while some prepare for the week ahead, for many, the workday has only just begun. Tonight, in the northern reaches of the Bronx, an MTA train operator is guiding a 2 train out of Wakefield. Before that train reaches its final stop in Flatbush, it will drop off New York City Health + Hospitals nurses at 135th Street, NYCHA maintenance workers at 96th Street, and CUNY staff at Franklin Avenue – Medgar Evers College. From the Power Control Center at 53rd Street, engineers will manage its path through a vast network of signals. And at every stop, at every hour of the night, the people of New York City will get off the subway and go to work.
This city does not run by accident. New York City is the greatest city in the world because of the millions of people who labor tirelessly each and every day to make it so. What an immense honor it is to be your Mayor — to not simply lead you, but to learn from you.
102 days ago, we stood together on the steps of City Hall, bracing ourselves against the bitter cold. 102 days ago, we stood together at the dawn of a new era. The world watched, wondering if change could really come. Across the five boroughs, New Yorkers waited to see if a City Hall powered by the people could truly govern for the people. There were cynics then, just as there are cynics now. Some said that once the hard work began, we would forget the movement of working people that rewrote what was possible in this city. Others warned that the left could debate but could never deliver. Socialists might be able to win a campaign, they said, but we could never advance an agenda.
Far more wanted to believe — but didn’t know how. Because for too long, City Hall had not just failed to meet expectations, it had lowered them. After years of broken promises, no one could be blamed for doubting that government held either the ability or the ambition to upend the status quo. Yet as I said on that freezing January afternoon to more than 8.5 million New Yorkers: “We will make no apology for what we believe. I was elected as a Democratic socialist and I will govern as a Democratic socialist.” For 102 days, we have done just that.
Tonight, I want to talk about what we’ve done. Not to congratulate ourselves, but as a reminder of what is possible. With what we've accomplished in 14 weeks, imagine what we can do in four years. We began with a promise: universal child care. And by Day 8, we delivered it. Thanks to a historic $1.2 billion dollar partnership with Governor Kathy Hochul — and the organizing of more than one hundred thousand New Yorkers during the campaign — we will not only make 3-K truly universal, we will deliver free childcare for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City. We will begin with two thousand children this fall, twelve thousand next year, and cover every single two-year-old by the end of four years.
Tens of thousands of families will no longer have to choose between having a child and affording to live in our city — that is the change government can deliver. I think of Mallorie, a young mother spending $2,000 each month on child care. She dreamed of having another kid, but she couldn’t afford it. When we announced universal childcare, she said it finally felt possible. When young parents save more than $20,000 dollars per year, per child — that is the change government can deliver. When children get a better start, when parents can keep their jobs, when billions of dollars in workforce productivity return to our economy — that is the change government can deliver. And we didn’t stop there.
We’re taking on the biggest driver of the affordability crisis in our city: housing. We’re going after the bad landlords who violate our laws and mistreat their tenants. Since January 1, we have won more than $34 million dollars in settlements, judgements, and repairs for tenants, delivered improvements to 6,070 apartments so far, and issued 195,829 violations. New York City will no longer tolerate exploitation as a business model. We have held rental ripoff hearings across the five boroughs — and heard from more than 1,600 New Yorkers — because the same tenants who have been overlooked by our politics will now be at the heart of our policies. As we protect the tenants of today, we must also build for tomorrow. That’s why we have cut red tape and accelerated the construction of thousands of new units of housing — homes that are not only affordable enough to rent, but many that will be affordable enough to buy as well.
And I know there are many New Yorkers who care about the work of the Rent Guidelines Board. I am one of them. Rents are too high across New York City — and government can do more to address that. I’m proud of the six new members I appointed to that independent board, and I look forward to the decision they come to in just a few short months.
No longer will city government be afraid of its own shadow. If anyone should be afraid, it is those who take advantage of working people. Over these past 102 days, as we launched a sweeping worker and consumer protection agenda, we have made clear that solidarity is not just a slogan, it is a practice. When NYSNA nurses went on strike, I was proud to join them on the picket line — and those nurses didn’t back down until they won the better wages and safe working conditions they deserved. We will stand with workers who have so often stood alone. We have returned more than $9.3 million dollars to workers, consumers, and small businesses — nearly $100,000 dollars every single day we’ve been in office. We expanded protected time off for more than four million workers, reinstated nearly 10,000 wrongly deactivated delivery workers, and issued nearly 60,000 compliance warnings across the city.
And throughout it all, we have taken on the junk fees and subscription traps that afflict far too many New Yorkers. No longer can someone charge you a hidden fee for the hotel you book or make it impossible to cancel a gym membership. As we set the global standard for protecting consumers, we will also ensure that New York City remains the global center of business.
