Mayor de Blasio shovelled his own Brooklyn sidewalk Friday morning — and gave an update on the city’s wrestling match with Hercules, saying the Sanitation Department’s been “on the ball” with the storm cleanup effort and closing schools was the right call.
Our Joseph Stepansky and I report, with video and photos by Joe Marino and Lindsay Meeks:
“I’ve been doing it for many years. It’s time to keep up the tradition,” said de Blasio, who bundled up in a jacket, jeans, scarf and boots for his labors. “New Yorkers all over the city are dealing with the same snow I am, so I wanted to be here like I always did.”
De Blasio — who stands 6’5″ — advised that safe shovellers “get low” when moving snow and lift with “your knees, not your back.” He also cut his four-legged constituents a break by sprinkling the walk with “animal-safe ice melter” instead of salt.
Heavier than wet snow on Hizzoner’s mind: The city’s lackluster response to the Christmas blizzard of 2010, which left roads impassable — and then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s whereabouts unknown.
“Here on 11th Street, years ago when we had
, you couldn’t get by the street for three days. Some of the surrounding neighborhoods it was even worse — and that just can’t happen in the biggest city in the country,” said de Blasio, who still lives in Park Slope but will soon move his family to Gracie Mansion on the upper East Side of Manhattan.
Riffing on the justice-for-all tone of his campaign, de Blasio suggested streets would be cleared evenly, with no one area getting special privileges.
“I’m just not going to allow certain neighborhoods to suffer while other neighborhoods are clear,” he vowed. “We’re going to move the resources we have to where they’re needed to make sure the people get served.”
De Blasio also had high praise for Sanitation Department chief John Doherty, who’s still on duty from the Bloomberg Administration.
“I definitely think this is a case here where we saw the storm coming and we tried to get ahead of it right away,” the mayor said.
“[Doherty] was ready, his team was ready. They were really on the ball. They had their equipment ready. Salting started real early, which was fantastic.”
De Blasio also said the need to clear the roads — and encourage people to stay out of the bone-chilling cold — factored into the decision to call a snow day for city schools.
“We had a conference call at four in the morning on the school closure decision and I think there was a lot of unanimity that given the extroardinary cold temperatures, the coldest we’ve had this year — ya know, the ice, the wind, everything — we thought it was best to keep our kids home and keep them safe. I think the agencies are all responding very well to the situation,” he said.
“We knew the transportation dynamics, with the school buses and mass transit moving really slow, which means a lot of kids would be waiting potentially out in the elements — we just didn’t want to see that happen.”
One public school student, at least, had some snow shovelling in his future:
, who splits the work with his pop.
“Dante gets the front walk to the door and he gets everything that comes back after I finish,” de Blasio said. “Dante’s been told that there are consequences to a snow day. It’s not all milk and honey on a snow day.”
De Blasio’s message to New Yorkers for the rest of the day — which he started by grabbing his newspapers, including the Daily News:
“If you don’t need to [be] on the streets, get off the streets. We really are succeeding so far because of the extraordinary work of the Sanitation Department and all the other city agencies that are supporting them, but they need us to stay out of their way. So I think it’s a message very much like last night: If you don’t need to travel, please don’t travel; if you don’t need to use a car, don’t use a car. If you can use mass transit instead, use mass transit.
“It’s really about keeping people off the streets the maximum extent possible. The streets are gonna be slick, there’s gonna be there’s gonna be snow swirling around, there’s gonna be visibility issues. We want people to stay home if they can, but whatever other choices they make, try to avoid being on the streets and in the car.”
CHECK OUT OUR DAILY NEWS PHOTO GALLERY: U.S. BATTLES HERCULES
The mayor is scheduled to give an update on Hercules operations
.
Update:
Dante did end up with that shovel after his father got done.
The high school student is usually charged by his parents with helping clear snow after storms — but this time, the campaign-season star had a phalanx of reporters and photographers watching him work.
Was his strangest-ever shovelling experience? “Well, the blizzard was worse, but yes, definitely.”
Dante said he doubted the “little” lobbying of his father he did had any influence on the decision to close schools for the day — though
to put in a good word: “They were all just telling me to convince my dad — like I had the power to,” he said, laughing.
Dante — who figures his father will “find a way” to keep him leaning on that shovel even after the family moves to Gracie Mansion — finished up, went back to the house and rang the bell, summoning mom
, who handed him ice melter to sprinkle on the walkway.
The young man got good reviews for his work as his father emerged from the house to hop into a black Mercedes SUV and head to Queens to meet sanitation workers and update the public on the storm’s aftermath.
“Dante’s a pretty good shoveler. He has the physical strength,” de Blasio said. “He doesn’t quite have my technique, but, ya know, he’s pretty good.”
Update:
In Queens, de Blasio ended up giving Dante “an A for effort” — but “a D for punctuality.”
And yes, of course, the mayor said, his son did lean on him for a snow day…
“You know what George Washington said, that famous thing about how he ‘cannot tell a lie’? So I cannot tell a lie. If Dante was not lobbying me, there’d be something wrong with him. Of course! He’s 16!” de Blasio said.
“But unfortunately, the decision takes many more factors into account than Dante’s opinions,” the mayor continued. “The fact is this was a very tough decision.”
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