Mayor De Blasio Getting New Roof At Gracie Mansion After Leak Issues
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is getting a new roof over his head, city officials said Thursday, but he's not moving.
Gracie Mansion is getting a new roof due to a problem with leaks.
The current roof at the city's official mayoral residence is more than 30 years old.
It is frequently overmatched during rain storms. There have been multiple leaks since Thanksgiving, requiring a city work crew to be dispatched to patch the problem, officials said.
"Replacing the roof has been in serious discussion since early 2010 because of the large number of leaks that occurred following rainstorms,'' said mayoral spokeswoman Monica Klein. "Like other city-owned sites in our parks, capital funds are allocated for construction work.''
Bids for the project are due Friday.
Work is scheduled to begin in March and last several months.
The city's first family will stay in the mansion during construction.
De Blasio's predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, allocated $3 million to the Parks Department capital budget in 2012 to replace the roof. Bloomberg never lived in the mansion during his 12 years in office -- he remained at his opulent Upper East Side townhome -- but oversaw extensive renovations to the home, which he used for meetings and ceremonial events.
After strongly considering remaining in his Park Slope, Brooklyn home, de Blasio, his wife and their two children moved into Gracie Mansion last July. The home is managed by the nonprofit Gracie Mansion Conservancy and at the time of its construction in 1799, sat in the countryside more than five miles north of fledgling New York City.
It changed hands several times until it was seized by the city in 1896 after the owner failed to pay taxes. It became the official mayoral residence in 1942.
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