Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged New Yorkers to set their air conditioners to 78 degrees during a severe heat wave, yet temperature checks inside City Hall and nearby municipal spaces showed many rooms far colder—readings as low as 54 degrees—while parts of the city baked and thousands lost power.
When temperatures hit 100 degrees in Central Park, and roughly 5,000 Con Edison customers in the Bronx were left without power, City Hall presented a different picture. Reporters used infrared thermometers across 20 spots in City Hall and other municipal buildings and found 15 locations below the 78-degree level the mayor had recommended. The contrast was stark and immediate: outside, New Yorkers sweltered; inside, some rooms were uncomfortably chilly.
The initial checks around noon showed a mix of near-compliance and colder pockets: areas near the mayor’s second-floor office, the Rotunda, the Governors’ Room, and the City Council chambers registered about 77 degrees, while the first-floor press office read 78. But readings slid as the day wore on. Locations that registered 77 at midday dropped into the mid-70s, and the Rotunda plunged to 64 within hours.
By early afternoon the press office area, where communications staff and aides congregate, measured 62 degrees, a full sixteen degrees below the mayor’s public recommendation. The coldest single measurement came from an AC unit in the press radio room: 54 degrees. Meanwhile, the city’s heat and power problems were real and dangerous for residents, especially elderly and vulnerable people without reliable cooling or electricity.
Mamdani had been explicit in his guidance and in social posts telling New Yorkers to cap their air conditioners at 78 degrees to reduce the risk of power outages. He wrote publicly, “Our City is doing its part too: maintaining the 78 degrees rule in our buildings, dimming/turning off our lights during peak electricity demand, asking private partners to do the same, and powering down non-essential equipment.” That claim implied citywide compliance, but the thermometer readings told a different story.
The mismatch between the mayor’s words and what was actually happening inside his own building matters. Fifteen of the twenty tested spots were below 78 degrees, and several were far below that mark. For a leader urging sacrifice from ordinary citizens, the optics of a cooler City Hall while parts of the city suffered outages are hard to defend and easy to criticize from concerned residents and political opponents alike.
Critics made the obvious point: telling seniors and other vulnerable people to keep their rooms at 78 while City Hall itself remained chilly looks like a double standard. A conservative outlet noted the tension between advising people to cap cooling and warning older New Yorkers to use air-conditioned spaces to stay safe. Social media amplified the disconnect, with one comment capturing the frustration: “You just told old people to keep their air at 78. Are you on drugs?”
City Hall’s response came only after reporters began asking questions. A spokesperson said, “the Mayor set the temperature at Gracie Mansion to 78 degrees yesterday afternoon,” and later confirmed that thermostats in city buildings were adjusted after inquiries began. That sequence—publicly claiming compliance, being shown otherwise, then changing settings—reads like a reaction to embarrassment rather than a demonstration of consistent stewardship.
One of the mayor’s top spokespeople responded online with sarcasm instead of straight answers, writing, “This practice of asking New Yorkers to set their AC to 78 degrees dates back to Dear Communist Leader Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.” The comment was defensive and deflective, and it did little to address why municipal spaces were colder than the public was asked to be. Past administrations have given similar advice during heat waves, but the real issue here is not the guidance itself; it’s the claim that city operations matched the rule when they plainly did not.
