#De Blasio goes for aimless strolls as city struggles to get by

The coronavirus is still gripping the city, a fiscal meltdown looms and New York has been rocked this year by civil unrest, but instead of stepping up, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been stepping out.

Hizzoner has taken to regularly walking off the job — literally — in the middle of his workday for meandering, sometimes hour-plus jaunts, generally in his old Brooklyn neighborhood, while the city remains in crisis, The Post has learned.

The mayor’s latest regimen of distractions — which comes after he temporarily swore off his well-documented Park Slope YMCA workouts when COVID-19 shut down all gyms — also includes morning constitutionals running into the start of his daily press briefings, according to city sources familiar with his routine.

“This is the height of arrogance,” said one insider, who noted that the aimless walks have been commonplace for months. “While the city is falling apart, he is … walking in the park with his head in the clouds.

“I wonder if he ever heard of Nero,” the source added, referring to the Roman emperor said to have fiddled while his city burned.

On Monday, The Post took in what the sources said is a typical day in de Blasio’s new normal.

Shortly after 9:45 a.m., the mayor was spotted — dressed for the day in a white button-down, blue slacks, a baseball cap and a blue medical mask — arriving at the South Street Seaport, where sources said he regularly shows up for walks before his consistently late press briefings.

Under the watchful eye of a security detail, he took a lap around Pier 17, earphones shutting out the world around him as he strolled.

De Blasio circled onto Fulton Street and took a phone call, as an onlooker who recognized his lanky, 6-foot-5 frame was overheard saying to a pal, “That was the mayor. He’s got nothing better to do?”

De Blasio continued by foot to City Hall, strolling through the front door at 10:14 a.m. — 14 minutes after his daily press briefing was scheduled to begin.

The presser didn’t ultimately begin until 10:37 a.m., a delay increasingly common of late for the already deadline-challenged mayor.

After putting in a few hours at City Hall, the restless mayor traveled, again by motorcade, to Park Slope, arriving in his old neighborhood around 2:10 p.m.

He grabbed a croissant at a local coffee shop and nibbled on it as he walked to Prospect Park, heading into the green space at 2:37 p.m.

De Blasio spent the next hour and six minutes strolling through the park, again with earphones in, occasionally glancing down at a sheaf of papers in his hands as he walked.

He did not converse with his security detail, nor was he stopped by fellow park-goers, though he did take some steps to keep to himself — at one point opting to veer onto a side path rife with manure from horses stabled nearby rather than take the more peopled main route.

The mayor finally left the park at 3:43 p.m., returning to his detail of cars.

On Tuesday, he apparently skipped his morning constitutional near Pier 17. The mayor’s security detail was on site and confronted a Post reporter there, after which the mayor did not show up. However an area security guard, and Post sources, vouched that he’s become a regular.

“He doesn’t really stop to talk to people, and people know better than to go up to him because he has his security people all around him,” said the guard, who declined to give a name.

“He seems to like the quiet of the area, a good place to meditate before work.”

In the afternoon, however, de Blasio returned to Park Slope, and was spotted heading into Prospect Park at 2:48 p.m., flanked by a three-person security detail plus a staffer.

Hizzoner gave the slip to a Post reporter at 3:35 p.m., at a point in the park approximately 20 minutes away from where he came in.

He again appeared to skip the morning walk on Wednesday, but — following an afternoon meeting with Hasidic Jewish leaders in Brooklyn, according to a New York 1 reporter — returned to Prospect Park.

After sitting down for another pastry outside Muse coffee shop, de Blasio headed into the park to work off the calories.

Again leafing through papers as he walked, de Blasio sank another 58 minutes into pounding the pavement miles away from City Hall, headphones in and not stopping to talk with anyone.

De Blasio — who famously loves his workouts, perhaps a little too much — hardly lets the weekend slow him down, according to sources familiar with his routine.

On Saturdays, he is frequently joined by First Lady Chirlane McCray for the Brooklyn walks, and on Sundays the mayor is known to often join staffers in a game of softball, also in the borough, sources said.

A City Hall spokesman laughed off the jaunts, insisting that de Blasio continues to work via phone, while noting that avoiding in-person meetings is good practice during the pandemic.

“Oh the humanity, the Mayor is taking conference calls while walking in New York City!” said press secretary Bill Neidhardt in faux outrage. “Truly an outrage in a time when in-person meetings must be kept to a minimum.”

But a second source familiar with de Blasio’s daily routines wasn’t satisfied with the explanation.

“He just doesn’t care,” a second city source told The Post. “Instead of working harder during this pandemic, he is working less.

“Who thought that was possible?”

Additional reporting by Sam Raskin, Reuven Fenton and Aaron Feis