We want to build the strongest economy that our five boroughs have ever seen. And we’re on our way. New York City continues to lead office recovery nationwide. Venture capital investment in our city reached $11.1 billion dollars in the first quarter of this year — the strongest quarter in five years. Labor force participation is at an all-time high.
And yet we know that if we want our city to continue to grow, we must deliver the conditions for exactly that. Public safety is at the top of the list. Make no mistake: our approach to public safety is working. Since we took office, murders have hit record lows. There has not been a murder on Staten Island in more than 180 days. Crime is down. The NYPD has taken more than 1,000 guns off our streets since January 1. Together with the Crisis Management System, we are on pace to deliver the lowest levels of shootings in our history. And there is always more to be done. Our administration will approach public safety with a whole-of-government approach. That’s why, on Day 78, we were proud to announce the creation of New York City’s first ever Office of Community Safety. It will devise new approaches to the gun violence and mental health crises that stretch across our city.
This commitment to safety extends to making our city safer and smoother for the New Yorkers who navigate our streets. On the third day of our administration, we announced that we would install protected bike lanes along the entirety of McGuinness Boulevard, one of the most dangerous roads in New York City, protecting the thousands of New Yorkers who use it every day. We took action to lower speed limits across thousands of school zones citywide. Four hundred and thirty-eight children have been killed in traffic crashes since 2000. We will not accept this as normal. And as we prepare for the World Cup, we are delivering major street upgrades — including a redesign of Ninth Avenue and expanded bike lanes and pedestrian spaces in downtown Manhattan.
Throughout every day of this work, we have contended with a historic budget deficit larger than even that of the Great Recession. Unlike those who came before us, we will budget with transparency and accountability. As we have responded to this crisis, I have thought often of the Margaret Thatcher quote: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” If anything, my friends, it seems that you eventually need a socialist to clean up the mess.
On January 1, I told New Yorkers that City Hall would hold a singular purpose: “to make this city belong to more of its people than it did the day before.” For 102 days, we have endeavored to do exactly that — delivering both public goods and public excellence. Buses will run faster on Fordham Road. Children play in a new recreation center in East Flatbush, honoring the legacy of Shirley Chisholm. Child care centers are opening in Western Queens and Staten Island and the South Bronx. That is the change that government can deliver. And it the change that Democratic Socialism can deliver.
I know there are many who use “socialist” as a dirty word — something to be ashamed of. They can try all they want, but we will not be ashamed of using government to fight for the many, not simply the few. We will not be ashamed of adding more heat pumps to NYCHA buildings in the Rockaways, or building more supportive housing in Harlem or standing steadfast alongside our trans neighbors. We will not be ashamed of investing in youth mental health clinics, or working to close Rikers or fighting for immigrants targeted by ICE. To any New Yorker, whether you're under attack from the federal government’s cruelty or suffocating under the affordability crisis, we will stand beside you.
Because government is a series of choices. Socialism is the choice to fight for every New Yorker — to extend democracy from the ballot box to the rest of our lives. We are hardly the first socialists to embrace good governance. One hundred and ten years ago, the city of Milwaukee elected a mayor named Daniel Webster Hone. Hone was considered young for the job — only thirty-five years old when he took office. I know — crazy, right? More importantly, Hone made no apologies for being a socialist.
Mayor Hone knew then what we know now: the worth of an ideology can only be judged by its delivery. As Emil Seidel, the socialist mayor who came before Hone once said, their entire governing philosophy was simple: “go after it and get it.” Under Mayor Hone, Milwaukee built the greatest public park system in the nation and weathered the Great Depression better than almost any other American city. Under Mayor Hone, Milwaukee purged corruption and graft, built the first municipally sponsored public housing development in the nation and transformed the city’s sewage disposal system. He believed, just as we do, that to deliver this great society, we should tax the rich.
Today, we know these leaders as the “sewer socialists.” But for years, Milwaukeeans knew them simply as leaders who delivered. It’s time we bring that to New York City. And yes, that means you too, Giannis. Come join the Knicks next year as we defend our title. In all seriousness, as I have said time and again: “there is no problem too big, no task too small.”
Universal childcare was a problem deemed too big to take on. Standing up for workers against abusive corporations was a problem too big to take on. Building more homes, lowering crime to historic levels, and defending tenants against bad landlords — these were problems too big to take on. But here's the truth: nothing is too big for New York City to take on. And over the past 14 weeks, we have proved that there is no task too small either. Because if government can’t do the small things, how could you ever trust it to do the big ones? How can we promise to transform our city if we can’t pave your street?
