1 hour ago
3
Snow much for socialism.
Mayor Mamdani’s snow shoveling crew rushed to clear off staff parking spots outside of Gracie Mansion on Wednesday morning — leaving the rest of the neighborhood in a snow-covered mess.
The two blocks between 87th and 89th streets on East End Avenue were spotless just minutes after the snow stopped falling, thanks to an army of workers with heavy equipment dedicated to the cause.
“The path up to Gracie Mansion gate was perfectly clear but everything else was a mess! Why not clear the rest? On 87th Street, the sidewalk was just a sheet of ice but then when you got up to where thewalkway is — it was just perfect,” a doorman, who worked across the street for four decades, told The Post, calling the parking situation “insane.”
“The sanitation guys are riding around, they’re not digging anything out in this neighborhood. Only here in front of the mayor is the only place I’ve seen people digging out anything,” the doorman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, continued.
“Since this mayor took over, they’ve been cleaning like crazy across the street! The stairs, the parking spots — they never clean them like this. They never did those parking spots, not like that. Just since he took over.”
The eight-man shoveling team equipped with front loaders started clearing the staff-reserved parking spots outside Gracie Mansion as early as 6 a.m. — just as the first snowflakes began falling from the sky, witnesses said.
The crew meticulously cleared the area through 11 a.m., but their reach did not go further than the 89th Street intersection sign.
An officer confirmed to The Post that the cleared spots were dedicated to reserved for City Hall staff.
The remainder of the area’s street parking remains under piles of snow, and dozens of cars claiming their spots had two feet of the fluff resting on their roofs.
“There is nowhere to park on the Upper East Side! Most of these cars haven’t been moved and won’t be moved. Most of these cars can’t be moved! Look at the ice that is locking most of these suckers in,” griped Jo Jo, a private chauffeur who had been double-parked outside Gracie Mansion since 5 a.m.
“There’s a lot of people who can’t dig out of this ice, a lot of people that don’t have an army of tractors and shipping containers to lower the ice and snow into the truck it out of here. This is crazy.”
City Hall did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Department of Sanitation has been slowly making its way throughout the five boroughs, but residents have criticized plows simply pushing snow out of the roadways into parking spaces — often encasing vehicles in packed snow and ice.
The demand for parking has become so intense that the parking “Mafia” has taken over the Upper East Side — with residents charging one another as much as $60 for the rights to a parking spot.
Alfredo Vasquez, 62, offered up the space his Toyota SUV was occupying for that price, telling The Post being so close to Gracie Mansion was a prime location because it came with guaranteed snow clearing.
“This is the cleanest Avenue in New York City! But this happens all the time. The last 30 years, it doesn’t matter which mayor, it’s always the same. This is the cleanest Avenue after the snow,” the handyman said.
Ellen V.’s neighbor said he was pressured into paying $45 for a high-demand parking spot by a man who was idling in his car — and had no intentions of leaving without first getting some cash.
Her own husband spent hours driving “in circles” looking for a place to park, only to be faced with piles of car-sized snow and ice.
“When he finally did get a spot after someone pulled out, he said, ‘We’re not moving the car again until the snow is gone!’ the mom of three said.
“I really wish they could take all the snow out of the parking spots on the sides of the streets away like they just did that. People aren’t digging out. It’s all ice.”
English (US)