Mayor Zohran Mamdani threw himself a great big bash to celebrate his first 100 days in office, and even launched a website so his faithful comrades can track his “achievements” across the city — despite reneging on numerous campaign promises.
Hizzoner headlined his party with a speech at the 3,200-seat Knockdown Center in Queens Sunday evening, where he doubled down on vows to govern New York as a staunch socialist while his staff set up a cringey, self-congratulatory museum pop-up of his fledgling time as mayor.
“I have thought often of Margaret Thatcher’s quote: ‘The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,’” Mamdani said. “If anything, my friends, it seems that you eventually need a socialist to clean up the mess.
“For 102 days, we have endeavored to do exactly that, delivering both public goods and public excellence,” he added. “That is the change that government can deliver, and it is the change that democratic socialism can deliver.”
Mamdani listed numerous achievements, including dedicating time to the various potholes paved during his first 100 days in office.
“By the end of this year, the Department of Transportation will repave 1,150 lane miles of our streets,” Mamdani said. “On day six, when we paved the bump at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, that was pothole politics.
“If government can’t do the small things, how could you ever trust it to do the big ones?” the mayor noted. “How can we promise to transform our city if we can’t pave your street?”
Other accomplishments he listed included his pilot program for city-run day care, a proposal to get rid of scaffolding sheds, and modifications to make sewer drains more effective.
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Mamdani also announced intentions to deliver on a key campaign promise by opening the first city-owned grocery store at La Marqueta in East Harlem by next year.
“I am proud to announce that we will open every single one of these stores by the end of our first term, and the first one will open next year, stores where prices are fair, where workers are treated with dignity, and where New Yorkers can actually afford to shop at our stores, eggs will be cheaper, bread will be cheaper, grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation,” he told the crowd.
His proposal for the East Harlem store — which is already owned by the city — would eat up nearly half of the $70 million he proposed for the five-store program as recently as February, according to the New York Times.
Hizzoner also said that his administration will complete an “ambitious campaign” for trash containerization across all five boroughs and has devised a plan with Gov. Kathy Hochul to speed up city buses.
Alongside Hochul, Mamdani announced he will work to speed up buses by up to 20% in 45 priority corridors and construct “world-class rapid bus routes” for 100,000 New Yorkers who live more than half a mile from a subway or rail stop.
“But in a city where every minute counts, where time is money, it is unacceptable that some buses run as slow as five miles an hour,” he said.
“That is why, on the campaign, I promise to make muscles faster, and it’s why tonight, I am so excited to share that we will cut down commutes by up to six minutes each way.”
The mayor’s party even had a “100 days museum,” which featured a kid-sized podium from his day care announcement, and leftovers from the Taco Bell wrapper and drink he devoured during a March Q&A he gave about fast food worker initiatives.
And the soaring rhetoric that helped propel the 34-year-old to office was on full display at the Sunday party, which was attended by controversial anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia grad student from Syria detained by ICE last year.
“Some said that once the hard work began, we would forget the movement of working people that rewrote what was possible in this city,” the mayor’s remarks said. “Others warned that the left could only debate but could never deliver. Socialists might be able to win a campaign, they said, but we could never advance an agenda. Far more wanted to believe — but didn’t know how.
“We hold a mighty responsibility in our hands,” he continued. “It is not just the responsibility of governing with honesty and integrity or delivering relentless improvement — it is to demonstrate that government can fix problems. To prove that government can be worthy of the people it serves.”
The mayor also brought Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders out to surprise the crowd — hours after he appeared alongside the nation’s socialist-in-chief at a union rally Sunday afternoon.
“I have been on platforms with hundreds and hundreds of mayors and all kinds of public officials. This is the first time I was ever introduced by someone who talked proudly about democratic socialism,” Sanders said.
“What the mayor is doing is providing hope and inspiration, not only to people all across our country, but honestly, all across the world,” he added.
“What you guys are doing here is telling the world that we can have a government that works for all of us, not just the oligarchs.”
Less prominent, however, were the numerous sweeping campaign promises Mamdani failed to follow through on in his first 100 days.
Among them was his vow to halt his predecessor Eric Adams’ initiative to clear homeless encampments and let vagrants keep living in dangerous squalor if they wanted — but he did away with that plan after a series of brutal winter storms led to freezing deaths in encampments.
Another shortcoming included his “Department of Community Safety,” which was to have social workers responding to non-violent 911 calls instead of police at the price of about $1.1 billion in funding.
Instead, the much-hyped program has been languishing with a budget of $260 million and just two staffers.
Mamdani still cited the department as proof that his administration’s approach to public safety has been working and exclaimed that murders have “hit record lows” since he took office.
“There has not been a murder on Staten Island in more than 180 days. Crime in our city is down,” Mamdani said during his address.
Mamdani also proclaimed during his campaign that he would dedicate .5% of the city budget to libraries — but brazenly abandoned that promise, and instead slashed funding by $30 million.
Sunday’s party was just one of several celebrations of his first 100 days, which he reached Friday.
Mamdani even launched an interactive map of the city tracking dozens of events from his first hundred days, complete with numerous photos of the mayor smiling with happy children and New Yorkers.
And it all comes just days after Mamdani scored an approval rating of just 48% in a Marist College poll — compared to the 61% Mayor Adams got during his first 100 days.
“This whole thing is just massive insecurity about how little they’ve actually accomplished,” an Adams administration insider told The Post. “And how much his poll numbers have dropped.”
One attendee joked, “Mamdani said he was repaving 1150 miles of roadway… enough repaved road to go from NY to Miami… which would be helpful for all the people driving out of town and relocating to Florida!”
