Mayor Mamdani’s Crisis: Designer Jackets, Dead Bodies, and Streets Unplowed

Paul Riverbank, 2/4/2026New York’s storm exposes city leadership, unplowed streets, public anger, and the limits of optics.

On the morning of January 25th, while most folks braced against the wind, Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced the press in a new Carhartt jacket. Not a cheap imitation, either—a proper worker’s coat, tailored with “No problem too big. No task too small” stitched inside where only he’d notice. Oddly enough, the jacket ended up in the Times Style column before the day’s snow report did. His wife, Rama Duwaji, apparently picked out the coat. It made for a striking look, but not everyone bought it.

“You’d think he’d give those jackets to the homeless if he really meant that ‘working class’ stuff,” veteran consultant Hank Sheinkopf quipped. Never known for subtlety, Sheinkopf added, “Let him try a night on a steam grate.” Other political hands, like Ken Frydman, simply called out Mamdani for playing dress-up, more interested in optics than operations.

While debate over his wardrobe raged, real trouble crawled through the city’s veins. Thirteen perished from the cold alone—thirteen! The city’s sidewalks turned into impromptu grave markers; three more overdosed before help could find them. Emergency crews, snowed under themselves, struggled to catch up. Side streets, even parts of Midtown, wore a week-old coat of ice. A friend, stuck in what should've been a 20-minute cab ride, texted: “It’s like the plows forgot we exist.”

Public figures joined the chorus of frustration. Actress Debra Messing blasted out photos: cabs gridlocked, ambulances helpless, nothing moving but the clock. She watched paramedics plead for a path through, unheard above the sirens, and wrote online about the person waiting for care. “The city feels stuck,” she said. Others shared snaps showing the city’s new geography: mini-mountains of garbage sharing sidewalk space with desperate folks huddled for warmth near leaking subway grates.

Eight days after the blizzard, somebody on Instagram summed up the city’s mood: “The snow is just background. The real story is the garbage, the neglect. We pay for a city to run, and it’s just... stopped.” Even corner bodegas, once a guarantee in any Nor’easter, closed early or not at all. For every meme clowning on the custom jacket, there were quiet frustrations about missed paychecks, missed medical appointments, missed normalcy.

Throughout it all, the mayor recited his line: “We’ll replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” It sounded grand enough, but as the cold lingered and blocks remained buried, souls weren’t comforted—only puzzled. “Read that again,” snapped a RedState columnist. “People are dying of cold in Manhattan.” To them, Mamdani’s hands-off approach to homelessness fell far short of the crisis at hand.

Whether Mamdani’s response was more style than substance depends on where you stood, literally—those walking, freezing, dodging knee-high trash, saw a city failing them. Political consultants and Twitter throngs debated the symbolism of a jacket while sanitation workers, by all accounts overstretched and under-supported, wrestled with old equipment and bigger-than-usual drifts.

The city’s legendary hustle—the unstoppable, caffeinated current that keeps New York ticking—felt remarkably frail. The snow will melt, the trash will (eventually) disappear, but the questions stick. Was this just a city brought low by a freak storm, or a leadership crisis wearing a fashionable coat? Most New Yorkers I spoke with weren’t looking for slogans or symbolism—they wanted hot water, open roads, and proof someone was steering the ship.

One thing’s sure—the next storm will come. Whether the city will greet it any better prepared is the question on everyone’s mind, talked about over corner coffee, in crowded elevators, and—with a little less faith than before—in city hall offices.

Snow smothered New York, but it wasn’t the silence or the cold turning heads—it was the mounting evidence that the city, for all its bravado, might not recover quickly this time. Sixteen dead after the blizzard, and what stuck in people’s minds wasn’t just the number, but the images: mounds of refuse iced into frozen barricades, cracked plastic bags stuck mid-sidewalk, and whole avenues abandoned by plows long after the last flake fell.On the morning of January 25th, while most folks braced against the wind, Mayor Zohran Mamdani faced the press in a new Carhartt jacket. Not a cheap imitation, either—a proper worker’s coat, tailored with “No problem too big. No task too small” stitched inside where only he’d notice. Oddly enough, the jacket ended up in the Times Style column before the day’s snow report did. His wife, Rama Duwaji, apparently picked out the coat. It made for a striking look, but not everyone bought it.“You’d think he’d give those jackets to the homeless if he really meant that ‘working class’ stuff,” veteran consultant Hank Sheinkopf quipped. Never known for subtlety, Sheinkopf added, “Let him try a night on a steam grate.” Other political hands, like Ken Frydman, simply called out Mamdani for playing dress-up, more interested in optics than operations.While debate over his wardrobe raged, real trouble crawled through the city’s veins. Thirteen perished from the cold alone—thirteen! The city’s sidewalks turned into impromptu grave markers; three more overdosed before help could find them. Emergency crews, snowed under themselves, struggled to catch up. Side streets, even parts of Midtown, wore a week-old coat of ice. A friend, stuck in what should've been a 20-minute cab ride, texted: “It’s like the plows forgot we exist.”Public figures joined the chorus of frustration. Actress Debra Messing blasted out photos: cabs gridlocked, ambulances helpless, nothing moving but the clock. She watched paramedics plead for a path through, unheard above the sirens, and wrote online about the person waiting for care. “The city feels stuck,” she said. Others shared snaps showing the city’s new geography: mini-mountains of garbage sharing sidewalk space with desperate folks huddled for warmth near leaking subway grates.Eight days after the blizzard, somebody on Instagram summed up the city’s mood: “The snow is just background. The real story is the garbage, the neglect. We pay for a city to run, and it’s just... stopped.” Even corner bodegas, once a guarantee in any Nor’easter, closed early or not at all. For every meme clowning on the custom jacket, there were quiet frustrations about missed paychecks, missed medical appointments, missed normalcy.Throughout it all, the mayor recited his line: “We’ll replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” It sounded grand enough, but as the cold lingered and blocks remained buried, souls weren’t comforted—only puzzled. “Read that again,” snapped a RedState columnist. “People are dying of cold in Manhattan.” To them, Mamdani’s hands-off approach to homelessness fell far short of the crisis at hand.Whether Mamdani’s response was more style than substance depends on where you stood, literally—those walking, freezing, dodging knee-high trash, saw a city failing them. Political consultants and Twitter throngs debated the symbolism of a jacket while sanitation workers, by all accounts overstretched and under-supported, wrestled with old equipment and bigger-than-usual drifts.The city’s legendary hustle—the unstoppable, caffeinated current that keeps New York ticking—felt remarkably frail. The snow will melt, the trash will (eventually) disappear, but the questions stick. Was this just a city brought low by a freak storm, or a leadership crisis wearing a fashionable coat? Most New Yorkers I spoke with weren’t looking for slogans or symbolism—they wanted hot water, open roads, and proof someone was steering the ship.One thing’s sure—the next storm will come. Whether the city will greet it any better prepared is the question on everyone’s mind, talked about over corner coffee, in crowded elevators, and—with a little less faith than before—in city hall offices.