By Alex Garrett (11-29-25)
Earlier this month, Zohran Mamdani completed the unexpected and ran the table into New York’s City Hall by being voted in as Mayor!
His socialistic and anti-Semitic tendencies aside , Mayor-elect Mamdani ran on affordability and won! I’ll say it again, I want a city that is safe even if it costs $1,000 a bagel!
The Mayor-elect’s platform of affordability brought about this question. What is Mamdani’s plan for ACCESSIBILITY? Especially in NYC!
According to the City of New York’s website , 11% of the city’s population is in fact disabled ! That is around one million people! (https://www.nyc.gov/site/mopd/publications/disability-statistics-in-nyc.page)
So, I reached out to Mayor-elect Mamdani’s office for any thoughts on making our City more accessible and have not gotten a response yet! Here at OneLegUpAlex, I will not let this go .
I watch the need for a more accessible NYC every time I wheel around with Gabby as she struggles to navigate on and off the subways and narrow platforms . I also watch the need for an accessible NYC when ABLE-BODIED people insist on using the ADA doors in the subway system , with no repercussions. Mayor-elect Mamdani , those who abuse ADA doors should face consequences, NOT BE AWARDED !
Under your leadership, will you take revenue NYC makes from your taxing and fix curb cuts? Will you take revenue and invest with businesses to make their establishments more accessible ? Will you even bring about accessibility through your affordability policies you want to implement?
Those are all questions I am fired up to ask the Mayor-elect should he accept my invitation to the OneLegUpAlex podcast.
Even more interesting , President Trump has now been wanting the GOP to be the party of affordability. If anything, the 43 day government shutdown showed us the Dems and Republicans will continually marginalize those with disabilities if we do not fit their talking points .
While Mamdani and Trump seemed bizarrely aligned on what is best for NYC, I am writing this out of concern . Concern that making the city affordable and building more apartments won’t entirely address the needs of the disabled community in NYC!
For insight into Mamdani’s NYC for disabled NYers, AbleNews reporter Christopher Alvarez caught up with the Mayor-elect during the campaign . According to the article, ‘Assemblymember Mamdani, who is popular amongst the younger generation of NYC voters, has been known for outraising all of his opponents combined in donor campaign funds during his first cycle. However, Marc Safman, CEO of Safman Consulting and a frustrated DeafBlind New York resident, says that none of this funding has been used “to run an accessible campaign for all.” Safman has refrained from going to Mamdani’s campaign events due to a lack of “reliable and culturally appropriate ASL facilitators or real-time captioning” and his struggle to understand.
During the (Black Agenda Democratic Mayoral) forum, Mamdani did not articulate a specific plan to address disabled New Yorkers, but he did tell Able News that current New York City Mayor Eric Adams “had promised a specific amount of funding to be allocated for [employment] and then combined it into a larger pot. And when you put it in a larger pot, it doesn’t have specificity. It starts to get absorbed elsewhere.” Mamdani went on to share: “So what I made a commitment to do, is make a dedicated funding stream for these kinds of opportunities so that we can actually ensure that it meets disabled New Yorkers where they need it the most and doesn’t get used for the purposes of a press release and then shift it over elsewhere.” I am still not sure where he stands on helping the disabled community!
Thanks to VISCARDI alum Christopher Alvarez for his reporting in ABLENEWS! (https://ablenews.com/nyc-mayoral-candidates-vary-on-attention-to-disability-issues/)
Mayor-elect Mamdani, remember this , we cannot forget the 1 million New Yorkers with disabilities .
May God Bless you as you take over NYC in just over a month!
OneLegUpAlex 