NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, ending weeks of speculation, said Wednesday that he and his family would be leaving their home in Brooklyn and moving into Gracie Mansion in Manhattan.
The de Blasios would be the first family to live in Gracie Mansion since Rudolph Giuliani was mayor. Michael R. Bloomberg opted to live instead in his opulent East 79th Street townhouse.
For weeks, de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, had agonized over whether they would leave their row house, in part because of their Park Slope neighborhood, and in part because of concerns over the lengthier commute that their teenage son, Dante, would have to school. And even though the mayor-elect said the family would make a decision around Thanksgiving, when their daughter, Chiara, a college student, would be home for the holiday, he kept delaying a decision.
But in an announcement on his website, the family cited “logistical and security concerns” as a major reason for the move.
“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,” the family wrote. “It is an honor we accept with thanks.”
But they said they would keep their Brooklyn house, would stop by favorite places as often as possible, and added: “Don’t bet against seeing us at the Park Slope YMCA occasionally.”
With the move to an opulent home in a wealthy corner of the Upper East Side, de Blasio will be relinquishing a major symbol of his political brand: his status as Brooklyn-based outsider who challenged the city’s Manhattan-centric approach to services.