NYC NOW - Mamdani Moves Into Gracie Mansion, and New Yorkers Repurpose MetroCards

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani says he and his wife will move into Gracie Mansion after his January inauguration, leaving their rent-stabilized Astoria apartment for security reasons. Meanwhile, the F and M lines have swapped East River tunnels, causing significant delays on the F line after a switch failure at 53rd Street. Mamdani is also issuing a new Know Your Rights message in response to recent ICE activity. In Manhattan, a progressive public school long known by the acronym ICE is rebranding because of the political climate. And finally, with the MetroCard set to disappear, New Yorkers are finding creative ways to repurpose their old cards.

Mayor Alec Zoran Mamdani is moving into Gracie Mansion. The F&M lines are switching East River tunnels between Manhattan and Queens, and how people have given their expired metro cards a second life. From WNYC, this is NYC now. I'm Elizabeth Shwey in for Jenae Pierre. New York City Mayor Alec Zoran Mamdani says he and his wife are moving into Gracie Mansion in the new year. The Queen's residents will leave their rent-stabilize apart. in Astoria for the mayor's official residence in the Upper East Side, after Mamdani's

inauguration on January 1st. He says they've decided to move partly due to security concerns. They say they'll miss the food, drinks, and multiple languages spoken by residents in Astoria the most. F train riders were in for a rude awakening on Monday morning. The line switch routes with the M train between Manhattan and Queens. The MTA says the move will help unclosure a subway bottleneck that strained subway service along Queens Boulevard. But on Monday morning, the F-Train's new tracks faced a major infrastructure issue that delayed riders. The MTA reports a switch failed at 5th Avenue and 53rd Street during the morning rush that sparked delays that persisted into the afternoon.

MTA officials say the switch failure wasn't caused by the route swap, and that crews were working to resolve the problem. Mayor elect Zoranamdani is using his platform. him to push back on federal immigration enforcement. In a new video, Mamdani says all New Yorkers, regardless of their immigration status, have rights when approached by ICE agents. Ice is legally allowed to lie to you, but you have the right to remain silent. If you're being detained, you may always ask, am I free to go repeatedly until they answer you.

The release follows a tense confrontation late last month in Chinatown, where demonstrators blocked ice fans from leaving a garage. Mamdani says the city will continue to resist what he calls abusive tech. tactics. Up next, a progressive public school in Manhattan, long known by its acronym ICE, decided it's time for a rebrand. That's after the break. A public school in New York City is moving away from its long-standing nickname of ICE, citing the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. WNYC's Jessica Gould, reports. For decades, students, staff, and parents have referred to the Institute for Collaborative

Education in Manhattan by its initials, ICE. Not anymore. Here's Jr. Shane Nesbitt. We call our school Nice now. That's NY for New York, ICE. Nice. They changed it because, I mean, all the immigration and all the things that are happening with ICE is just not a good look for our school anymore. Principal Peter Karp announced he'd be referring to the school by its full name, or the extended initials, nice, after President Donald Trump's second inauguration. He said he wants to avoid any confusion or unnecessary emotional response associated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The name change isn't official, but Nesbitt says all school sports uniforms and swag now feature

the new acronym. Now all the like merch and stuff says nice on it. The rebrand is just one example of how federal immigration. immigration policies are reverberating through school communities. Just weeks into the new administration, parents and teachers were distributing flyers on undocumented immigrants' rights. Some created encrypted chats to alert each other if ICE agents are nearby. After several public school students got detained at routine immigration check-ins, students, staff, and parents organized fundraisers to help. Junior Mosey Nathan says he knows many immigrant fans.

families are fearful. You know, like, when you hear the word ice, it's kind of like, it can be pretty triggering for some people. He says that's why he thinks his school's name change from ICE to Nice is so important. I think it's a good way to be more inclusive of our community. City schools have enrolled thousands of migrant students in recent years. But the Education Department says no immigration agents have tried to enter schools so far. and administrators have been instructed to call city lawyers if ICE does show up. That was WNYC's Jessica Gould.

