New York’s mayor, and the latest presidential candidate, says he frequents the YMCA to stay connected to the people, but many say he’s out of touch

If you don’t know anything else about New York City’s mayor, Bill de Blasio, you probably know this: almost every day, he gets driven by SUV 11 miles from his mayoral mansion in Manhattan to his favorite Brooklyn gym.

The mayor’s quirky gym routine has drawn outsized attention since he launched his campaign for president, but at home, his fervent devotion to the Park Slope YMCA has persisted through years of mockery and questions about the wisdom of his habit.

“This is just part of my life,” he said in a recent appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe TV show. “I come from that neighborhood in Brooklyn. That’s my home, I go there on a regular basis to stay connected to where I come from and not be in the bubble that I think for a lot of politicians is a huge problem.”

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The gym routine goes like this: De Blasio, who lives in the mayor’s official residence at Gracie Mansion in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, is driven by his police detail to the YMCA in Park Slope, the Brooklyn neighborhood where he lived before becoming mayor.

The workout he undertakes there is not particularly strenuous. Often, he follows it with a visit to his favorite pastry shop, Colson Patisserie.

It’s been a political liability from the start.

There was the time he opted to stay at the gym as a standoff raged with a suspect who had shot a firefighter. And the time he had to defend his fashion choices after being spotted in the gym in cargo shorts.

After fliers appeared at the gym urging him not to run for president, De Blasio was even forced to admit he does not always wipe down his exercise machines. “I can’t say every single time,” he said.

New Yorkers with an axe to grind have gotten wise to his workout routine, and members of the police union often show up outside to protest. A homeless activist confronted De Blasio mid-workout and pressed him to set aside more apartments in his affordable housing plan for the homeless, an exchange that was caught on video.

De Blasio wasn’t having it, despite his claims he goes to Park Slope to stay connected with regular people. “I’m in the middle of doing my workout. I’m sorry. I can’t do this now,” he said.

The mayor’s fervent commitment to his gym is often the butt of jokes, with many a wag wondering if he’ll make the drive from Washington every day if he gets elected president.

Critics see the daily car trips as a sign the mayor is out of touch, opting to get driven around instead of taking the delay-plagued subway like most of his constituents. And they see more than a hint of hypocrisy, as De Blasio rages against Donald Trump over the climate crisis and vows to drive down emissions.

“He misses, he ignores, he doesn’t see or feel what 99% of New Yorkers have to go through to travel,” said Charles Komanoff, the head of the Carbon Tax Center, who once tangled with the mayor over his YMCA habit during a radio call-in session on WNYC.

“He almost makes a laughing stock out of green aspiration or climate aspiration by saying we have to do things and we have to change and we have to sacrifice in order to combat climate change, and at the same time he’s not willing to change the most visible thing that he does every day,” Komanoff said. “He’s so oblivious that he doesn’t even see how out of touch and out of sync he is.”