Zohran Mamdani Appoints Top Deputies, Elizabeth Street Garden in Limbo and The Meaning Behind the Mayor Elect’s Music

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Janae Pierre: New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani appoints his top deputies. The Elizabeth Street Garden is in limbo, and the meaning behind the Mayor-Elect's music. From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Janae Pierre. New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani is appointing his two top deputies at City Hall. Dean Fuleihan will be his first deputy mayor or second in command. Fuleihan, who held that position in Bill de Blasio's administration, says the incoming administration wants to hit the ground running in January.

Dean Fuleihan: It will be a dedicated, effective team implementing the serious agenda of addressing affordability in New York.

Janae Pierre: The announcement comes less than a week after Mamdani won the election and unveiled his City Hall transition team. He says he's considering keeping appointees of Mayor Eric Adams if they've performed well in their jobs. Mamdani is also appointing Elle Bisgaard Church as his chief of staff. She's been his closest campaign advisor and his chief of staff in the State Assembly. A controversial bitcoin operation will continue in the Finger Lakes. State environmental regulators and crypto mining company Greenidge Generation have come to an agreement after years of litigation and denials.

Greenidge operates a gas-fired power plant to fuel its 20,000 computer farm nonstop. In the agreement, Greenidge says it will cut its carbon dioxide pollution by 2030 in compliance with the state climate law. By the end of the week, the Finger Lakes crypto miners will resubmit its air permit application. After a 45-day public review period, the facility will receive a new air permit.

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Janae Pierre: Over the summer, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams halted plans to evict Little Italy's popular Elizabeth Street Garden to build affordable housing for formerly homeless seniors. The garden's operators are again holding their breath now that Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani says he wants to move forward with a development plan. Legal expert Andrew Scherer says the city should be able to find a solution that makes everyone happy.

Andrew Scherer: A city like New York should be able to figure out ways to have both. To have valuable open space and also to build the necessary housing for elderly and low-income people.

Janae Pierre: The garden is on city-owned land and used to be closed to the public.

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Janae Pierre: Coming up, Moments from Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani's victory speech have gone viral since election night. Like that song he chose to play at the very end. We'll learn more about Mamdani's music selection after the break.

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Janae Pierre: Moments from Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani's victory speech have gone viral since election night.

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani: Donald Trump, since I know you're watching,-

[cheering]

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani: -I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

[cheering]

Janae Pierre: He threw some political shade and reiterated his promises of change and affordability for all New Yorkers to lots of big cheers throughout the night.

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani: New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants,-

[cheering]

Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani: -powered by immigrants, and as of tonight, led by an immigrant.

Janae Pierre: Mamdani, who is Muslim and was born in Uganda to Indian parents, has embraced his ethnic and religious identity throughout his campaign. If you were paying attention to the end of his speech, you might have heard the music, which was taken from a Bollywood blockbuster.

[MUSIC: Dhoom Machale- Tata Young]

Janae Pierre: WNYC's Arun Venugopal says this musical choice was just one of the many the Mamdani campaign made to indicate that he is unapologetically South Asian.

Arun Venugopal: The music is pulled from a movie called Dhoom. It's from 2004, so a little more than 20 years ago. Was followed by Dhoom 2, and you guessed it, Dhoom 3.

Janae Pierre: The third Dhoom movie, spelled D-H-O-O M, was the biggest-grossing Indian movie of all time when it came out in 2013. And not only is this song from it a banger, the basic meaning of the chorus is to make a big noise. A local DJ, Ashura, has closely followed the election and says this makes the song especially resonant.

DJ Ashura: I think it was showing that we're not going to cower, we're going to be loud, we're going to fight back. I think that's very important during this time, especially what we've been through with ice raids and the economy and the racism and the transphobia and all the policies that are put in place.

Janae Pierre: Arun says using this song as the literal closing note of his campaign is just one example of many where Mamdani dug deep into his South Asian culture.

Arun Venugopal: He had ads in Hindi and in Bangla. He ate with his hands. He didn't shy away from that.

Janae Pierre: The way politicians eat gets a weird amount of scrutiny during campaigns, like if they eat pizza with a knife and a fork, but for Mamdani, it was about not using a knife and a fork this time. Just a couple weeks before the election, Andrew Cuomo's campaign released an AI-generated ad suggesting that some of Mamdani's biggest supporters were criminals, drug dealers, abusers, shoplifters, all AI-generated with Mamdani smiling while eating with his hands.

Arun Venugopal: It is important to know that this particular custom, eating rice and other dishes with one's hand, this is something that's very common among Indians, but it's repeatedly come under attack, especially in recent times. There was a congressman from Texas, Brandon Gill took aim at Mamdani writing on X, "Civilized people in America don't eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World." There is a lot at stake. What we're seeing so far is that Mamdani has no intention of backing down. He says, "This is my culture." He's owning it.

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Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Arun Venugopal. Before we go, some news for the art lovers out there. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is offering a new way for people to visit some of its art. The museum says for the first time, members of the public will be able to see its famous Temple of Dendur and Oceania collection through virtual reality, either with personal VR headsets or on the museum's website. The free virtual visits feature original storytelling and high-resolution 3D scans. The museum says they were designed by its curators in collaboration with Atopia. That's a platform for immersive art and culture.

Thanks for listening to NYC Now from wnyc. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back with one episode tomorrow for Veterans Day.

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