Mayor Adams mentioned Thursday he’s uncertain whether or not he’ll attend Zohran Mamdani’s inauguration on New 12 months’s Day, saying he’s hesitant to take action as a result of the mayor-elect’s “nasty” supporters would possibly use the chance to make a scene.
To skip out on the swearing-in can be a break in custom, with outgoing mayors sometimes attending the formal ceremony ushering in a brand new administration.
Adams instructed NY1 in an interview Thursday that he presumably would skip it as a result of Mamdani’s supporters is perhaps too raucous, slamming them as “mean,” “nasty” and “disrespectful.”
“I’m still deciding,” he mentioned. “I want to communicate with the incoming mayor because I don’t want to be disruptive of the ceremony. It’s his day. Some people are perpetual protesters, some people will turn this ceremony into some form of protest. So I want to speak with him to determine if I’m going to attend or not.”
The occasion is anticipated to be held at Metropolis Corridor on the afternoon of Jan. 1.
“No comment,” Dora Pekec, a spokeswoman for Mamdani, mentioned.
Outgoing mayors have usually attended the swearing-in of their successors, even amid frosty relationships and marketing campaign path tensions. When Mayor Invoice de Blasio was sworn in in 2014, Mayor Michael Bloomberg sat by speaker after speaker’s admonishment of his mayoralty. When Mayor Adams was inaugurated in Instances Sq. in 2022, de Blasio was in attendance, dancing together with his spouse onstage.
One notable exception to the custom occurred in 1998, when former Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins skipped Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s inauguration for a second time period.
Adams mounted an impartial bid for reelection earlier this yr however dropped out of the race in September after stress to take action with the intention to clear a path for ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The mayor has been extremely essential of Mamdani each earlier than and after his victory.
“I don’t want to participate,” Adams mentioned of the presumably of changing into a spectacle on the inauguration. “That’s a special day for him.”
