"As midnight struck in New York, the giant ball of Irish crystals and LED lights descended from atop the building at 1 Times Square to mark, as it does every year, the end of one era and the beginning of another. And the city didn't just welcome 2026, or the second quarter of the 21st century. Its nearly 8.5 million inhabitants also hailed the dawn of a new age, the age of Zohran Kwame Mamdani."
"True to his talent for choreographing the milestones that have taken him in just over 12 months from a virtually unknown young politician, a member of the Democratic Socialist Party of America, to one of the great global hopes of the left, the new mayor chose for the ceremony the ghost City Hall subway station, a filigree from another era, with its vaults by the Spanish architect Rafael Guastavino and its brass chandeliers,"
"There, Mamdani made history as the first mayor of the city of 9/11 to be sworn into office on a Quran. Three, actually: two inherited from his family his parents, Indian filmmaker Mira Nair and Ugandan Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Mamdani, were present at the ceremony and a third, which he will use early Thursday afternoon for his second inauguration. That one belongs to the collection of Afro-Puerto Rican writer Arturo Schomburg."
The New Year ball drop at Times Square marked the start of 2026 while Zohran Kwame Mamdani took office as New York City's mayor in the first minutes of the year. Mamdani is the city's first Muslim and socialist mayor and a member of the Democratic Socialist Party of America. He held a private swearing-in at the abandoned City Hall subway station, a Guastavino-vaulted space with brass chandeliers. Mamdani was sworn on three Qurans: two family heirlooms and a third from the Schomburg Collection. His parents, filmmaker Mira Nair and scholar Mahmoud Mamdani, attended. The ceremony carried strong symbolism for nearly one million Muslims in the city.
Read at english.elpais.com
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