Cuomo’s Anti-Midas Touch

Leave it to Gov. Cuomo to take a nice idea and turn it into a mess. Last week, Cuomo announced plans for a “Circle of Heroes” statue in Battery Park City’s Rockefeller Park to honor essential workers’ valor during the pandemic.

But he left the blindsided locals furious. “This memorial requires bulldozing a local community park with natural grass and trees where many friends and family members gathered safely outdoors during the pandemic,” area resident Adrian Mak said, noting the total lack of “public hearings, public meetings or community input.”

Cuomo’s given some ground, agreeing to move the memorial from the park’s center to a corner, and his office argues the monument will only use 2 percent of the park.

But it still reeks of the arbitrariness New Yorkers learned to resent as the gov wielded near-total power for the last 15 months. What’s the rush to have it up by Labor Day? Did he not even consult the neighborhood just because he didn’t legally have to?

The plan also features Cuomo’s characteristic weirdness, reminiscent of the bizarre self-praising poster he commissioned at public expense last year: Surrounding the monument’s “eternal flame” will be 19 red maple trees symbolizing the 19 types of essential workers who kept the city alive. Nineteen by the gov’s personal count, that is.

Even when he’s claiming to honor others, this governor makes everything about him. Nearly 12 years in power have left him unrivaled in his arrogance.