On Zoran Mamdani’s 100th day as mayor of New York, his office teamed up with documentarian John Wilson to release a video about new policies designed to reduce the amount of foot traffic in the city.
The video was shot in the style of HBO’s How To With John Wilson and is designed as an homage to Wilson’s work, featuring clips of scaffolding around the city and interviews with various New Yorkers, some humorous and some more serious. At the end of the video, Wilson conducts and films his own interview with Mamdani.
“I never thought about scaffolding,” one city resident says at the beginning of the video. “I know that sometimes it’s just magically here and then it’s magically gone, and you complain about it in between,” the same man later says. “I haven’t had the luxury of imagining a world without scaffolding, but what a wonderful world it would be.”
“This scaffolding has been in place for about a year now. We miss the light. Scaffolding is certainly not good for retail stores,” says one local business owner. “You’ve pretty much accepted the status quo, which is bad.” Later in the video, he adds with a laugh, “The only good news is that when it rains, we get coverage to smoke cigars. But other than that, there’s nothing good about the city’s scaffolding.
Mamdani said in a voiceover that the scaffolding was installed to provide temporary protection for pedestrians moving through construction sites in the city, but some of the scaffolding had been in place for more than 15 years, creating an eyesore for claustrophobics and affecting the ease of walking.
Mamdani outlines a series of new policies aimed at reducing footfall. Because intensive building inspections require scaffolding, New York City will extend the interval between building inspections from five to six years. Buildings older than 40 years will instead be allowed to rely on visual inspections every three years, with a 12-year wait for intensive inspections. Additionally, fines will be imposed on scaffolding that remains in place for two years “after welcome,” and the city is imposing a maximum 40-foot limit on the distance that scaffolding can extend onto sidewalks and streets.
“There are so many parts of life in our city that we accept as if they were the price of being a New Yorker, the price of living in New York City. In reality, these are political decisions,” Mamdani tells Wilson at the end of the video. “Those are political choices, and we can make different choices, because a lot of them don’t impact safety. It’s just a blight on our city.”Then the mayor turned, looked up, and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you saying you’re sorry for the scaffolding?” Wilson asks. “I feel sorry for the scaffolding,” Mamdani says with a laugh.
Watch the video below.
