New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is planning to attend the 25th-anniversary ceremony commemorating the Sept. 11 terror attacks at Ground Zero, a move opposed by some victims’ families — even as critics point to his absence from this year’s memorial for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Rather than appear at the Feb. 26 ceremony at Ground Zero, Mamdani traveled to Washington, DC, where he made a pitch to President Donald Trump for a major housing initiative.
Mamdani — who last year was photographed smiling broadly alongside a Brooklyn imam who was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing, which killed six people and injured more than 1,000 — sent one of his deputies to represent him at the memorial service.
On the same day, the socialist mayor held a private meeting with Trump in an effort to secure more than $21 billion in federal funding for a proposed 12,000-unit affordable housing development at a large railyard site in Queens.
Andrew Colabella, whose cousin John DiGiovanni, 41, was among the six people killed when radical Islamic terrorists detonated a bomb in an underground parking garage beneath the World Trade Center, sharply criticized Mamdani’s decision. Mamdani “blew us off and passed on it because he does not give a s–t,” Colabella said.
“The only thing he cares about is his ego and his so-called political future,” added Colabella, a Republican lawmaker from Westport, Conn.
Colabella and several other relatives of 1993 bombing victims accused Mamdani of skipping the 33rd annual memorial because the event did not draw significant media attention. They also noted that the mayor visited Ground Zero in April to greet King Charles III, when television cameras and photographers were present.
Colabella further alleged that Mamdani used the meeting with Trump over what he called an unrealistic housing proposal as a way to avoid being booed at Ground Zero, citing what he described as the mayor’s “longtime association” with figures who have defended Islamic terror. Among them, he said, was left-wing influencer Hasan Piker, who once said “America deserved” the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Colabella said he’s among the more than 79,000 who’ve signed a surging petition demanding Mamdani skip the victims’ tribute at Ground Zero on Sept. 11.
Edward Smith — whose 35-year-old wife Monica Rodriguez Smith was seven months pregnant when she was killed in the 1993 WTC bombing — said Mamdani did him and other family members a huge favor by skipping the February service.
“It is best he didn’t show up, but it’s even crazier that New York would elect him mayor in the first place,” added Smith, a native New Yorker now living in Scottsdale, AZ.
Smith, who plans to attend the 9/11 ceremony, said he’s not signing the petition to keep Mamdani away because it “empowers” the mayor, adding he’d prefer people opposing his presence to “boo him or turn their backs on him.”
Julia Kerson, deputy of mayor of operations, went to the ceremony at the September 11 Memorial plaza in February in Mamdani’s place.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, FDNY First Deputy Commissioner Dan Flynn and City Council Speaker Julie Menin were also in attendance, according to Eyewitness News ABC-7 video of the event.
Most NYC mayors since the 1993 bombing – including Rudy Giuliani, Michael Bloomberg and Eric Adams – have attended at least some of the annual ceremonies in person or sent a deputy.
Mamdani claimed his meeting with Trump in February was “productive,” but the White House has yet to comment on it.
Reps for the mayor did not return messages.
