Come January, Zohran Mamdani will trade his Queens one-bedroom apartment for 11,000 square feet of living and entertaining space at Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side.
The mayor-elect made his upcoming move official on Monday morning, saying in a statement that he and his wife, Rama Duwaji, would move to Gracie next month, as is typical, some time after he is inaugurated on Jan. 1.
“While I may no longer live in Astoria, Astoria will always live inside me and the work I do,” Mr. Mamdani said in a statement. He also posted an Instagram photo of a model of Gracie at the New York Botanical Garden’s holiday train show. “Saw our new home!” he wrote in the caption.
Mr. Mamdani had consistently said that once he was inaugurated he would move out of his rent-stabilized apartment in Astoria, which brokers have said is probably no more than 800 square feet and which costs $2,300 a month.
A real estate listing for the unit said that the building had an elevator, a rarity for Astoria, and that there was a communal laundry room.
Gracie Mansion will be an upgrade, and it may be as close as a New York City home can get to being a fortress.
The 226-year-old yellow Federal-style home is flanked by tall security gates dotted with cameras. Most mayors end up living at Gracie because of the security apparatus.
“This decision came down to our family’s safety and the importance of dedicating all of my focus on enacting the affordability agenda New Yorkers voted for,” Mr. Mamdani said.
Standing on the large front lawn, next to the compost piles Mayor Eric Adams had installed, and gazing out at the East River can be a uniquely serene experience. Rabbits sometimes hop through the grass.
The ground floor, which mayors are not allowed to even think about redecorating, features a formal sitting room and a sprawling ballroom, all with mirrors placed high enough to reflect the light of the chandeliers. The main entryway is affixed with a mezuza, a scroll of Torah verses in a small case, which was first installed by Mayor Abraham Beame in the 1970s.
Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Duwaji, an illustrator, will have much more flexibility to redecorate the five upstairs bedrooms.
For decades, mayors eager to maintain their man-of-the-people image have bristled at the move to Gracie Mansion, and some have tried to find creative workarounds.
Fiorello H. LaGuardia, the first mayor to take up residence there, tried to rename it Gracie Farm. His wife hung the family’s laundry to dry on the lawn, for all the neighbors to see.
Bill de Blasio had his security detail drive him from Gracie to a Y.M.C.A. gym in Park Slope many weekday mornings because he missed his old neighborhood, a habit that earned him the scorn of tabloids and some voters.
Edward I. Koch held on to his rent-controlled apartment in Greenwich Village even after he moved uptown to Gracie.
Michael R. Bloomberg decided to stay put at his nearby townhouse, which is even more luxe than Gracie, and used the mansion only to host meetings and events.
Mr. Mamdani, who spent much of his adolescence in a large, well-appointed faculty apartment in Morningside Heights, has sought to downplay the contrast between his current apartment and his next home.
Asked recently on The New Yorker Radio Hour whether a move to Gracie would comport with his affordability agenda and his personal image, Mr. Mamdani replied: “I don’t think too much of brand, to be honest.”
Still, it may be an adjustment to relocate from Astoria, a bastion of affordability, to the Upper East Side, one of the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.
Most precincts in the neighborhood voted for Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor, over Mr. Mamdani in the November election. There were, however, a cluster of precincts close to Gracie, in the Yorkville section of the neighborhood, that chose Mr. Mamdani.
Yorkville, a solid walk away from Central Park and Fifth Avenue, is still home to some modest rental buildings and a glut of dive bars, though a row of luxury co-op buildings faces Gracie on East End Avenue.
But Mr. Mamdani has made Astoria, which he represents in the State Assembly, part of his political identity.
He’s had meals with Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at his favorite local restaurants, and has filmed campaign videos at Little Flower, a local coffee shop known for its turmeric buns and gochujang fried chicken sandwiches.
When Mr. Mamdani wants to return to his old neighborhood, he’ll likely have to have his security detail escort him up the F.D.R. Drive, past Randall’s Island and across the R.F.K. Bridge. Without traffic, it could take as little as 20 minutes.
The mayor-elect already sounded wistful on Monday.
“We will miss much about our home in Astoria,” he said. “Cooking dinner side by side in our kitchen, sharing a sleepy elevator ride with our neighbors in the evening, hearing music and laughter vibrate through the walls of the apartment.”
At night, Gracie Mansion can be very quiet.
“It is a good contemplative place, when you need quiet time, thinking time, it offers that,” Mr. de Blasio said in an interview, cautioning that it was also an isolating place to live.
Mr. Adams, who federal investigators found typically spends only a few nights a week at Gracie, said during his first year in office that the serene atmosphere could be unsettling.
“There’s ghosts in there, man,” he said.
Eliza Shapiro reports on New York City for The Times.
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