Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Trump held a high-profile meeting in New York City on Monday.
It marked the third time they have met, but the first at Gracie Mansion. Last November, not long after the mayoral election in the city, Mamdani visited Mr. Trump at the White House, and did so again in February.
At that meeting, the mayor pitched the president a massive housing project in Queens that would only be possible with billions in federal aid, adding a mock-up of a Daily News front page featuring the headline “Trump To City: Let’s Build” was revealed.
Mamdani said the topic of building affordable housing was discussed again on Monday, though few specifics were revealed. The mayor and the president also said they discussed immigration, without getting into specifics.
The main takeaway was the two leaders have decided to continue their dialogue on the topic of improving the lives of New Yorkers, a theme Mamdani said has been discussed every time he and the president have met.
Mamdani and Mr. Trump stood side by side at a news conference that followed their meeting. The mayor gave an update on his Queens housing pitch, a proposal that would involve building the largest rail deck in the world over Amtrak’s Sunnyside Yard in Queens, and then building 12,000 units of housing on top of that.
It’s a project that was last proposed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration.
“We spoke about Sunnyside Yards,” Mamdani said. “It’s a real pleasure that just today we agreed to set up a new level of that conversation between our housing and operations team at City Hall and the White House team, because what were speaking about is 12,000 homes, 30,000 jobs.”
“When we met at the White House, the mayor brought that up, the possibility of doing Sunnyside Yards,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s a very, I would say it’s a very federal-oriented job. You’re going to need a lot of federal approvals and probably some federal money to do it, but it has always been a great location.”
Carlo Scissura served on the first Sunnyside Yards task force, and has been looking to see the development come to life for more than a decade.
“The mayor and the president are brilliant for coming together on this,” Scissura said. “You look at other things that have been done across the city or the country, nothing of the magnitude of 200-plus acres that could really revitalize an empty hole in the ground.”
However, support for the development of the site is not unanimous. The rail yard sits in City Councilwoman Julie Won’s district, and she says the money and effort could be better spent elsewhere.
“What are we really talking about here? Do we want to solve the housing crisis now? And also the healthcare crisis?” Won said. “Or are we talking about building housing on a deck 50 to 100 years from now?”
The conversation between Mamdani and Mr. Trump happened during the week of the United Nations General Assembly, where the president is set to take the floor Tuesday and, according to U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz, speak about the war with Iran, a plan for peace in Gaza, and his administration’s efforts to confront complex world problems head on.
The president is also set to meet with world leaders from the United Kingdom, Japan, Venezuela, and Ukraine. Noticeably missing is a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, due to a scheduling conflict. Officials said Netanyahu expects to arrive in New York City once Trump has already left.
