Mayor Bill de Blasio is under fire from Black Lives Matter activists for not cleaning up the defaced Black Lives Matter logo in front of Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan.
The NY Post reports New Yorkers are blaming the “pathetic” mayor for ignoring the paint-splattered mural on Fifth Avenue a week after a vandal was arrested.
Mark-David Hutt, 31, was arrested twice for pouring paint on the large yellow logo just after 5 p.m. on July 25, and again the next morning before 10 a.m.
Hutt was issued desk appearance tickets on both days. But the paint remains dried on the logo after one week.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa told The NY Post the mayor and City Hall don’t seem to care about the logo now that the cameras are gone.
“It’s been a full week and I asked the cops why the DOT hasn’t repaired the BLM paint job,” Sliwa told The Post. “They said City Hall doesn’t seem to care any longer about this BLM logo. The mayor seems to have ADD on this matter, like he does most matters in NYC.”
A police source told The Post that the BLM logo is no longer “the flavor of the month”.
“That’s what makes him a horrible mayor. Black Lives Matter isn’t the flavor of the month anymore. Very short attention span, we know that already. It’s just a waste of taxpayer dollars in the first place. You got between five and 15 cops sitting out there on overtime watching that stupid s–t and shootings are piling up. They’re there to protect the mural, and obviously they’re not doing a good job of that.”
Matthew Martin, 30, called it “pretty disappointing” that the city hasn’t cleaned up the logo, “considering this is probably the most notable Black Lives Matter mural in the country.”
Martin said, “Leaving it like this for a week is pretty pathetic, honestly, and is a pretty good indicator of the kind of leader the mayor is.”
A spokesman for de Blasio’s office told The Post “inclement weather” on Friday was to blame for the delay in removing the paint and said the city Department of Transportation should be removing it on Monday.
The spokesman said the city’s DOT “were doing some similar work out in Queens on Thursday.”
Mayor de Blasio helped paint the movement’s slogan on Fifth Avenue and on Jamaica Avenue near 150th Street in the Queens borough of NYC.
Both logos were vandalized by anti-BLM protesters.
