In a move heavy with political overtones, Mayor Bloomberg has made a personal plea to property owners along upper Fifth Avenue not to board up their buildings for Sunday’s Puerto Rican Day Parade – suggesting it insults an entire ethnic group.
“I have written or called every single building along Fifth Avenue,” Bloomberg said last night at a pre- parade gathering of about 500 people at Gracie Mansion. “I have told them to do what they do for every other single parade – nothing.”
But some owners are already ignoring the unusual request days before the parade, which has resulted in violence and property damage in the past.
“He’s entitled to have his opinion,” said a building employee at 1035 Fifth Ave. off 84th Street, where 6-foot-high metal fences have been erected in anticipation of the huge crowds drawn by the popular parade. “This is private property, and people are entitled to protect their property.”
At 820 Fifth Ave., four-foot high green panels seal off the property.
“[The residents] spend an awful lot of money to care for their shrubs,” said a doorman. “It’s nothing personal against the Puerto Rican people.”
The parade, which runs up Fifth from 44th to 86th streets, attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators.
In 2000, in the most notorious occurrence in the parade’s history, hordes of young men rampaged through Central Park groping women.
Officials concede that the city has no legal right to prevent property owners from shielding their buildings, but characterize the mayor’s request as a moral argument.
In a May 4 letter to co-op board presidents, Bloomberg promised to double up on police barricades to protect greenery along the storied thoroughfare.
In return, he asked that the wooden boards around the gardens – a staple of the parade in recent years – be abandoned.
“It would mean so much to the city if each of you set an example by refraining from this practice, which is viewed by many New Yorkers as intolerant,” the mayor wrote.
Aides denied that the mayor’s message was intended to curry favor with Hispanics, a key voting bloc. They pointed out that Bloomberg denounced the boarded-up facades at last year’s parade as a “disgrace.”
At the Grace Mansion gathering, parade chairman Ralph Morales lauded Bloomberg’s efforts. “He has gone above and beyond the call of duty,” Morales told the crowd.
Additional reporting by Braden Keil and Carl Campanile