City Hall admitted Thursday that a 19th person died outside in the brutal cold and that seven others perished of hypothermia in their own homes — but callously dismissed questions about the tragedies.
“They did not die on city property, so we are not releasing,” said Dora Pekec, senior spokeswoman for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, after The Post repeatedly pressed for basic details about the newly revealed indoor deaths.
“People die in their homes all the time.”
The mayor’s office also confirmed Thursday the 19th death of a New Yorker out in the cold. An unresponsive man found on a Chinatown street under the Manhattan Bridge late Tuesday was the cold snap’s latest outdoor victim, Mamdani reps said.
City Hall officials were pressed for weeks to cough up vital information about the appalling deaths during the brutal Arctic freeze — as Mamdani faced mounting criticism for his fledging administration’s response to the prolonged, winter weather.
The administration only provided a list Monday with the date, time, gender, age and some of the names of the then-18 people who had died outside during the deep freeze — after repeated requests from The Post.
And as the outdoor deaths drew attention and criticism, a handful of other Big Apple residents quietly froze out of sight.
City Hall officials only revealed this week that seven people died in “private homes” since Jan. 19, when the city first declared a “Code Blue” warning of dangerous cold.
The city’s medical examiner found those deaths were primarily caused by hypothermia, officials said.
City officials refused to release any details such as the victims’ names or addresses that could help reveal whether they had proper heating.
NYPD officials directed questions to their counterparts in City Hall, who in turn pointed queries toward the police department.
Ultimately, Pekec flatly rejected revealing the information, only saying the deaths didn’t unfold in NYCHA housing.
The circumstances under which those New Yorkers died remain publicly unknown.
— Additional reporting by Amanda Woods
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