New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife were heckled by locals as they walked through Prospect Park in Brooklyn over the weekend, despite living 11 miles away in Manhattan.
De Blasio was filmed strolling with his wife Chirlane McCray, both of whom were wearing masks, through the historic park on Saturday afternoon.
New Yorker Darren Goldner took video of the moment he scolded the Mayor for forcing an entourage of four SUV security vehicles to drive his family to the park for a nonessential recreational walk in a completely different borough.
‘Seriously, you guys have a park. You live in park. You don’t need to non-essentially travel to Brooklyn. Come on you won’t even open roads for people of all backgrounds. I’m not going to give it a break. This is selfish behavior,’ Goldner said.
Critics noted that De Blasio lives in the Gracie Mansion, the designated residence of New York mayors, on the Upper East Side inside Carl Schurz Park.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray were heckled by locals as they walked through Prospect Park in Brooklyn on Saturday, despite living 11 miles away in a Manhattan park
New Yorker Darren Goldner took video of the moment he scolded the Mayor saying: ‘Seriously, you guys have a park. You live in park. You don’t need to non-essentially travel to Brooklyn. Come on you won’t even open roads for people of all backgrounds. I’m not going to give it a break. This is selfish behavior’
De Blasio waved dismissively at Goldner and he and his wife walked away as Goldner followed and continued to harangue them
At the end of the clip the Mayor and his wife walked to their cars followed by assistants and drove off
De Blasio lives in the Gracie Mansion, the designated residence of New York mayors, on the Upper East Side inside Carl Schurz Park, located 11 miles awy from Prospect Park
De Blasio was seen waving his hand dismissively towards the camera as he walked away from his angry constituent saying, ‘Come on guys, give it a break’.
‘This is so terribly selfish. You call yourself a progressive but you chauffeur yourself to Brooklyn you force people to drive you. This is ridiculous. This is the epitome of nonessential travel,’ Goldner continued.
De Blasio lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, near Prospect Park, before moving to the Gracie Mansion in July 2014.
New York state remains the epicenter of COVID-19 in the US with over 291,000 cases and 17,303 deaths reported so far. A majority of those cases are reported in the Big Apple with over 163,000 cases as of Monday.
Critics noted that de Blasio lives in the Gracie Mansion (above), the designated residence of New York mayors, on the Upper East Side located inside Carl Schurz Park. De Blasio and McCray pictured in front of Gracie Mansion in September 2019
A view of the Gracie Mansion in 2013 located in the Upper East Side of Manhattan
Mayor Bill de Blasio pictured with wife Chirlane McCray and kids Dante de Blasio and Chiara de Blasio at the 2015 Pride Parade
Twitter users were quick to eviscerate the Mayor for his weekend walk slamming his behavior as ‘disgraceful’.
‘Good for you! His behavior has been so atrocious, he shouldn’t be able to set foot in a public space without being asked questions like these,’ one Twitter user wrote.
‘Tell him to take the subway to Brooklyn, so he can see the squalor caused by his failure to care for the homeless,’ another added.
‘Give him hell! Disgraceful. In the middle of a pandemic he’s making an overcrowded park more crowded & setting a bad example. NYC should’ve been locked down & instead he & everyone else is strolling through the freaking park. Madness! This is why 1 out of every 500 NYers are dead,’ one angry Twitter user said.
Social media users voiced their outrage over De Blasio’s stroll, calling his behavior ‘atrocious’
This Twitter user noted that the Gracie Mansion, the official residence for New York Mayors, is located in Carl Schurz Park
Goldner slammed the Mayor for initially refusing to open up city streets so pedestrians and bikers can have more space in the pandemic.
‘De Blasio opposes opening streets for all, esp [for] those who don’t happen to live near a nice park, aren’t chauffeured in fossil-fuel convoys to Park Slope. They tend to be poorer, working class, POC,’ Goldner tweeted.
Last week the mayor opposed a city council proposal to alter city streets to make room for pedestrians and bikers on streets without enforcement from cops, following the success of similar programs in other US and European cities.