And that's why, since January 1, New York City has filled more than 102,000 potholes — including 22,800 in just three days alone. From Pelham to Tompkinsville, Bay Ridge to Inwood, city workers have fixed roads at a rate not seen in more than a decade. They filled them as the sun came up, they filled them at midnight, they filled them at all hours of the day. And that’s not all. By the end of this fiscal year, the Department of Transportation will repave 1,150 lane miles of our streets — enough to stretch from New York City to Miami. Dale!
This is pothole politics — our 2026 answer to sewer socialism — where government is not too busy, not too self-important, not too mired in paperwork to fix the problems of this city, no matter their size. On day six, when we paved the bump at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, that was pothole politics. On Day 65, when we rolled out our plan to take down thousands of feet of scaffolding that have darkened city streets for years — that was pothole politics.
On Day 90, when we announced more than $100 million dollars to replace and modernize more than 6,700 catch basins, that too was pothole politics. Honestly, that one might’ve been sewer socialism. And when our city was blanketed by winter storms, when mountains of snow piled up on our streets, we brought pothole politics to emergency response. Sanitation workers melted 783 million pounds of snow, spread 1 billion pounds of salt, and cleared 135,000 crosswalks, 34,000 bus stops, and 29,000 fire hydrants.
We will lower costs, repave the road, shovel snow from the street, and return dignity to working peoples’ lives. And to the cynics, you know what? We’ll fill your potholes too. Because when socialists make promises, we go after it and get it. So, let us look forward to the next promises we will keep.
This evening, I am proud to make three transformative announcements. First, we’re going to make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table. Since the pandemic, grocery prices have gone up, and they haven’t come back down. We feel it every time we go to the store. Between 2013 and 2023, grocery prices increased in New York City by nearly 66 percent, significantly higher than the national average.
During our campaign, we promised New Yorkers that we would create a network of five city-owned grocery stores — one in each borough. Today, we make good on that promise. I am proud to announce that we will open every single one of these stores by the end of our first term. And the first one will open next year. Stores where prices are fair, where workers are treated with dignity, and where New Yorkers can actually afford to shop. At our stores, eggs will be cheaper. Bread will be cheaper. Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation.
One of those stores will be at La Marqueta in El Barrio, the same market that Fiorella LaGuardia opened in 1936, so working people could save money on fruits and vegetables. We will continue his legacy. We are building a brand-new store on city-owned land currently sitting empty in East Harlem, a neighborhood where nearly 40 percent of households received public assistance or SNAP in the past year.
Some will insist that city-owned businesses do not work, that government cannot keep up with corporations. My answer to them is simple: I look forward to the competition. May the most affordable grocery store win. When I think of the change that government can deliver, I think too of the leadership of Mayor Bernie Sanders of Burlington, Vermont. And while I’m truly sorry that he can’t be here with us today — oh my god, is that Bernie Sanders?
Senator Bernie Sanders: You know, I have been on platforms with hundreds and hundreds of mayors and all kinds of public officials. This is the first time I was ever introduced by someone who talked proudly about democratic socialism, and it feels great. I just want to say a few words and I want to congratulate the mayor and his team for a fantastic first hundred days. And I want to tell all of you and the mayor that what you guys are doing here in New York City is important not only to the people here. What you are doing and what the mayor is doing is providing hope and inspiration not only to people all across our country, but honestly, all across the world.
It is no secret, no secret, that here in America and around the world, a lot of people are giving up on democracy. They're saying, “I vote, and all I see is the rich get richer, and I get poorer. Why do I want to vote? Why do I need democracy?” But what you guys are doing here is telling the world that we can have a government that works for all of us, not just the oligarchs. And today's announcement by the mayor of new city-run grocery stores is just another example of government working for the people. You know, I know that the mayor has been criticized. Some say, “This is a radical idea.” I'll tell you what is a radical idea. Giving tax breaks to billionaires, throwing people off health care. That's radical. What's radical is starting a terrible war. That's radical.
But providing affordable food to working families, that's not radical, it's exactly the right thing to do. And what the mayor and all of you are doing by establishing these city run grocery stores is not only going to help working people afford the food that they need, it's doing something else. I am the chairman or the former chairman of the health education labor committee. And what we have worked on and understand that one of the reasons that working class people die at a significantly younger age than the elderly has to do with diet.
Working people, low-income people cannot afford the decent quality food that their kids and the whole family need. And the result of that is all across this country, we have tens of millions of people dealing with obesity and we have a crisis, an epidemic in diabetes. We've got a crisis, an epidemic in diabetes. So, when we talk about making decent quality food affordable to all people, it's not only the right thing to do, in the end of the day, it's going to save money. Making sure our kids eat healthy food is not a radical idea, it's what every government should be doing. So, Mr. Mayor, thank you all. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank all of you for standing up and fighting for justice. Let's go forward together. Thank you.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you, Senator, for joining us today, and for all you’ve done for working people. Bernie’s eight years as Mayor were defined by a tireless commitment to improving his city. He fixed a crumbling downtown. He delivered city services equally, not just to wealthier areas. And he used a budget surplus to repair streets. One day, Bernie, you’ll have to tell me what a budget surplus actually feels like.
