Anti-Police Mamdani’s Inaugural ‘Block Party’ Will Cost $500K in NYPD Overtime

The New Year’s Day inauguration celebration for Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a longtime critic of the NYPD who once labeled police “wicked,” will require a massive security presence of between 350 and 400 officers and will cost around $500,000, law enforcement sources told The Post.

“It’s going to cost a lot of money in overtime,” said a police officer with more than 25 years on the force told the Post on Saturday. “He’s having this celebration with all these people who hate the police and we have to be there to protect them.”

Based on overtime pay averaging about $100 per hour, with higher rates for detectives, lieutenants, and chiefs, the security detail alone could run upward of half a million dollars, according to one estimate.

The event, dubbed the “Inauguration for a New Era Block Party,” is scheduled to stretch seven blocks along the Canyon of Heroes, from Liberty Street to Murray Street, a corridor typically reserved for ticker-tape parades.

“It’s ironic that he wants to spend all this money using city services while saying he wants to cut the budget of the NYPD,” a second law enforcement source said. “I think it goes to show how naive he is.”

Mamdani has previously called for defunding the police during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, describing officers as “racist” and “anti-queer,” and later branding the department “wicked and corrupt.” While he softened his rhetoric during the mayoral campaign, police sources say his past positions make the scale of the security detail especially striking.

The mayor-elect has also pledged not to hire additional officers at a time when NYPD staffing hovers between 33,000 and 34,000, far below its peak of more than 40,000 in 2000, raising concerns about pulling personnel from patrol and investigations.

“They’ll take detectives away from the important work they’re doing to work this event,” one source said. “I don’t think he’s aware of where the police department is in terms of staffing levels.”

The burden is compounded by the timing. New Year’s Day already strains department resources, with thousands of officers assigned to the Times Square ball drop and precincts operating at heightened staffing levels.

“That many cops on New Year’s Day is a huge hit because you already have a detail of thousands working the ball drop,” another veteran officer said. “And the precincts are all upstaffed on that night because it’s a very busy night.”

One source mocked the optics of the situation, referencing Mamdani’s push to replace police with alternative responders. “Why didn’t you staff it with social workers and violence interruptors?” the source joked.

“It’s bad optics from the average person’s point of view,” the source added. “He’s coming in and he’s the man of the people but the first thing he does is throw himself a party.”

A retired sergeant questioned whether the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group, a unit Mamdani has criticized and previously targeted, would be tasked with securing the event.

“I’m sure it’s going to be expensive,” the source said. “What will be interesting is if the NYPD’s SRG unit will be working it because we know he has targeted that unit for dismissal.”

The city’s Sanitation Department said it expects to deploy about 50 workers to clean up after the event, but insisted the additional manpower will not burden taxpayers.

“Cleaning after public services is a not a cost – it is a budgeted service,” department spokesman Joshua Goodman said.