Zohran Mamdani sworn in as NYC’s 112th mayor

He’s painting the town red.

A triumphant Zohran Mamdani took the oath of office to become the Big Apple’s mayor just moments into the New Year — kicking off an uncharted era with a proud socialist at the helm of the nation’s largest city.

The 34-year-old Queens state assemblyman was sworn in as the city’s 112th mayor — and its second-youngest — by state Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday morning below City Hall Park in a grand, abandoned old subway stop.

The majestic location for the ceremony was chosen because it symbolized the legacy of an ambitious New York City, Mamdani said in a nod to his sweeping socialist agenda.

“When Old City Hall Station first opened in 1904 — one of New York’s 28 original subway stations — it was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples’ lives,” Mamdani said about the old stop.

“That ambition need not be a memory confined only to our past, nor must it be isolated only to the tunnels beneath City Hall: it will be the purpose of the administration fortunate enough to serve New Yorkers from the building above.”

Mamdani’s subway station ceremony — a small event with few members of the media in attendance — will be followed later Thursday afternoon by a jubilant block party bash, where thousands will watch outside City Hall as Sen. Bernie Sanders again swear in the new mayor.

The progressive partying, however, likely will quickly become a distant memory as Mamdani turns to actually governing New York City — a task often described as the second toughest job in America.

Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, takes over from Mayor Eric Adams, a conservative Dem and former cop, whose single term in office was marred by alleged corruption even as the city made gains on tackling crime and the housing crisis.

The Uganda-born mayor inherits a New York City still plagued by the housing crisis, as well as a struggling school system with a depleted number of students and staffing shortages in a number of agencies, including NYPD, FDNY and EMS.

Mamdani has vowed to quickly deliver on his big-ticket campaign promises such as offering universal childcare, city-run grocery stores, free buses and freezing the rent — a slate of socialist freebies and other agenda items that are expected to cost more than $10 billion.

A rent freeze and delivering no-cost childcare will be Mamdani’s priorities during his first year in office, he has said.

But those grand plans could be imperiled by the city facing a budget gap this fiscal year of nearly $400 million and another $6.5 billion next year, on top of potentially billions of dollars in cuts from the federal government.

How Mamdani navigates the deficits could be seen within his first 100 days, during which time his administration likely will deliver a preliminary budget for the 2027 fiscal year.

The budget process very well could prove a test of Mamdani’s working relationship with Gov. Kathy Hochul and his former colleagues in the state Legislature — as well as the City Council, especially its presumptive Speaker Julie Menin, who’s widely seen as a potential moderate counterbalance to the firebrand socialist.

Other pressing tasks on Mamdani’s desk include finishing appointments for unfilled cabinet positions such as sanitation commissioner.

He will also inherit a city where shootings and shoplifting — two key COVID-era crime trends — have hit all-time lows.

But major felonies overall still remain up by more than 20% from pre-pandemic era years, which Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who will stay on as top cop under Mamdani, has blamed on the 2019 criminal justice reforms.

Mamdani vowed to make the city more affordable on the campaign trail this past year, when he beat former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during the Democratic primary and general election in November that saw a historically high turnout.

Cuomo, though, still managed to pull in 43% of the vote while running on an obscure third-party line in November, raising questions over whether Mamdani would enter office with a mandate for his far-left agenda after getting just over half of the more than 2 million votes.