Good morning. It’s Wednesday, and it’s still cold. We’ll look at how that figured in a surprise appearance on late-night television by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. We’ll also find out who was chosen by a judge to take control of the troubled Rikers Island jail complex.
When Zohran Mamdani emerged as a political force last year, there were those who saw him as a disrupter. On Monday, a television audience saw him as an interrupter.
Mamdani appeared to barge in on Jimmy Fallon’s monologue on “The Tonight Show.” Fallon had been telling jokes about the cold weather, including this one: “We got a foot of snow here in New York City, and everything went from beautiful to brown mush in two seconds. Basically the entire city pulled an avocado.” (Rolling Stone said the other bits in Fallon’s routine were “similarly mediocre.”)
Then Mamdani stepped in, unannounced. “Jimmy,” he said, “let me try one.”
So he did.
“It’s so cold in New York, the rent froze itself,” the mayor said, making a punchline of his campaign promise to block increases for rent-stabilized tenants.
The audience in the studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza got the joke. As if to clue in viewers who did not recognize Mamdani, Fallon said, “Wow, Mr. Mayor is here.”
Mamdani had another one-liner ready, one that put in perspective the force of a storm that has been blamed for at least 10 deaths. “But seriously,” the mayor said, looking into the camera, “stay inside, stay warm, stay safe.” Then he waved and walked off the stage.
There was a time in Mamdani’s life when he might have dreamed of an appearance on “The Tonight Show.” When he was in his 20s, he tried to get laughs in an improv class as he honed his already-sharp sense of humor. His teacher said last fall that Mamdani had been a “super-game, thoughtful student” who had learned how to listen. His skill was “being comfortable with uncertainty, and being in the moment,” the teacher, Rick Andrews, said.
How Mamdani’s walk-on bit with Fallon came together was not something that City Hall or “The Tonight Show” had much to say about. Neither a spokeswoman for “The Tonight Show” nor one for the mayor answered questions about it, including one about who had written the joke about the rent — Mamdani and his team or Fallon and his writers.
Nor was it clear how spontaneous it was. The two spokeswomen did not answer a question about whether the mayor had rehearsed the bit with Fallon before the show was taped.
It was also not clear whether Mamdani had insisted on the line about staying inside and staying warm and safe. That echoed what he had said in other television appearances over the last few days. “We’re asking New Yorkers to stay home, watch some terrible reality TV with your friends and family, but on our end, we have to deliver,” he said on “This Week” on ABC on Sunday.
How much weight the mayor’s words carry became clear later in the day when he plugged the “Heated Rivalry” franchise — not the Canadian television series, but the romance novels it was based on. He said that snowbound New Yorkers should “take a long nap or take advantage of our public libraries’ offer of free access to ‘Heated Rivalry’ on e-book or audiobook for anyone with a library card.”
Apparently people did what he suggested. The New York Public Library said that downloads of “Heated Rivalry,” the second book in the “Game Changers” series by Rachel Reid, had surged over the weekend.
The library said on Tuesday that “Heated Rivalry” had been downloaded 6,000 times since the mayor mentioned doing so. The library also reported 17,000 downloads for the six-part “Game Changers” series in all.
Weather
Expect increasing clouds with temperatures near 23. A cold weather advisory is in effect. Tonight will be mostly cloudy and will then gradually become mostly clear, with a low around 8.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
Suspended for snow removal.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We have gone as far as we can possibly go with the available resources.” — Thomas Prendergast, the chief executive of the Gateway Development Commission, who said that construction on the project for a new rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey would stop next week unless the Trump administration reinstated federal funding that was cut off in October.
The latest Metro news
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Brothers charged with sex trafficking: Prosecutors say the Alexander brothers, three of Manhattan’s notorious party princes, used their money, power and status to sexually assault eight women, including two underage girls. The men have denied all charges, built a campaign to discredit their female accusers and hired Juda Engelmayer, a public relations strategist whose clients include Harvey Weinstein.
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Mamdani initiates emergency protocol: Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced “new emergency protocols” as the death toll from the winter storm that pummeled New York over the weekend rose to 10.
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Columbia’s new president: Jennifer Mnookin, who will become the president of Columbia University, has forged compromises with protesters and politicians as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She will be Columbia’s fifth president since 2023; it remains divided over its response to Gaza war protests.
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Hochul’s leadership is questioned: Efforts to get the state’s Office of Cannabis Management on track have been slow to yield results, prompting criticism of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is running for re-election as legalization approaches the five-year mark in New York.
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Court affirms ruling: An appeals court said it would not reconsider a decision that found that Alina Habba had served unlawfully as the United States attorney in Newark. The appeals court ruling was a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to keep its preferred federal prosecutors in power.
A former Vermont corrections chief is chosen to take control of Rikers
The federal judge overseeing New York City’s jails named a former commissioner of the Vermont Department of Corrections who had worked for the Central Intelligence Agency earlier in his career to take control of the troubled Rikers Island jail complex.
The appointment will test City Hall’s ability to work with officials who do not answer directly to Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, said that her choice for a job called remediation manager would be Nicholas Deml, the top official in charge of Vermont prisons from 2021 to 2025.
The judge had outlined the role she envisioned for the remediation manager last year when she rejected then-Mayor Eric Adams’s efforts to retain control of the lockups. She said then that the remediation manager would report directly to her, would not be a city employee and would be “empowered to take all actions necessary” to improve jail conditions. But she also said that the person who took the job would be expected to work with the city’s correction commissioner.
Mamdani has not named a replacement for Lynelle Maginley-Liddie, who was the correction commissioner under Adams. The mayor issued an executive order a few days after he took office on Jan. 1 to extend a years-old state of emergency that had suspended some rules regulating jail conditions.
Swain told Deml and the city to “meet and confer promptly” and to send her a report within 21 days detailing the logistical arrangements they work out “and any material points of disagreement.” A biography attached to the judge’s order said that since stepping down as the correction commissioner in Vermont, Deml has been the managing director of Everly Bly & Company, a consulting firm that concentrates on corrections, public safety and “justice-sector modernization.”
METROPOLITAN diary
Traffic jam No. 1
Dear Diary:
For 75 years, I lived within a six-block radius on the Upper East Side. I went to school there, got married, practiced law, raised three children and even watched my grandchildren grow up there.
After moving to New Jersey three years ago, my husband and I returned to the neighborhood recently for lunch. I instantly felt right at home.
At one point, traffic was backed up behind an empty ambulance on 88th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Horns were blaring. Drivers were fuming. Nothing was moving.
After what felt like a half-hour, I got out of the car and walked down the line telling the other drivers to back up and that when they got to Park Avenue, I would stop traffic to let them through.
As they backed up, I stood in the intersection with one hand raised to halt cars one way and the other waving those going in reverse toward me: “Stop! Go! Stop! Go!”
I was back in my element.
— Leila Rasamny Gorra
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
The post Mamdani Makes a ‘Tonight Show’ Cameo appeared first on New York Times.