The MTA is phasing out the MetroCard and replacing it with the Omni Tap system for good. That means you won't be able to buy a new Metro card after December 31st. Metro cards have a distinctive, thin, and flexible, yet sturdy design that sets it apart from credit cards and business cards. allowing folks to use it in pretty unique ways. Which may be wonder, what are New Yorkers doing with their leftover metro cards? I want on a search and found some people with creative uses for their cards. For example, many nail technicians use metro cards to pop off acrylic nails

because it's a quick and easy way to remove them, especially in a time crunch. But Kelly Lamb, who works at Nail Cheek Salon in Kabul Hill, told me that although it's common, she wouldn't recommend it. How I would personally use it, if majority of the nails are already lifted halfway or more, then I would, you know, shove a metro card underneath and try and lift up the nails, the enhancements. It's quick. Usually it should be painless, but if the nails are very attached to your natural nails, then it will hurt.

I also learned that Metro cards are the perfect tool for phone repair technicians who use them to remove the fragile digitizer screens on iPads, and also to remove screen protectors from phones because of how bendy they are. They're soft enough and malleable enough that they allow us to, and sturdy enough, that they allow us to go through the entire screen and remove the adhesive without the risk of the tablets breaking. That's Brian Cambo Verdi, a technician at Mobile Compu Repair in Brooklyn. He says MetroCarts are way cheaper than what's on the market, but he says they're really

hard to come by now. Sometimes people would even come in here. we would be like, hey, do you happen to have any old metro cards? Because a lot of people just used to keep them in their wallet, they don't do that anymore. They're like, no, you know, I know you guys use metro cards. If I find one, I'll give it to you. But, you know, if I find one now is a phrase that people use because, like, if you even see one. I also talked with Jodi Shapiro, a curator for the New York City Transit Museum.

And she found a clever workaround for getting locked out of her hotel room by using her metro card. I have used my metro card to open a hotel room door because credit cards were too thick. But the metro card just fit right in there. Of course, I told security because you shouldn't be able to open a hotel room door with a credit card or a metro card. One of the more common ways that people are giving metro cards a second life is through art. A lot of artists have incorporated the physical metro card into their work. And some have made an entire dress out of metro cards. Juan Carlos Pinto is an artist who makes mosaics out of cut-up pieces of metro cards,

and he said it all started around 25 years ago when he got fined for jumping the turnstile. He collected all the metro cards on the floor of that subway station, brought them home, and cut them up in anger. But after two hours doing that, yeah, I was more calmed down, and I find out, wait a minute, there is five colors in the car. You've got black, blue, yellow, red, and white. I have a pantone. I have a palette now.

He says his favorite part of the MetroCard is actually the magnetic black stripe, which to him holds a unique transportation history of the person who once used it. The portrait of Einstein there is at least 75 magnetical stripes there. That's the history of 75 New Yorkers I never met. and who maybe they met each other or maybe there's a marriage there or a crime, you never know. And when I'm not producing for WNYC, I'm dancing.

And during class one day, I noticed my dance teacher, Jenny Soudin, wearing a metro card as an earring, which I thought was pretty cool, and I had to ask her about it. She told me that she used to have an Altoids tin full of metro cards to make a deck of cards out of them.

But when someone from her local by nothing group asked for metro cards to make a drag queen costume out of them, gave them away. But she kept one special card for herself. Instead of it being a blue font, it was like a green font. And I made it into an earring, actually. I was inspired by this drag queen. And I was like, yeah, if we're going to get rid of all these things, what are we going to do with them? And she wears it a few times a month because people's reactions to it crack her up. They would mime as if I would leave the ear in my ear and then I would crouch down

over and slide the earring, like, while it's still in my ear. And I was like, that just feels like I'm going to hurt myself. A lot of the people I spoke to, especially those who grew up in the city, like Brian, the phone technician, expressed a lot of sadness for the Metro Card going away. I spent most of my life here, and like I said, I've been taking the train for as long as I can remember ever since middle school to commute to and from all the way through college now. Just personally, me, I grew up with the metro card, so I think for me, I'll always think that the metro card reigns supreme.

And remember, you won't be able to buy any more metro cards next year, but they'll still be accepted into 2026. So if you still have money on yours, you don't have to get rid of them yet. Although, the MTA is encouraging transferring the rest of the money to an Omnic card. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Elizabeth Shui. We'll be back tomorrow.