De Blasio finally cleans up anti-cop graffiti from Dinkins building after prodding

Mayor Bill de Blasio finally took action Wednesday to clean the anti-cop graffiti from the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building in Lower Manhattan and to clear out the remaining Occupy City Hall protesters from a nearby park — after he was hounded by The Post and other members of the press.

“That graffiti on those public buildings is being cleaned up right now as we speak,” de Blasio said during his daily morning City Hall press briefing, even though a day earlier he could not even provide a timeline for when the vandalism would be scrubbed when asked by The Post.

The scrawlings, including some that read “F–k cops” and “ACAB” (for “All cops are bastards”), popped up on municipal property, including the historic Tweed Court House and Surrogate’s Court on Chambers Street, when protesters began occupying City Hall Park last month to demand $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s budget.

A specialized contractor, Superstructures Engineers + Associates, was hired to complete the cleanup on the three landmarked buildings at a cost of $150,000 to city taxpayers.

De Blasio appeared in no rush over the past few weeks to clean off the graffiti from the Dinkins building — named after the city’s first and only black mayor — but he was quick to restore the Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower after it was defaced twice last week.

Early Wednesday, a line of NYPD officers in riot gear also dismantled the month-old encampment at City Hall Park — a move de Blasio said he and NYPD brass called for at 10 p.m. Tuesday even though he told reporters during a briefing hours earlier that there were no plans to end the occupation.

“It’s something I’ve been evaluating over the last few weeks,” de Blasio claimed Wednesday in reference to ending the encampment.

“What we saw change over the last few weeks was the gathering there got smaller and smaller, was less and less about protests and more and more became an area where homeless folks were gathering,” the mayor said, echoing almost verbatim what a reporter posited in a question to him 24 hours earlier.

But de Blasio made no mention of that Tuesday in answering that question, saying, “There is a balance we always strike between the right to protest and especially public safety and I’ve always put public safety first while respecting constitutional rights.”

By Wednesday, the mayor’s tune had significantly changed. “The health and safety issues were growing,” he said. “It was time to take action. That was a decision we made yesterday.”

A Post reporter was attacked by an Occupy City Hall protester wielding a piece of wood more than a week ago.

NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, who was present for de Blasio’s briefing, said 40 to 50 people were at City Hall Park when the cops dismantled the encampment around 3 a.m.

“A lot of planning went into it,” Shea said. “We did recover a number of bricks, sticks, brooms, some drug paraphernalia in some of the tents that were left.”

The city’s top cop also said he “couldn’t be happier” with the outcome since there were no injuries and “no real use of force.”

However, he said, “There was some tugging and back and forth … there were people trying to punch officers.”

“Ultimately, I think I would categorize it as one for the win column and another step toward getting back to normalcy here in New York City,” Shea added.

Police made one arrest and handed out six summonses as they cleared out the park space, the commissioner said.

GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa said he thinks de Blasio was shamed into cleaning up the Occupy City Hall encampment after The Post pressed him about the lack of action to clean up the graffiti vandalism at the nearby municipal building named for Dinkins.

“This is an absolute disgrace. It was so embarrassing hearing his fecklessness,” Sliwa said. “How could you allow them to desecrate a building named after your mentor?”

“It reminded me of the way it was when David Dinkins was mayor,” Sliwa said.