12/11/2013
By Emily Ngo
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and his family are moving to Gracie Mansion, trading the modest Park Slope row house where they share one bathroom for the opulent Yorkville mayoral residence and its eight bathrooms.
While some Brooklynties who shared pizza slices and barbs with the family over the years say the de Blasios will be missed, Manhattanites welcomed their new neighbors.
The family announced their decision yesterday after weeks of weighing their love of Brooklyn — where they have lived for more than 20 years — against security and logistical concerns.
“We’ll miss Brooklyn, but we are incredibly gratified to the people of New York for the opportunity to live in the Mayor’s residence,” de Blasio, his wife Chirlane McCray and their children Dante, 16, and Chiara, 19, said in a statement.
The de Blasios will be Gracie’s first residents since Rudy Giuliani vacated it 12 years ago.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose to live in his Upper East Side town house, but renovated and used the Federal-style mansion, built in 1799, for ceremonial functions. Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna declined to comment on the de Blasios’ move.
Bloomberg had opened Gracie fully to the public, but it will now be partially closed with the de Blasios living on the second floor.
De Blasio said he’d return regularly to his favorite Brooklyn haunts, including the Park Slope Armory YMCA, where he hosted thousands for his Nov. 5 inauguration celebration.
“You might take the Mayor out of Brooklyn, but you CAN’T take Brooklyn out of the Mayor!” Outgoing borough president Marty Markowitz said of de Blasio in a statement.
Steve Zito, co-owner of Smiling Pizza in Park Slope, has known de Blasio for 13 years.
“He’s one of us, he’s been in the community and he loves us,” Zito said.
“He’ll be missed by all here,” the longtime Park Slope resident added.
De Blasio will be the first mayor from Brooklyn since Abe Beame took office in 1974. De Blasio has said that Bloomberg emphasized Manhattan over the outer boroughs during his tenure.
Craig Hammerman, the district manager of Brooklyn’s Community Board 6, said de Blasio always took time to be on the streets and listen to his constituents’ concerns.
“It is part of his DNA, the idea that we’re all in this together, we’re a community. His idea of community will now extend to include the full city of New York,” he said.
Yorkville residents who haven’t had a Gracie neighbor in recent years said they hope the mayor-elect will take note of their concerns.
Some residents said they were perturbed that de Blasio voted to approve the controversial marine transfer station that is slated to open in the neighborhood. They hoped he would give a second thought to the facility.
“Once you move in the neighborhood I have a feeling he’ll have a change of view,” said Terry Carpenter, who has lived in the neighborhood for three years.
Sunny Larsen, 32, who has lived in the area for a decade, welcomed the de Blasios to the neighborhood.
“If he wants to live in it, go for it. You only get to do it once … or as many terms as you’re elected,” she said.
Dante de Blasio will have a considerably longer commute to Brooklyn Tech high school. His sister Chiara attends college in California.
The family visited Gracie during the Thanksgiving holiday, when Chiara was home from school, de Blasio’s spokeswoman said. They won’t move to Gracie on Jan. 1 — when de Blasio takes office — but will do so in a couple months, a spokeswoman said.
“We are humbled to join that great tradition,” the family wrote. “After all, a home is more than just bricks and mortar — it’s the place you are with the people you love.”
De Blasio’s staff and an NYPD spokeswoman both declined to discuss what security or police detail would be used at Gracie and in Park Slope.
(with Ivan Pereira and Andrei Berman)
