That quiet was replaced by a hubbub on Sunday, as thousands of New Yorkers lined up for hours on a bitterly cold afternoon for a rare tour of the mansion, culminating in a meet-and-greet with the man who will soon move into its halls, Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“We’re excited to give New Yorkers a chance to see that which is theirs,” the mayor said inside the home’s first-floor library, where he was in the midst of a five-hour marathon of hugs, handshakes, back pats and high-fives.
After a populist message propelled him to City Hall, Mr. de Blasio has taken pains to project a theme of inclusiveness in his early days in office. Tickets to Sunday’s open house, the final event of the mayor’s inaugural itinerary, were distributed by lottery; a scalping market quickly emerged on Craigslist. Many dozens of volunteers and donors to Mr. de Blasio’s campaign were also invited to attend.
The queue — filled with well-wishers from every city borough, and many who drove in from Long Island and other nearby counties — snaked through the high-ceiling ballrooms of the Federal-style mansion, out to its grounds and into nearby Carl Schurz Park, where it stretched nearly three city blocks along an East River promenade.
Staff members served cups of hot chocolate and apple cider to shivering well-wishers, some of whom waited more than two hours in the cold, as a roving band of guitarists and tambourine players, hired by the mayor’s transition team, offered a folksy accompaniment.
Gracie Mansion had been open to tours, but those tickets often cost money.
Many of those in line said they were lifelong New Yorkers who had never had a chance to be inside the mansion.
“It’s not quite a once-in-a-lifetime deal, but it’s pretty close,” said Angelo Cucuzza, a union steward from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, who was waiting toward the back of the line with his wife.
It was never clear-cut that Mr. de Blasio, who turned his unglamorous Park Slope rowhouse into a symbol of his outsider campaign, would make the move to Gracie if elected as mayor, and he and his family hesitated on the decision for weeks after his election.
On Sunday, Mr. de Blasio again reiterated his ambivalence about the move.
“This is just a sojourn,” he told two Park Slope residents, Rebecca Levi and Griffin Hansbury, as they posed for a photograph, pledging that he and his family would be visiting their home borough “a lot.”
The notion of the “people’s house,” as Mr. de Blasio has taken to calling the two-century-old home, is a time-tested political strategy, dating back to another outspoken populist, Andrew Jackson, who opened the White House to the masses after his inauguration in 1829.
The formal air of the mansion struck some attendees as incongruous with the de Blasio brand. “I am wondering how they will adapt,” said Ms. Levi, 43, a professional recruiter. “It doesn’t look like a place you would kick up your feet.”
Later, Mr. de Blasio spoke with Shannon Graham, who said she was from Bushwick, Brooklyn.
“The one true borough!” Mr. de Blasio proclaimed, his face lighting up. “This is your house,” he told Ms. Graham as the flashbulbs went off. “It belongs to you. I’m just borrowing it.”
Yahoo Local News – New York Times
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=20199
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
No comments:
Post a Comment