Former Mayor Bill de Blaso’s newest home is inside a chic Brooklyn hotel.
The New York Post is reporting that de Blasio and his wife Chirlain McCray have been living for the last four months inside the New York Marriott Hotel at Brooklyn Bridge, the swank Downtown Brooklyn inn owned by the Queens-based real estate giant Muss Development, whose owners have been supporters of de Blasio for years.
The former first couple is living at the 667-room hotel — decked out with an indoor pool, two restaurants, and a fitness center with Pelotons — while they renovate their Park Slope home.
Suites at the hotel, located near the base of the Brooklyn Bridge between Adams and Jay streets, can go for $600 to $5,000 a night, but de Blasio and McCray are believed to be staying in a more modest suite with a living room and bedroom that had a going rate of $600 for a recent Saturday night.
The New York Marriott at Brooklyn Bridge
Critics of de Blasio’s stay at the hotel attacked the move as two-faced, claiming it goes against the “Tale of Two Cities” story de Blasio preached to get elected, and wondered if there was any funny business going on over payment for the services.
“He’s a hypocrite living like a 1-percenter, and it raises plenty of red flags,” Queens Councilman Robert Holden told the publication. “Who’s paying for this? Like most people, when I renovated my house, I did it piecemeal and lived in one room at a time.”
It was unclear if the power couple were getting the room for free or at a discounted rate, according to the report.
Muss Development has a long history of doing business with the city, dating back to well before de Blasio took office. But since he became mayor in 2014, the company brokered deals that brought some Police Department staffers to a Muss-owned Forest Hill Tower in Queens and another bringing Taxi and Limousine workers to a Muss building on Staten Island.
De Blasio is a close ally of the 40,000-member New York Hotel Trades Council, which was the only labor organization to endorse his failed presidential bid in 2020. He has at times upset hotel owners, notably by signing legislation forcing them to pay up to $15,000 severance to laid-off workers.
[New York Post] — Vince DiMiceli