NYC's Treasure Hunt Mayor

"The city moving as one joyful organism at play"

In August 2025, Zohran Mamdani announced on Instagram: “I have something to hide. Many things in fact… because we’re doing a scavenger hunt!”

This immediately caught my attention. In an age when politics has become increasingly stressful, depressing, and polarizing, it was refreshing to see a political candidate — who was soon to become the mayor of New York City — approaching his campaign with genuine playfulness.

I was lucky to be back in NYC to attend the event, and on a sunny Sunday morning, I gathered alongside thousands of other New Yorkers in front of Tammany Hall to receive our starting clue. The turnout was more than I think anyone had expected, with a dense crowd wrapping around three full sides of Union Square Park.

Over the course of the day, we explored the city, guided by a series of riddles themed around NYC mayors. The clues were clever and thoughtfully written. Each took us to a new location of some historical importance, where volunteers would add a sticker to our game card and share another riddle leading to our next stop.

Zohran’s Summer Scavenger Hunt was characterized by an unusual level of positivity and comradery. Whereas New Yorkers typically keep to themselves, interacting with strangers only when required, the scavenger hunt gave all participants an excuse to say hi to anyone else holding a card. We were invited make new friends over our shared support for the campaign — but really for our shared love of New York City. I ran into countless friends along the route, and I made some new friends as well.

At the finish line (for those who reached it in time) we were rewarded with a meet-and-greet with Zohran Mamdani himself, along with some free tea and cute borough-specific stickers. Even the line itself was a wholesome experience as we debriefed with adjacent strangers and even enjoyed the process of simply waiting together.

As an enthusiast and designer of all things enigmatic, I love treasure hunts, but I’m often more skeptical of “scavenger hunts” which typically focus more on finding random things or doing silly tasks than actually solving puzzles. That said, I was pleased to find that the riddles/clues in this Summer Scavenger Hunt were very thoughtfully constructed. As it turned out, they had some professional assistance.

I recently spoke with Natan Last, a prolific crossword constructor and author of Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle, who also helped to write the clues for this mayor-themed scavenger hunt. He described how the event came together:

[Zohran’s] campaign had wonderfully and painstakingly mapped out the destinations, the timing, etc. in a behemoth google doc, and I was asked to help write the clues.

I wrote clues that were far too hard and crossword-y the first go: initially I'd wanted the Hugh Grant clues to slyly, synonymously reference his movies (so bolded text would say "Regarding a young man" instead of "About a boy"). The campaign was great at right-sizing the difficulty.

And then watching people solve it all day was like watching the city celebrate the Knicks just now — absolute collective effervescence, the city moving as one joyful organism at play.

I can attest that from the player’s perspective, this was precisely how the event felt. It was a magical feeling that I and countless other New Yorkers would love to experience more regularly.

The World Cup Stamp Passport

At this point, you might be asking, why am I suddenly writing about a scavenger hunt that happened a year ago?

Well, as it turns out, there’s a brand new treasure hunt-esque event happening in NYC for the World Cup! As a partnership between Mayor Mamdani and Team Wonder, the NYC Neighborhood Passport allows you to collect 12 different artist-designed stamps at various locations around the city. You can pick up a free passport at the Brooklyn, New York, or Queens Public Libraries. More information is available on the NYC Tourism website.

This time around, there’s nothing to solve and no prize for completion, yet it’s a wonderful way to explore the city with some extra pizzazz.

Urban Puzzle Quests

A one-day scavenger hunt and a free stamp passport are far from the only mildly mysterious urban experiences out there.

In NYC, The Great Gotham Challenge runs wonderful site-specific puzzle events throughout the summer. I’ve enjoyed their previous years, and their flagship event is coming up again on July 18 and 25.

There are all sorts of outdoor escape rooms and urban quests throughout the world, but in my opinion, nothing comes close to the design brilliance of Japan’s metro hunts.

These ongoing events can engage tens of thousands of players monthly, often are officially in partnership with the transit system, and frequently are sold at metro station convenience stores. I was particularly blown away by an Exit 8-themed game that utilized small thematic art installations around multiple metro stations and SCRAP’s annual Tokyo Metro Hunt, which had one of the most amazing puzzle sequences I’ve seen that culminated in a papercraft miracle. Both these games basically advertised themselves, with a frequent stream of players carrying branded bags around the city while excitedly interacting with their surroundings in new ways.

The puzzle-ification of Japanese cities extended to countless museums, castles, visitor centers, neighborhoods, and more. Seemingly wherever I went, there was a playful way to engage with my surroundings.

We don’t have such a culture in North America yet, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have more events like the Summer Scavenger Hunt or Tokyo Metro Hunt on a regular basis.

So, Mayor Mamdani, if you’re reading this, please reach out if you want to design an epic NYC puzzle hunt together!