On Monday the Mayor changed his tune and said he committed to opening up 100 miles of streets for socially responsible recreation during the COVID-19 crisis.
‘The City Council came forward with a vision for how we could open up more streets and do it in a way that’s responsive to the core concerns of the NYPD over safety and enforcement,’ the mayor said.
‘Over the next month, we will create a minimum of 40 miles of open streets. And as the crisis continues, the goal is to get up to 100 miles. We will focus first on streets in and around our parks.’
The mayor also said the city will also consider the option to ‘expand sidewalks’ and create more temporary bike lanes.
On Monday the Mayor said he committed to opening up 100 miles of streets for socially responsible recreation during the COVID-19 crisis including expanding sidewalks and expanding streets in parks
Due to the severe nature of the outbreak, New York state has been placed on a lockdown that Governor Andrew Cuomo extended beyond May 15 on Monday.
In the Big Apple all nonessential businesses have been shuttered and the bustling city has been brought to a standstill as the Mayor urged all residents to stay inside, practice social distancing and avoid all nonessential travel.
Last week de Blasio asked New Yorkers to rat out fellow citizens on those ignoring social distancing orders by taking photos of the violators and texting it to the city.
‘When you see a crowd, when you see a line that’s not distanced, when you see a supermarket that’s too crowded, you can report it right away so we can get there to help fix the problem.’
He added: ‘That’s going to stop spreading this disease. And that’s going to save lives.’
Mayor de Blasio says NYC will create 40 MILES of open streets in the next month to make social distancing easier for pedestrians – three days after he panned a similar ‘unsafe’ proposal
New York City is preparing to open up to 100 miles of streets to offer New Yorkers more space to social distance outside as coronavirus lockdown measures continue.
Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement on Monday, just days after he and other city officials cautioned against a proposal to open up streets to pedestrians, saying it could not be done safely in a city as dense as New York.
But in his latest news conference, de Blasio said the City Council had come forward with a vision for opening up more streets that alleviates concerns by the city’s Police Department.
‘Over the next month, we will create a minimum of 40 miles of open streets. And as the crisis continues, the goal is to get up to 100 miles,’ de Blasio said.
He said the city would focus on streets in and around parks, where officials expect many people to congregate as the weather gets warmer.
Many of the city’s eight million residents live in small apartments, and officials are concerned residents will flout social distancing rules the longer lockdown rules continue into the summer.
‘We want to do more,’ de Blasio told reporters at the virtual briefing. ‘So the focus here will be to focus on where the need is greatest.
‘The first priority is the places hardest hit and then where it will have the most impact.’
The mayor said that in addition to closing streets, the city would also expand sidewalks and create more temporary bike lanes, but did not provide additional details.
New York City Council members last week introduced a bill to dedicate 75 miles of city streets to pedestrians and cyclists by closing at least one lane to vehicles while coronavirus restrictions are in place.
But representatives for the city’s Department of Transportation and the Police Department on Friday poured cold water on the proposal, saying the city did not have the resources to protect people on those streets from drivers.
De Blasio himself in mid-April shot down the idea of closing streets to traffic, saying he did not believe it would work.
When City Council proposed the new plan – modeled after Oakland, California – de Blasio on Friday said that it didn’t ‘connect with a lot of our reality’.
Asked about his change of mind on Monday, he said the city council had proposed community partners to help the Police Department keep streets safe.
Activists who have been calling for the expansion of open space for weeks were quick to praise de Blasio’s announcement – crediting City Council with making it happen.
‘It’s great to see the Council break through on the issue,’ said Jon Orcutt of Bike New York, and a former top DOT official.
‘We’re very heartened the announcement included some looking-ahead steps, like more pop-up bike lanes.’
New York City’s debate over increasing space for pedestrians comes as cities around the world experiment with ways to gradually ease restrictions without compromising safety.
Several cities, including San Francisco and Denver in the United States and Milan, Dublin, Budapest and Berlin in Europe, have closed some streets to cars and expanded sidewalks and bicycle lanes to provide more outdoor space.
Meanwhile, a growing number of governors are laying plans to lift statewide stay-at-home orders in the coming weeks.