The sewer socialists used government to build a better Milwaukee. Bernie Sanders used government to build a better Burlington. We will use government to build a better New York City. That, my friends, is pothole politics.
And we will pursue pothole politics as we tackle one of the most persistent challenges that faces our city, one that affects every New Yorker no matter where they live, the same word that many people correctly use to describe my jump shot: trash. Trash bags clutter our streets and sidewalks. Rats and vermin never have to look far for their next meal. In the wealthiest city in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, no one should have to live surrounded by garbage.
And for a brief moment, it seemed like we wouldn’t. In 2024, voters overwhelmingly supported moving forward with trash containerization. Empire bins were rolled out in Harlem. They were promised in Brooklyn. And then, as so many New Yorkers have come to expect from government, the momentum stalled. No date was given by which it would be completed, no funds set aside to make it real. The promise was empty. The only thing that should be empty in New York City are our sidewalks of trash. So, we’re going to put a lid on it.
Tonight, I am proud to announce that we are launching an ambitious campaign of trash containerization across the five boroughs. We will containerize all trash at all residential properties. There will be at least one fully containerized community district in each borough by the end of next year. We will begin aggressively rolling out new containers to store that trash, and new trucks to pick it up. And we will accomplish full citywide containerization by the end of 2031. So, New York City, say goodbye to black bags, say hello to the bins. Sidewalks will be clean. Rats will go hungry. Trash won’t know what hit it.
New Yorkers deserve a government that does not shy away from the daily challenges we face, one that tackles the issues before us. That commitment to delivering change is what guides the third and final announcement I am so proud to make tonight. We will speed up buses for more than one million New Yorkers across New York City.
Already, over these first 102 days, we have delivered for hundreds of thousands of bus riders. We kicked off street redesign projects on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, and we improved crosstown bus service in the Bronx — because yes, even Yankees fans deserve better public transit. But in a city where every minute counts, where time is money, it’s unacceptable that some buses run as slow as five miles an hour.
That’s why on the campaign I promised to make buses faster, and it’s why tonight, I am so excited to share that we will cut down commutes by up to six minutes each way. Now, six minutes is a lot of time. It’s enough to spend a little longer at breakfast with your family, take a shower before work, or listen to the seminal classic Four Minutes by Madonna featuring Justin Timberlake and Timbaland one and a half times.
Together with Governor Hochul, we will speed up buses by up to 20 percent along 45 priority corridors. We will significantly increase the number of bus stops that are fully accessible. And we will construct new, world-class, rapid bus routes for 100,000 New Yorkers who live more than a half mile away from a subway or rail stop.
When we talk about who rides the bus, we are talking about New Yorkers who have too often been overlooked in our politics — disproportionately working class, Black, Brown, outer-borough riders, the very New Yorkers who have been told to make do riding the slowest buses in America. No longer. This will be led by a partnership between the Department of Transportation and the MTA, the first of its kind in a decade. Government will work together to work better for New Yorkers. We made a promise to New Yorkers to make buses fast and free. Tonight, we’re delivering the fast. And we’re excited to continue working with Albany to deliver the free.
When I began speaking tonight, a two train had just set out on a three-borough journey from Wakefield-241st Street. It rattled through the Bronx, racing the setting sun. Beneath the steel tracks, street vendors sold birria and fuchka, students did homework on their stoop, and taxi drivers picked up passengers. That train went underground beneath the Harlem River. Overhead, city workers piloted ferries and tugboats, riding the waves. It sped below churches where the sound of neighbors singing in a single voice had echoed only a few hours prior. Now, as we stand together, it is arriving at 125th Street.
The New Yorkers on that train are thinking not of the many worlds they just rode through or the miracle that is New York City. They are thinking about whether they will make rent by the first of the month, whether they’ll have enough to ever buy a home, whether they can raise a family in the city they love. And they’re thinking about whether their train will arrive on time, whether government will provide the services it has promised.
For too long, as New Yorkers have asked these questions, City Hall has not raised its hand to help. The people of our city have been left to fend for themselves. We hold a mighty responsibility. Not just to govern with honesty and integrity, not just to deliver relentless improvement. We have the responsibility of proving that government is worthy of the people it serves. Our best days lie before us, New York. The work is there to be done. Together, let’s go after it and get it. Thank you.
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