“My fellow New Yorkers — today begins a new era.
I stand before you moved by the privilege of taking this sacred oath, humbled by the faith that you have placed in me, and honored to serve as either your 111th or 112th Mayor of New York City. But I do not stand alone.
I stand alongside you, the tens of thousands gathered here in Lower Manhattan, warmed against the January chill by the resurgent flame of hope.”
It was a long way to here — a year, to be exact — since I joined the new media team of Mayor Mamdani (I cannot stop saying those two words together), helping him reach this moment, standing in –10°C weather, limbs numb by the time he came out to address us all — and the New Yorkers watching at home.
It’s strange, my mother says, the levels of energy and persistance in the midst of so much exhausting, undersleeping that is what busy life in New York is — that i’m able to find in my body to rally for this man. It’s almost subhuman, all the canwassing and rallying we accomplished, with having full time jobs, so that this city ca finally be led by a man that tryly cares about all new yorkers.
It’s strange, my mother says, the amount of energy and persistence I have, in the middle of so much exhaustion and sleep deprivation — the kind that comes with life in New York — that I’m still able to find it in my body to rally for this man.
It almost feels subhuman, all the canvassing and rallying we managed while working full-time jobs, just so this city can finally be led by a man who truly cares about all New Yorkers.
That same endurance, the kind that keeps you moving through exhaustion, cold, and lack of sleep — didn’t come from nowhere. It was forged in the past year itself.
This past year has felt like a roller coaster — a terrifying one. The kind where one limb feels like it’s hanging out of the carriage, and you’re constantly shifting your weight, trying not to fall, while the whole thing keeps moving anyway. Turn after turn, you manage to stay in. You stay in one piece. Not because you’re fearless, but because you’ve learned how to brace.
Atrocity after atrocity. Your government insisting you didn’t see what you saw. And by the time you reach the next turn, a new form of violence has already replaced the one you were just forced to absorb.
This man kept me sane through all of it. It’s astonishing what a glimmer of hope, embodied in a single person, can do to a body worn down by years of watching children’s limbs blown apart, by a government that funds it, and by a media ecosystem that insists it didn’t happen.
Hope is contagious. Once it appears, it multiplies. It spreads. And that’s precisely why Mayor Mamdani is a threat to those who depend on despair — to those who don’t want you to recognize hope when it shows up, or to believe it could grow into something real.
A era of possible futures
Let’s cling to that hope. The era of possible futures can begin with one man — and metastasize into an unstoppable force. “8 and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different.”
We have to imagine it.
Every minute of this inauguration inspired me, but one thing stood out. A poem “Proof” recited by its author and poet Cornelius Eady. Read it. Cling to it. Let it consume you. You have to imagine it! This is our time.
You have to imagine it. Who said you were too dark? Too Large, too Queer, Too Loud? Who said you were too poor, too strange, too fat? You have to imagine it. Who said you must keep quiet? Who heard your story then rolled their eyes? Who tried to change your name to invisible? You’ve got to imagine. Who heard your name and refused to pronounce it? Who checked their watch and said not now? James Baldwin wrote the place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it. New York, city of invention, Roiling town, refresher And re-newer, New York, city of the real, Where the canyons Whisper in a hundred Tongues, New York, Where your lucky self Waits for your Arrival, Where there is always soil For your root. This is our time. The taste of us, the spice of us, the hollers and the rhythms and the beats of us and the echo of our ancestors who made certain we know who we are. City of insistence, city of resistance. You have to imagine an army that wins without firing a bullet. A joy that wears down the rock of no. Up from insults up from blocked doors, up from trick bags, up from fear, up from shame, up from the way it was done before. You have to imagine that space they said wasn’t yours. That time they said you’d never own. The invisible city lit on its way. This moment is our proof.
This moment is our proof.
Let it inspire you. Let Zohran’s inaugural address motivate you into imagining a new world, hopeful world, and let’s speak it into existence.
“Together, we will tell a new story of our city.
This will not be a tale of one city, governed only by the one percent. Nor will it be a tale of two cities, the rich versus the poor.
It will be a tale of 8 and a half million cities, each of them a New Yorker with hopes and fears, each a universe, each of them woven together.
8 and a half million New Yorkers will speak this new era into existence. It will be loud. It will be different. It will feel like the New York we love.
No matter how long you have called this city home, that love has shaped your life. I know that it has shaped mine.
So, standing together with the wind of purpose at our backs, we will do something that New Yorkers do better than anyone else: we will set an example for the world.
If what Sinatra said is true, let us prove that anyone can make it in New York—and anywhere else too.
Let us prove that when a city belongs to the people, there is no need too small to be met, no person too sick to be made healthy, no one too alone to feel like New York is their home.
The work continues, the work endures, the work, my friends, has only just begun.”
