He comes out of the shadows.
Former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio made a rare comment Friday about the tragic day he knocked Staten Island’s beloved groundhog off his head.
“A 7 a.m. event featuring live, excited animals is not going to end well,” he says. told Semaphore journalist Kadia Goba. It’s been exactly 10 years since Groundhog’s Day, when The Post witnessed him lose his grip and drop the rodent, ultimately leading to its untimely death.
He previously stated that his athletic ability “wasn’t the best” when he arrived at the Staten Island Zoo to celebrate Groundhog Day on February 2, 2014, and zoo officials told him I handed him the chuck.
“When I put these gloves on, they were like, ‘This is a groundhog,’ and I was like, ‘What the heck?'” de Blasio said. He first mentioned the scandal in an interview with New York Magazine.I last year.
“I say, ‘Can you give me a little more coaching on this?'” That was stupid. Why would you want an elected official to have a groundhog? ” he scoffed, adding that he “100% regrets” holding the animal after it squirmed out of the 6-foot-5 mayor’s grasp and fell to the ground.
A few months later, in September, the Post broke the news that Chuck on Staten Island had died, but the zoo tried to cover it up.
The scandal then deepened when the Post revealed that Staten Island Chuck was actually a stand-in for a woman named Charlotte.
The real Chuck was secretly replaced after he famously bit off then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s leather-gloved hand during a 2009 Groundhog Day event, officials said.
The Staten Island Zoo kept the sting operation secret to protect the sanctity of the “groundhog brand,” officials said.
Hizzoner himself swore he didn’t know.
“I realized it, just like you realized it. I had no idea before,” de Blasio claimed at the time.
In response to the scandal, the Staten Island Zoo announced in January 2015 that it had revised its Groundhog Day policy to no longer allow anyone, mayor or not, to handle the animals.
The next month, de Blasio Watch Groundhog Day from behind plexiglass.
Hitzoner missed the zoo’s Groundhog Day event in 2016 because he was campaigning in Iowa for Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. Reported by the Staten Island Law Advocacy Bureau..
No mayor has attended the annual event since then.
Fortunately, Friday’s celebration ended safely before Chuck lost sight of the children chanting “Early Spring, Early Spring.” This means that early spring is approaching.
