Governor Andrew Cuomo told Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday to remove graffiti from anti-police messages such as “Kill All Police” and “Fk Police” from municipal buildings, calling it “another sign of decomposition” in the Big Apple.
“I say to the mayor: cleaning the city is important. Now you have a lot of negativity in the air. Positive progress, go ahead! Cuomo urged Hizzoner during a press conference in Manhattan on Thursday.
“You have to clean it up, it’s graffiti! Graffiti is not COVID, it is not. It’s spray paint on a building, ”Cuomo said, noting the relative ease of dealing with the problem, which De Blasio had neglected for weeks.
City workers began Wednesday to clean up some of the graffiti that erupted when protesters began occupying a park near City Hall last month after police dismantled the Occupy City Hall camp in a pre-dawn raid.
But a de Blasio administration official told The Post that a special contractor will take “a few weeks” to remove all the marks due to “the unique nature of the damage” in the marked buildings. Superstructures Engineers + Architects will perform the work at a cost of $ 150,000 for city taxpayers.
“Get the graffiti out of the building, detergent, washing machine, brush,” Cuomo said.
“It’s another sign of decomposition and what we’re trying to do is tell people, ‘New York is back.’
“People need to see that progress. They certainly don’t need to see the deterioration, and graffiti is something we can handle, “said the governor.
“You enforce the law. It is illegal to do graffiti, “added Cuomo.
Police have made no arrests for the numerous ugly doodles at three iconic properties near City Hall: the Tweed Courthouse and the Court of Substitutes on Chambers Street and the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building on Center Street.
Meanwhile, last week, police quickly arrested four people for throwing blue paint over the yellow letters on the “Black Lives Matter” mural on Fifth Avenue outside the Trump Tower.
A city council spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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