Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani needs to break New York City’s two-decade cycle of delays and release critical documents about toxins that swirled around Ground Zero, causing the deaths of hundreds, 9/11 survivor advocates said Sunday.
Facing a 10th postponement on releasing the records from the Adams administration, members of 9/11 Health Watch and attorneys for survivors are hoping Mamdani will finally put out the documents when he takes office.
“Mamdani can be the mayor who after 25 years answers the question, what did the city know about the hazards caused by the toxic chemicals at Ground Zero and when did it know it?” Benjamin Chevat, Executive Director of 9/11 Health Watch, said.
Advocates hope for the relesed of the so-called Harding Memo, which was written shortly after 9/11 and addressed to Deputy Mayor Bob Harding from an aide, warning that there could be thousands of liability claims, “including toxic tort cases that might arise in the next few decades.” The New York Times reported on the memo in 2007 but it has never been released to the public.
Mamdani can “order his yet-to-be-named Corporation Counsel to release the Harding Memo and the data that went into drafting it,” Chevet said.
The new mayor’s administration can also support the city Department of Investigation’s ongoing probe into what City Hall knew about the dangers of Ground Zero and when.
Craig Warga for New York Daily News
Firefighters catch their breath while working at the World Trade Center site on Sept. 13, 2001. (Craig Warga for New York Daily News)
A Daily News story published in September as the city marked the 24th anniversary of the terror attacks disclosed that only eight weeks into the DOI’s review, the agency was looking at the possibility of getting outside help to parse through all the data.
“He should fully cooperate with the investigation by making sure DOI has the funding to do its job,” Chevet said of the incoming Mayor.
An email to Mamdani’s transition team about the 9/11 Health Watch’s requests was not immediately returned.
The pivotal documents have remained hidden under four different mayoral administrations, from Rudolph Giuliani to Mike Bloomberg to Bill de Blasio to Eric Adams, who “requested both federal funding and additional federal protections for the city before the documents would be released,” according to court documents.
In 2023, attorneys Andrew Carboy and Matt McCauley, who are representing 9/11 Health Watch as well as survivors and their families, sent Freedom of Information Law requests to an array of city agencies looking for documents and studies on 9/11 health risks.
The only agency to provide any documents back was the Department of Environmental Protection, but only after they first said they couldn’t find any and had to be taken to court.
The other agencies forwarded the FOIL requests to City Hall to answer. On Dec. 1, the Adams administration said the request has been pushed back — again.
“You can expect a response on or about Thursday, March 19, 2026,” the notice from City Hall read, citing “the volume of requests” the FOIL office has received for the delay.
Todd Maisel / New York Daily News
Wreckage is pictured on Sept. 14, 2001 after the terror attacks on the World Trade Center. (Todd Maisel / New York Daily News)
Relatives of deceased 9/11 responders who Carboy and McCauley represent includes Phil Alvarez, the brother of NYPD Det. Luis Alvarez.
Luis Alvarez died in 2019 of a 9/11-related cancer after a long effort, including testifying to Congress, to get first responders a permanent victims compensation fund.
Carboy plans to appeal the City Hall’s postponement of the FOIL request, claiming a 10th delay is an “effective denial” of the request.
“Like my brother before me, I should not need to be here, standing before the authorities and seeking only what is justly due to everyone else being affected by this disaster,” Phil Alvarez said. “The records of the city’s response belong to us all.”
“There is no irony in me saying, well here we are again,” he said.
McCauley called the ongoing question about what the city knew about the 9/11 toxins an “unnecessary mystery.”
“There is nothing in any of the identified or yet-to-be-identified documents that would have kept a single first responder from running toward danger on 9/11,” McCauley noted. “The city must stop fixating on the existence, location, or legal shielding of these boxes. Instead, it needs to acknowledge that the information they contain still has the power to save lives — nearly a quarter-century after the attacks.”
More than 140,000 first responders and survivors are enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s WTC Health Program, which provides health care benefits for medical conditions related to exposure to the toxins that hung over Ground Zero. Out of that number, about 81,000 have a certified condition linked to the toxins.
The unearthed documents won’t likely cause a flurry of lawsuits since first responders and survivors who are receiving help from the WTC Health Program and the 9/11 Victim Compensation fund have already signed waivers agreeing not to sue over their illnesses. More than 100,000 have signed these waivers, officials said.
