Another Lame Excuse

Mayor de Blasio’s latest laughable excuse for his morning SUV treks to a Park Slope gym is that they’re not so much about the workout as about remaining a man of the people. Traveling the 12 miles to Brooklyn instead of frequenting a gym near Gracie Mansion helps him “stay connected to the neighborhood I come from,” de Blasio said Friday on Brian Lehrer’s radio show. Plus, “I don’t want to be someone who is seeing the world through the prism of Gracie Mansion.” Puh- For starters, while we don’t normally think it’s worth noting, he was born in Manhattan (as Warren Wilhelm) and grew up not on the sidewalks of New York but the leafy streets of Cambridge, Mass.

That’s why he’s a Red Sox fan — though it doesn’t explain why he refuses to set foot in Yankee Stadium. (He even kept up the boycott during his recent “week in The Bronx.”)

Yes, he long lived in Park Slope, and likely will again when he leaves Gracie Mansion. But that’s hardly the neighborhood to go to connect to working-class, salt-of-the-earth New York, as his comment implies. These days, it’s as limousine-lefty as the Upper West Side. (Or Cambridge, for that matter.)

Is it that big a deal to “stay connected” to people who agree with you?

You can tell when de Blasio knows he looks bad by the way he insists it’s a non-issue. On a media panel Friday, he said he thinks “it’s kind of strange to obsess over a gym routine or who’s marching in a parade.”

We deal below with why so many care about Oscar López Rivera marching in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. But here’s why the gym issue matters: It’s sheer hypocrisy to indulge in the gas-guzzling trips when you say people “need to change our habits to start protecting the earth.”

The East Side has gobs of gyms he could join to reduce his carbon footprint. Heck, he could sign up with a chain and work out in all manner of ’hoods to “connect” with New Yorkers from all walks of life.

Another way to do that, Mr. Mayor: Swallow your pride and take in a Yankee game.