Zohran Mamdani
Menin conspicuously absent from Mamdani’s 9/11 health announcement
The already strained relationship between the two leaders is being tested by the tense 25th anniversary commemorations.
The mayor was joined by advocates and Congress members – but only one council member. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
While several speakers lauded New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin for her work to support New Yorkers adversely impacted by the Sept. 11 attacks, she was notably absent from Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Tuesday morning announcement that his administration would release a trove of long-sought documents related to the air quality around the World Trade Center after 9/11.
A spokesperson for the City Council speaker’s office, Henry Robins, told City & State that, while the Mamdani administration briefed Menin on the release of the documents last week, they did not invite her to the City Hall press conference. A City Hall spokesperson disputed this, saying that Menin had in fact been invited. Robins said they never got an email.
Diverging accounts aside, Menin’s absence was unusual given her professional and personal history. After experiencing the terror attack up close as a lower Manhattan resident and restaurant owner, she founded a nonprofit called Wall Street Rising that played a major role in revitalizing the downtown business community. Menin’s own mother died of cancer, which she says was 9/11-related. And as an elected official, she’s called for the release of all files on what the city knew about the toxins in the air following 9/11, helping to secure additional funding for the Department of Investigation to complete its long-delayed report.
City Council Member Gale Brewer, who’d sponsored legislation to fund the DOI investigation, was the lone City Council member in attendance Tuesday. Mamdani’s announcement about the documents, which were released through a public online portal, comes after years of first responders, elected officials and the families of people adversely impacted by 9/11-related illnesses demanding greater transparency from the city on what was known about the environmental threats. Multiple prior mayoral administrations had declined to release that information prior to this point.
“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in the toxic air,” Mamdani told reporters, though he declined to specifically call anyone out by name.
The relationship between City Hall and Menin’s council has grown increasingly tense in recent weeks, as the council has sought to hold the Mamdani administration accountable on issues like the rocky roll out of the pied-à-terre tax and communications with influencers – but in ways the new and popular mayor’s team feels are unfair and performative.
And while disagreement is inherent to the dynamic between the executive and legislative branches, the relationship is being further tested by the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, a high pressure period when the world’s eyes are on New York even more than usual – and emotions are still raw.
Mamdani has lately faced calls – many of them based on blatant Islamophobia – to avoid the ceremony at the World Trade Center. Asked what she thought about those calls, in a Tuesday interview on CNN, Menin scarcely defended her colleague in government, instead giving a broad response that “elected officials should be there” and the focus should be on families that lost loved ones.
“This is a day where hopefully we can put politics aside and try to focus on the remembrance … and the kindness of strangers,” Menin said.
Robins noted that Menin has previously defended the mayor, calling the attacks on Mamdani “absolutely inappropriate.”
Robert Gottheim, the chief of staff to Rep. Jerry Nadler – one of the speakers who shouted out Menin at the press conference – told City & State that he doesn’t know whether the speaker was or wasn’t invited. He did say however that Mamdani’s Corporation Counsel Steve Banks briefed a handful of elected officials, including Menin and Nadler, last Thursday about their plans to release the documents.
“The Mamdani administration deserves a lot of praise for what they’re releasing,” Gottheim said. “I don’t know why (Menin) wasn’t involved … Maybe it was an oversight. I can just say that Julie Menin has been instrumental in having these records released.”
A version of this story first appeared in the Heard Around Town newsletter. Subscribe here.