On New Year’s Day 2026, New Yorkers across the five boroughs will be nursing their hangovers, mumbling bacon, egg, and cheese orders—and welcoming a new mayor. The night before, Zohran K. Mamdani was sworn into office in the abandoned subway station beneath City Hall, a Gilded Age wonder with soaring vaulted ceilings, tiled arches, and grand chandeliers that make one cringe in pain at the thought of LEDs.
“When Old City Hall Station first opened in 1904—one of New York’s 28 original subway stations—it was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples’ lives,” Mamdani said in a statement to Streetsblog NYC. “That ambition need not be a memory confined only to our past, nor must it be isolated only to the tunnels beneath City Hall: it will be the purpose of the administration fortunate enough to serve New Yorkers from the building above.” Gorgeous!
According to my TikTok algorithm, millennial optimism is in the air, personified by Mamdani, his mega-watt smile, and his dream of making the city a more affordable place to live. He is, after all, a SEN10R (Bronx Science 2010!), and we who graduated high school in 2010 were big on hope, and also change. Among the many changes coming for the new mayor, one of the more notable is a move from Astoria, Queens, to the historic Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. “I don’t care what anyone says,” Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams (a terrible mayor but a genius comedian) said in a 2022 interview. “There are ghosts in there, man.”
Gracie Mansion, built in 1799, is an enormous (11,000 square feet of living space), Federal-style, butter-yellow house in Manhattan’s Yorkville neighborhood. It has hosted most of New York City’s mayors since World War II, and comes with 24-hour security. It also has a ballroom, a lawn, and a vegetable garden allegedly invaded by local rabbits. Over the last 226 years, two women have died inside the house, and it is alleged that original owner Archibald Gracie’s daughter-in-law Elizabeth Wolcott, who died of “apoplexy” at just 24, haunts the place. Adams and Chirlane McCray, ex-wife of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, have both attested to hearing squeaks and the sounds of doors opening and closing.
“Beware of the ghost,” Adams warned Mamdani. “It’s a friendly ghost, as long as you’re doing right by the city. If you don’t become right by the city, he turns into a poltergeist.”
I hope the ghosts leave the Mamdanis alone, or at least interact in a fun way, like by reenacting the classic PSA in which Eric Adams teaches parents how to search a child’s room for contraband. But beyond experiencing potential paranormal activity or finding one of Adams’s ticket stubs from Istanbul, how will the couple live in Gracie Mansion?
It is exciting to contemplate the grand house being occupied by someone actually cool—by whom I mean Mamdani’s luminously beautiful wife, Rama Duwaji. She is a successful Gen-Z artist who regularly contributes illustrations and animations to major publications, such as this one, and dedicates much of her practice to causes she believes in, like the self-determination of Palestinians. She regularly shares art and design that inspires her on her Instagram, which boasts a following the size of the population of Manhattan. Recent posts have featured everything from intricate wrought iron railings to Wretched Flowers’ chainmail tapestries to work from artists like Isamu Noguchi, Farid Belkahia, and Ruth Asawa. She likes the modern, the sculptural, the softly glowing.
Duwaji’s style and art practice stand in stark contrast to those on offer from previous mayorships. The de Blasios enlisted West Elm to redecorate the manor during their occupancy, making the grand old house look like one of the pods from Love Is Blind; Adams claimed that all he needed in Gracie Mansion was a mattress on the floor, one that definitely came from New York City proper and not his co-op in Fort Lee, New Jersey. One room in Gracie Mansion, shot by Vincent Alban for the New York Times, features a presumably unauthorized portrait of Brooke Shields, seemingly purchased at one of those weird galleries on West Broadway that sell knockoffs of Beeple and Alec Monopoly. That does not seem like Rama Duwaji’s vibe.
Much has been made of Mamdani, a democratic socialist, and Duwaji making the move from a rent-stabilized one-bedroom in Astoria, Queens, across the river to the Upper East Side. Andrew Cuomo won the UES by 24 points, and the neighborhood has expressed plenty of highly publicized, anti-Mamdani rage on Facebook; it is much whiter and richer than Astoria (though Gracie Mansion’s Yorkville is more chill than Madison Avenue). It is one of the few areas in NYC where Mamdani might be unwelcome; a strange enclave for the DSA mayor to have to wind up. Plus, the food will not be as good as in Astoria.
In her first interview as first lady, Duwaji told The Cut that she looked forward to exploring a new part of the city, to living down the street from the Met and the Guggenheim. Maybe she can sketch in Carl Schurz Park, eat below a collection of artworks mounted on the peppermint pink walls at Antonucci Café, or shop at the Tiny Dollhouse for a tiny microphone for the new rapping mayor. The critically-acclaimed Palestinian restaurant Al-Badawi recently opened an Upper East Side location, and the restaurant’s staff hopes that Mamdani and Duwaji will make it one of their regular spots. “Wouldn’t it be cool to, like, cater for [Mamdani] and bring that spice that he needs to his life,” a spokesperson told the Times. “He’s a spicy man.”
The Mamdanis are saying goodbye to a great deal. “We will miss much about our home in Astoria,” the mayor-elect said in a statement. “Cooking dinner side by side in our kitchen, sharing a sleepy elevator ride with our neighbors in the evening, hearing music and laughter vibrate through the walls of the apartment.” Bill de Blasio denied the ghost claims, but he did think that living in Gracie Mansion was isolating and unsettling. I have newfound sympathy regarding his many trips to the Park Slope YMCA.
The spicy man has a lot to deal with in the days ahead. But he is still young, or so I tell myself as I, a mere year younger, apply the nightly products that burn my aged skin off. He and Rama should throw an 11,000-square-foot house party. Maybe they can get everybody free buses home.
