Bill De Blasio: 'Everyday People' Not Concerned With Park Slope Gym Trips

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Mayor Bill de Blasio says he doesn't hear from "everyday people" about his much-criticized trips to the Park Slope YMCA to work out in the mornings.

De Blasio was asked, yet again, about those gym trips in an interview with New York Magazine that made the cover of the publication (and included this amazing cover shot).

Talking about the media with reporter Chris Smith, Smith asked if de Blasio thought the focus on his gym routine contributed to a notion that the mayor is "self absorbed."

"There are some in the media who peddle that notion," de Blasio said. "Everyday people do not raise that concern to me, ever."

De Blasio then said people should instead focus on his accomplishments, no his workout habits.

"The thing that I am surprised by is the absence of a reckoning in terms of the results," the mayor continued. "The question with any administration is, what have you produced? Michael Bloomberg famously went to Bermuda on many weekends. I could not conceive of such a thing. But the question people asked themselves was not did he go to Bermuda, but did he get things done they wanted done? Anyone with a brain knows being mayor of New York City is a 24/7 job. The issues facing us are never out of my mind, ever. If the worst you can say about someone is he goes to the gym, that’s a pretty good situation in today’s world."

On most days, the mayor's motorcade takes him about 12 miles each way from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side to the YMCA on Ninth Street, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, in de Blasio's home neighborhood.

Criticism of this routine came to a head earlier this summer after President Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord and the city's subway system was suffering a high-profile breakdown seemingly every day.

De Blasio spoke of the need for New Yorkers to pull their own weight in reducing green house gas emissions and was blasted by a caller on his radio show who said the mayor should do the same and take mass transit like most in the city do.

De Blasio said his busy schedule wouldn't allow him to take a different route to the gym.

"There’s reasons why, because of what I have to do with my time, every single hour of every day, this is the right thing to do," de Blasio said at the time. "I wish my life was exactly like everyone else’s. It’s not for obvious reasons. But again, the issue is not cheap symbolism here. The issue is, are we going to take action, are we actually going to change the way things are done."

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)