‘Making Gracie Our Home:’ First Lady Chirlane Mccray Announces Initial Stages Of Family Move To Gracie Mansion

June 2, 2014

NEW YORK—First Lady Chirlane McCray took to her blog, #FLONYC, today to announce that the family is beginning to move items out of their Park Slope home and into Gracie Mansion. “Today marks a very important day for our family—the move to Gracie Mansion has begun!” writes McCray. 

The First Lady went on to discuss the items being moved: the rocking chair given to the couple by the Mayor’s mother, Maria Wilhelm, before the birth of Chiara, and her mother’s sewing table.

“When I was a little girl, my mother lamented that there were so few Black dolls available for us. She was determined to do something about it. It took time, but later in her life, undeterred, she sat down at this sewing machine (where she had sewn many of our clothes) and created dolls that reflected what my sisters and I saw in the mirror every day,” writes McCray. The First Lady used that same sewing table to make quilts for her family. 

Of the rocking chair, the First Lady wrote, “Maria spent hours in this chair, rocking and reading to Bill when he was a baby. Chiara and Dante were also soothed by the rocking and the warmth of listening to stories in my lap.”

The move today marks the start of the family packing up their Park Slope home and moving into Gracie Mansion.

Tours at Gracie will be temporarily put on hold next week and resume in September, once the family is settled.