Bill de Blasio was officially sworn in as the city’s 109th mayor just after midnight Wednesday in the same place where he launched his long-shot bid for City Hall just under a year ago — in front of his modest Brooklyn rowhouse.
And the weather was just as freezing as it was for de Blasio last January.
Our Jennifer Fermino, Mark Morales and Alfred Ng report:
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman administered the oath to a grinning de Blasio in a sidewalk ceremony on 11th St. in Park Slope, marking the dawn of a new political era for the city after 20 years of rule by Republican and independent mayors.
De Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, held the Bible as he was sworn in, and their teenage children, Dante and Chiara — who wore a pointed party hat to ring in the new year — stood at their side.
In one of his first acts as mayor, he kissed his wife, then signed an executive order that keeps in place all other existing city orders, a formality that guarantees continuity during the handoff of power from the Bloomberg administration.
To cheers from the crowd — which included the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard and the actor Steve Buscemi — de Blasio said he was “grateful” to serve.
“From the beginning, this has been our family together, reaching out to the people of this city to make a change that we all needed,” said de Blasio. “I want to thank you for having brought us to this moment …. This is the beginning of a road we will travel together.”
He wished everyone a happy New Year, then headed to his favorite neighborhood eatery, Bar Toto, for a private party with close friends. Schneiderman and Buscemi were there.
He chilled at Bar Toto for about an hour before heading home.
De Blasio’s decision to begin his mayoralty at his three bedroom, one-bath house in Brooklyn, miles from Manhattan, was a nod to his goal of representing everyday New Yorkers who live outside Manhattan’s choicest zip codes.
It also represented a symbolic departure from the ways of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, whom de Blasio portrayed as Manhattan-centric to a fault.
Although the small swearing-in ceremony officially made de Blasio the city’s mayor, it will be followed on Wednesday by a far more elaborate installment at City Hall before 5,000 people and a live television audience.
That bash will be attended by a who’s who of politicos, including Gov. Cuomo, former President Bill Clinton — who will administer the oath — and Clinton’s wife, Hillary.
De Blasio initially tried to keep the swearing-in closed to the media, saying he didn’t want his narrow street clogged by press vehicles.
But he relented after pressure from media outlets, agreeing to let one television reporter and a scribe from the Associated Press document the event, which also was livestreamed on the Internet.
De Blasio and his family traveled to City Hall on Tuesday to get the lay of the land ahead of the outdoor ceremony, and ran into Bloomberg
.
The two men greeted each other warmly, as municipal workers hurried around them, setting up chairs and conducting last-minute sound checks.
They chatted for several minutes, and in a sign that any bad feelings appeared to have been put behind them, they later tweeted kind words to each other.
“Best of luck to the de Blasio administration,” Bloomberg tweeted.
“May the best days for our city be ahead of us.”
De Blasio respectfully responded, “Thank you, Mr. Mayor.”
The de Blasios took time out of their busy day for
, stopping by the small office at City Hall where the couple met when both worked as aides to then-Mayor David Dinkins.
“Where it all began…” McCray tweeted, along with a picture of their kids checking out the space.
Bill Bratton was also sworn in as NYPD commissioner at police headquarters in Lower Manhattan moments after midnight.
“It feels great to be back,” Bratton, who also served as police chief under Rudy Giuliani, told the Daily News.
De Blasio’s inauguration will culminate what was a remarkable rise to power for the a politician who until recently was little known, and who did not hold elective office until he began serving on his local Brooklyn school board in the late 1990s.
De Blasio won a seat on the City Council in 2001 followed by his first citywide race in 2009 to become the public advocate.
IMAGES: SETH WENIG/AP/POOL; THEODORE PARISIENNE, SAM COSTANZA AND JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
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