Mayor Mamdani’s New York has become the city that never sweeps.
Eight-foot-high piles of rat-infested trash are choking the streets around Gracie Mansion — while Hizzoner’s new home has gotten the white-glove shoveling treatment.
Mamdani has meanwhile crowed that he can’t “imagine how it could get better’’ in the city, even as more and more New Yorkers are blasting the lack of “collectivism” in the Big Apple.
The mayor’s Upper East Side neighbors are being forced to trudge through garbage-plagued streets, roaming rodents and mounds of snow tainted with dog pee a full week after Winter Storm Fern.
An Upper East Side resident tries to get by on the sidewalk next to a towering pile of trash — with Gracie Mansion a stone’s throw away.
Blocks away, the sidewalks outside the lefty mayor’s digs on East 88th Street are squeaky clean.
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw yesterday — a whole army of sanitation workers plowing and shoveling every bit of snow off of that side of the street,” local Nick Rivers griped to The Post on Sunday as he walked his black Lab along a littered sidewalk near the mayor’s residence.
“Clean as a whistle for the mayor,” Rivers said. “Look at this side.”
“This side” is marred by massive piles of garbage as high as 6 feet that have been building for days and attracting rats — even as Mamdani late last week patted himself on the back, claiming he’s keeping things on track.
Fourteen New Yorkers have died in the bitter cold since arctic weather blew into the city.
Other streets in his neighborhood are home to even higher piles of debris — some as tall as 8 feet.
“I’m new to the job,” the mayor said Friday. “I know the burdens will get heavier, but right now I struggle to imagine how it could be better.”
Rats have visibly chewed through local garbage. LP Media for NY Post
He should cross the street and ask his neighbors.
“Don’t get me started. I think his wife must have complained about the pee in the snow,” West 88th Street resident Attel said. “I don’t even look when I come out of the building.
“It’s gross!” he said. “The rats are inside the recycling bags.”
Another local added, “My street is lined with bags, many of them opened with crap all over the street.
“My daughter had to dodge a used sanitary pad.”
The pristine conditions at Gracie Mansion stand in stark contrast to the rest of the neighborhood and some other parts of the Big Apple, where unplowed streets and rat-infested piles of debris are now part of the cityscape.
“Ah, New York City,” a fed-up resident posted on X along with a photo of a stomach-turning mountain of trash bags on one city sidewalk.
“The warm smell of uncollectedi-vism.”
The quip, was of course, was jab at Mamdani’s inauguration speech, when he urged New Yorkers to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.”
TV’s “Will & Grace” star Debra Messing, a Brooklyn native and current city resident, griped in a tweet Saturday about how all the snow as snarled traffic.
“Sitting in a taxi trying to get to an appointment. Should take 20 minutes, we are at an hour and ten minutes and counting,” she wrote.
“The streets are a disaster. It hasn’t snowed in 5 days and the streets still haven’t been cleared,” the actress said. “Poor ambulance sitting in essentially a parking lot with sirens going. I’m praying for the person needing emergency care.
“I’ve lived here for 15 years (this go around) and this has never happened,” Messing wrote. “The plows have always worked around the clock to get the city back to working.
“I wonder what happened? Hang in there New Yorkers.”
Podcaster Stephen L. Miller commented on Messing’s tweet, writing, “The collective is warming up.”
The botched cleanup — and the deaths of more than a dozen homeless New Yorkers during the Arctic freeze hitting the five boroughs — have been the two largest tests for Mamdani’s administration since he took office last month.
In a statement Sunday, a rep for the city Sanitation Department noted that property owners are responsible for keeping the sidewalks at least clear of snow and ice, not the city — although trash is the local government’s responsibility.
About 2,500 sanitation workers are putting in 12-hour shifts to shovel bus stops, crosswalks and fire hydrants, which has put garbage pickups a day behind schedule, the representative said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani had pledged to keep city streets clean — but that only apparently applies to those around his home, locals gripe. LP Media for NY Post
“We are prioritizing trash and composting — stuff gets gross — over recyclables,” the statement said. “But we are picking up all streams, all across the city, just on slight delay.
“Most New Yorkers will recall that this is standard practice during and after winter weather events.”
A spokesperson for the city parks department said their workers are also focusing on bus s tops, crosswalks, wheelchair ramps and fire hydrants, which are considered priorities.
“Once that has been addressed we will be able to resume our standard maintenance schedule.”
That did little to appease folks forced to live with the mess.
“It’s the most vile thing,” said native New Yorker Josh Tepper, who has a bird’s-eye view of Gracie Mansion from his apartment.
“I think it’s the worst in New York history.
“His one strip is nice, but where all the ‘civilians’ live, it’s a complete disaster,” Tepper said of Mamdani. “The socialist king gets to have a clean driveway. It just makes me enraged.”
Others agreed.
“It’s very dirty,” said Upper East Sider Frederick Radie. “Actually, we have people visiting, and it’s a little embarrassing.”
Resident Chris Kendal called the situation “very concerning.
“They usually pick the recycle up on a Monday … so it’s almost been a week,” Kendal said over the weekend.
“I don’t know why they can’t pick it up. I mean, buses are still running, and the city is still operating. So I’m not sure why they’re not able to reduce some of the garbage on the streets.”
In The Bronx, trash was piled up along the Grand Concourse, a block from where Mamdani held an event Saturday.
“Every time it snows, it gets worse,” a neighbor said. “Right now, the people in the neighborhood they cleaned up as much as we could, but the city hasn’t really being doing much.
“Like down the block by the courthouse, they clean that up,” he said. “The garbage attracts more rats, and it makes the neighborhood look bad.”