As New York approaches 25 years since the September 11 terrorist attacks, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is putting transparency, remembrance and preparedness at the center of the city’s commemoration.
Mamdani signed two executive orders on September 4 while his administration moved to release approximately 170,000 pages of previously guarded city records concerning air quality and public health around Ground Zero.
One order establishes September 11 as an annual citywide “Day of Remembrance and Service,” including a moment of silence, educational and memorial programming across city agencies, and expanded volunteer opportunities. A second modernizes New York’s continuity and emergency preparedness policies for the first time since 2007, including a new interagency team tasked with strengthening security and keeping essential government operations functioning during emergencies.
The document release carries another level of significance.
Working alongside 9/11 survivor advocate Jon Stewart, the administration settled long-running litigation with 9/11 Health Watch and launched a public records portal. Among the material are documents from 68 boxes discovered in a Department of Environmental Protection office last year.
Records indicate city inspectors found asbestos “nearly everywhere” they tested around Ground Zero. The files also include the “Harding Memo,” which examined the city’s potential liability surrounding illnesses suffered by rescue workers, residents and students exposed to the area.
The administration has allocated $34 million to continue reviewing records, protecting personal information and releasing hundreds of thousands of additional pages over the next year.
The actions arrive amid political friction surrounding Mamdani’s expected participation in Ground Zero ceremonies, with some conservative figures and victims’ family groups calling for the city’s first Muslim mayor to stay away.
Mamdani has maintained that “Never Forget” must include transparency and action.
For survivors and families, the newly released records could deepen the understanding of what government officials knew about environmental dangers following the attacks. Long-term illnesses linked to Ground Zero toxins have now been estimated to have killed more people than the nearly 3,000 victims who died on September 11, 2001.
Twenty-five years later, New York is still uncovering pieces of what happened after the smoke cleared.