NEW YORK, Sept 8, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on 
Tuesday the release of tens of thousands of documents showing the city did 
not disclose all it knew about air toxicity after 9/11.

The release comes ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, 
attacks that killed 2,977 people, in the United States, mostly from the 
collapse of the Twin Towers in New York.

More than 9,400 have died from illnesses linked to their exposure to the area 
in the years since, according to a federal medical monitoring program.

"These are documents that show what the city knew about the toxic air around 
Ground Zero, when they knew it, and how they acted to limit liability," the 
mayor told a news conference following the online release of 170,000 pages of 
documents on health concerns, air quality and the city's response to the 
attacks.

The release is part of an agreement with 9/11 Health Watch, a victims' 
advocacy group that had taken legal action to compel the city to make the 
documents public.

"For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, 
the US Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the City 
actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and 
Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse, even as City 
officials continued messaging to the public that the air was 'safe and 
acceptable'," the group's director Benjamin Chevat said in a statement.

When asked about the names of officials who had withheld information from the 
public, Mamdani said, "this goes across a multitude of those that New Yorkers 
have trusted."