Mayor Mamdani releases 170K documents related to post-9/11 air quality

The Mamdani administration on Tuesday released nearly 170,000 documents related to concerning air quality reports in Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11, nearly 25 years after the terrorist attacks.

Thousands of New Yorkers fell ill from fallen debris during the attacks, but the extent of the damage to people’s health due to exposure to all kinds of toxins is still unclear. In the years since the 9/11 attacks that killed almost 3,000 people, nearly three times more people have died as a result of health complications in the aftermath of the attacks.

Now, the Mamdani administration will provide the public with an online portal to read documents and information largely around health risks that weren’t previously shared publicly.

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air, and then when they began to contend with the symptoms of the illness that followed, the government that had not hesitated to send them into harm's way was nowhere to be found,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference Tuesday morning.

The city is releasing the documents as part of a major settlement with 9/11 health groups that have requested transparency for years. Corporation Counsel Steve Banks said the city will publish thousands of more documents in the next 12 months as it reviews and redacts information.

The initiative is part of a $34 million investment to fund the public portal and for the staff to sift through documents. The documents include what is known as the “Harding memo,” where the city outlined the extent of its liability to those harmed by the attacks and potential sicknesses. Other documents include 68 boxes of records from the Department of Environmental Protection.

“The devastating truth is that the suffering did not end once the smoke cleared and the dust settled,” Mamdani said. “For so many New Yorkers who lived or worked or studied near Ground Zero and for the thousands of others who worked on the pile recovering those we lost clearing the rubble, that was only the beginning of years of hardship and illness that would follow.”

City officials said some of the documents show how asbestos was found nearly everywhere inspectors tested in the aftermath of the attacks and that many New Yorkers were exposed to carcinogens.