9/11 Families Don't Want Mamdani Participating In Memorial Ceremony

Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a coalition of victims' families don’t want New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani anywhere near the ceremony marking the anniversary at Ground Zero. 

A Change.org petition urging Mamdani to stay away from the September 11 memorial has collected more than 66,000 signatures in under three weeks and organizers say the mayor's own history of rhetoric and associations makes his presence at the site an insult to the dead.

“This anniversary is one of remembrance grounded in shared American values: respect for the victims, recognition of the gravity of the attacks, and a clear rejection of the ideologies that contributed to such violence. For many families and community members, participation in these ceremonies carries an implicit expectation that those present uphold and affirm these principles without ambiguity,” the petition reads.

“Concerns have been raised about Mr. Mamdani’s public positions, associations, and responses to rhetoric that many perceive as hostile to these shared values.”

The petition's organizers describe the anniversary as a day to honor the dead and reject the ideology behind the attacks rather than a platform for a sitting mayor.

The petition cites a specific set of grievances.

Mamdani has repeatedly declined to condemn the phrase "globalize the intifada," a slogan widely understood as a call for violence against Jews and Israel. His chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, once represented a pilot convicted in an al-Qaeda tanker-bombing plot. Mamdani has also aligned himself with commentator Hasan Piker, who told his audience in 2019 that America deserved the September 11 attacks. 

Giovanni Galante, the petition's lead organizer, estimates that thousands of the signers are relatives of the 2,977 people killed that morning. His wife, Grace Catherine Galante, was 29 years old and worked for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the North Tower. Cantor Fitzgerald lost roughly 658 employees that day, more than any other firm in the towers. An FDNY captain told the New York Post the anti-Mamdani petition is circulating widely inside firehouses across the city, and former Fire Commissioner Tom Van Essen, who ran the department during and after the attacks, signed it himself, joking about wanting a word with the mayor at the ceremony. The FDNY lost 343 firefighters. 

Charles G. Wolf lost his wife, Katherine, just two weeks into her new job at Marsh & McLennan on September 11. Wolf argues that Mamdani has spent his career alienating the families of the dead through an agenda hostile to the country and friendships with people who minimize what happened that day. Wolf said officials who supported families over the years, including former Gov. George Pataki, are the ones who belong at Ground Zero this year.

Maureen Santora's son, Christopher, was 23 when he died in the South Tower, the youngest firefighter killed that day. His shift with Engine 54 had already ended when the alarm came in, and he went anyway. Santora said Mamdani has never shown support for the September 11 community and called him a divisive figure whose presence would undercut the entire purpose of the gathering.

Monica Iken-Murphy, whose husband Michael Iken died on the 84th floor of the South Tower and who helped lead the effort to build the September 11 Memorial and Museum, framed her objection around Mamdani's years of absence from the community rather than his politics. Officials who supported families from the beginning, she said, naming former mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, belong at this particular anniversary.

Not every family contacted by reporters backs the petition. Retired NYPD officer Jim Smith, whose wife Moira was one of two female NYPD officers killed that day, declined to sign, saying the day should stay focused on victims rather than politicians of any stripe. Dennis Warchola, whose firefighter brother Michael died two days before his planned retirement, said he turned against Mamdani after learning about his statements on terrorism but stopped short of signing because he does not believe in silencing anyone.

Those dissents were the exception. Reporters reached more than 150 families, and most had signed or planned to, with dozens asking to stay anonymous over retaliation fears.

Mamdani has said he plans to attend anyway.

Galante said many family members plan to turn their backs on Mamdani if he shows up. "They don't want to look at him," he said.