STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A long-decommissioned train station will serve as the venue for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s New Year’s Day swearing-in ceremony, his transition team announced Monday.
New York Attorney General Letitia James will administer the oath of office at midnight in the Old City Hall Station, which shutdown in 1945 but has become something of a tourist attraction because of its preserved architectural beauty.
“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. ”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.”
An undated photo shows the Old City Hall Station on New York City’s first subway line.(Courtesy: New York Transit Museum)
The station served as the southern terminal for the city’s first subway line operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company. It closed in 1945 because of its proximity to the then newly-opened Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall station on the modern Lexington Avenue line.
An afternoon public swearing-in on the steps of City Hall will follow the private midnight ceremony. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent representing Vermont, will administer the oath of office at that ceremony.
Mamdani’s transition team expects tens of thousands to attend a viewing block party in the area around City Hall during the public swearing-in ceremony.
“When I take my oath from the station at the dawn of the New Year, I will do so humbled by the opportunity to lead millions of New Yorkers into a new era of opportunity, and honored to carry forward our city’s legacy of greatness,” Mamdani said.