Mamdani faced reporters and photographers in the lobby. “Landlords have been allowed to mistreat their tenants with impunity,” he declared. “That ends today.” Cea Weaver, the new director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and, like Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, stood at his side. Her disdain for private-market landlords is no less fierce than Mamdani’s; she has argued that no tenant should be evicted for not paying rent. A few days later, the mayor would announce “rental ripoff hearings” at which tenants could excoriate bad landlords. (A social-media promotion reads like a movie poster: “Mayor Mamdani & the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants Present New Yorkers vs Bad Landlords.”)