EDITOR'S NOTE: This article corrects misinformation initially given out by the de Blasio administration. The original story can be found here. We removed the original package that ran on News 4 New York but it can be seen in its entirety above with a disclaimer that sets the record straight.
Ever since Mayor de Blasio's family moved into Gracie Mansion from their Park Slope row house 15 months ago, the Upper East Side people's house has been closed to the public as it underwent renovations and asbestos removal, but now it's ready to reopen for public tours.
The tours will resume only once a week beginning next month, but visitors will see an entirely new look inside. The mayor has made no secret he wants his administration and his policies to reflect the city's diversity and his concern for the working man; the same rule goes for the walls in his home.
But change isn't always so simple, as the telling of this redecoration shows.
In an exclusive first look at the redecoration that aired on News 4 New York on Oct. 13, city officials said a portrait of President George Washington, for example, would be replaced by a painting of Pierre Toussaint, the former slave turned philanthropist.
A day after the story about the Washington portrait ran, a de Blasio administration spokeswoman said there had been a misunderstanding and that the portraits of Washington and Toussaint would be hung together on the same wall.
The spokeswoman said “there was never any intention to move George Washington out of Gracie Mansion,” adding that while the original plan was to move the painting to a different space inside the mayor’s home, it became clear Wednesday that there was enough room to hang them side by side.
A week after that update, the de Blasio administration reached again out to NBC 4 New York: that portrait of George Washington that wasn't leaving Gracie Mansion wasn't a portrait of the Founding Father at all.
"In the run up to re-opening Gracie Mansion and installing the historic new artwork and objects, the curator hired by the Gracie Mansion Conservancy misidentified a painting of Archibald Gracie," said City Hall spokeswoman Erin White in a statement. "We invite all New Yorkers to come to the 'People's House' to see the painting of Archibald Gracie, as well the new collection of works that reflects the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural city that New York has always been."
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So Toussaint is staying. The portrait of Gracie, the Scottish-born merchant who lent his name to the mayor's residence, is staying in his former home. And the portrait of Washington was never there in the first place.
But more than 40 pieces of a new Gracie Mansion art, chosen in close consultation with the city's first family, will be unveiled.
"They, with us, looked at all the pieces," said Gabrielle Fialkoff, senior advisor to the mayor. "This is their home and this is what they're going to see every day."
The goal was to paint a more diverse picture of city life, especially in the late 18th century, when Gracie Mansion was built. At the time, one in five New Yorkers were slaves. So visitors will soon find a portrait of abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the mansion's Peach Room -- but no longer find a portrait of First Lady Susan Wagner. In the elegant Yellow Parlor where de Blasio sometimes entertains, visitors will see the Gradual Emancipation Act of 1799 calling for children of slaves to be freed in mid-adulthood.
"I think they're really going to get a rich experience of what the city was like several hundred years ago that they may not have know of," said Fialkoff.
Headed for a blue wall in the library is a collection called the Cries of New York portraying the age-old struggle to get by in New York City, a popular de Blasio theme. Even wealthy Archibald Gracie, who built the mansion, later lost it in hard financial times.
Upper East Side neighbor Larry Jacobs said he wants the mayor to put results on display, not just diversity. But he likes the idea of the new art, which is being loaned by various museums and cultural institutions.
"There's a lot more to this country than a bunch of old dead white guys," said Jacobs.
The art at Gracie hasn't been updated since Michael Bloomberg took office. He chose not to live there and there were more frequent tours.
De Blasio said moving to a Manhattan mansion was a difficult decision, though his family went from one bathroom to eight.
The cost of the changing decor is being covered by private dollars, the mayor's office said.
New York City resident can enter a ticket giveaway to tour the mansion at nyc.gov/GracieOpenHouse.
