Overview
- Mayor Zohran Mamdani met President Donald Trump at the White House to revive a long-stalled plan for roughly 12,000 homes above Queens’ Sunnyside Yard, with the president described as “interested.”
- City Hall’s concept seeks more than $21 billion in federal grants to build a platform over the 180-acre active railyard serving Amtrak, the LIRR and NJ Transit.
- The proposal includes 6,000 Mitchell-Lama-style affordable homes plus parks, schools and health clinics, and City Hall projects about 30,000 union jobs during construction.
- The meeting also touched on immigration enforcement; shortly afterward a detained Columbia student, Elmina Aghayeva, was released following White House intervention cited by the mayor.
- Local officials pressed for a full public review, with Council Member Julie Won criticizing the Oval Office pitch and noting that any reshaping of Sunnyside Yards requires community input and City Council process.