Copy Link Share Comment

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

It was around noon when I stepped off the train, surfacing into Lower Manhattan’s particular brand of winter blight—when the cold is amplified by tall buildings that block out direct sun and funnel air directly onto your face. It was about 25 degrees, though the temperature felt theoretical once the wind got involved. Within minutes my ears had gone brittle, aching in that sharp kind of way that makes you briefly resent your parents for ever leaving the Middle East.

I followed a small group of South Asian aunties in industrial-grade puffers and bright yellow “Zohran” campaign beanies, which smartly functioned equally as political statements and survival gear. They led me toward the official public “block party,” a kenneled-off stretch of Broadway that I had optimistically imagined would involve warmth-adjacent amenities: food carts, coffee in little paper cups that burn your fingers just a bit, maybe even porta-potties. Instead, it was a wide, empty street hemmed in by police barricades and a few enormous screens. Music blasted. People stood around. That was it.

The aunties seemed genuinely delighted, bopping along to Bruno Mars as if this were the triumph of civic joy they had been waiting for since Election Day. I, meanwhile, realized that joy without circulation was not sustainable for me. I lasted maybe five minutes.

I cut north toward City Hall Plaza, where the actual inauguration was scheduled to take place.

I was expecting a spectacle. Zohran Mamdani is a New York mayor of many firsts: the first Muslim, the first South Asian, the first African-born, the first millennial. In the middle of the Trump era—which has been particularly hostile to every one of those identities—I wanted to see how that collision landed in person. I was curious how ordinary New Yorkers, from the people who powered his rise to City Hall to those who opposed it and everyone in between, would experience a moment that already felt larger than a single election.

What I found instead was something messier and more revealing. New York was working through its feelings in real time. Pride and paranoia crossed paths on the sidewalk. Joy and cynicism hovered in the frozen air. As always, the city was a layered collage best understood through the small encounters and fleeting scenes unfolding at street level as history happened in the background.

Along the barricades, I passed a small group of protesters waving Israeli flags. I approached one woman for a quote. She immediately bristled, waving her hand in my face and telling me to leave, then threatening to call the police—an escalation that felt unnecessary given that we were already surrounded by officers.

Another protester, who declined to provide her name, apologized quietly for the interaction. She told me that some of the others were “kind of crazy.” She stood a few feet away from them, holding her flag politely, not chanting or yelling. She said she was worried about Mamdani’s “background” and wanted to show support for Israel in defiance of a mayor who had broken with New York’s long tradition of unyielding support for the Israeli government. She sounded less angry than anxious, fixated on Mamdani’s outspokenness on what experts have called a genocide, and her nervousness for the future of Zionist New Yorkers.

By the time I reached the security entrance, the program was supposed to start in less than an hour. Volunteers urged attendees to take their seats, but they milled around, greeting old friends, hugging, shouting names across rows of white folding chairs. Unlike the public block party, this felt like a gathering of the campaign’s engine—organizers, supporters, donors, artists, electeds—the people who had powered what many still described as the biggest political upset since Donald Trump’s 2016 win.

Just inside the checkpoint, a woman smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Marisa.” Another chimed in: “Hi, I’m Natasha.” It took me a second to register that they were Marisa Tomei and Natasha Lyonne. Neither was surrounded by handlers or slated to speak. They were simply there, guests like everyone else, bundled up and waiting for things to begin. Both were warm and unfussy, radiating the kind of ease that comes from being completely at home in a crowd like this. The inauguration hadn’t even started, and already it was a vibe.

Hundreds filled the seats. There was music, chatter, the low buzz of anticipation. And yet, nothing about this place was warm. I was uncontrollably shivering.

I started mentally cataloging everything I hadn’t brought with me: a fluffy scarf, a hat that actually covered my ears, maybe even a balaclava, though I doubted that would play well for an Arab at an inauguration, even with the mayor being a Muslim.

Everywhere I looked were red Democratic Socialists of America beanies, pulled low, doing the quiet but essential work of insulation. I considered asking for one, though I want to be clear: I wanted one because my head was so cold I could feel my thoughts slowing down. Still, there was........

© Slate