Feet Freezing, New Yorkers Line Up At Gracie Mansion for de Blasio Photo Op Many Invited Are Turned Away Two Hours Before Mayoral Welcome Ends Line High Spirited, Bands Play, Hot Cider and Chocolate, Hot Air Blasts “I met the Mayor!” Cries Dylan, 12, After Photo Op with Mum All those on his campaign email list got the coveted invitation to Bill De Blasio’s At Home at Gracie Mansion on Sunday (Jan 5, 2013) at 1pm to 5pm, and many more caught it on the campaign Web site (transition2013.com/gracie). In a very short time so many had accepted that only a Wait List remained, and most of those learned later they were rejected. When the time came yesterday, the weather was still icy in the aftermath of Thursday’s hefty snowstorm, but so many invitees actually turned up that even those with invitations were turned away at the park entrance by 3.30pm. We arrived at the same time as Tood Stout, the senior pastor at the Church of the Advent Hope, the social active Seventh Day Adventist house of worship at 87 Street between Park and Lex, who had taxied his blonde wife and baby all the way only to find his invitation had been cancelled, as it were, and all three seemed very sorry to hear it. Was this grounds for rating the new Mayor’s administrative skills somewhat wanting? He had after all appeared on camera during the storm, urging New Yorkers to stay put unless they had urgent business, but he did this without a hat, which seemed impractical. Was our progressive new mayor a head in the clouds idealist having trouble adjusting to the day to day demands of running the country’s biggest metropolis? Enquiring minds needed to know. So we proceeded past the friendly guards and staff at the barrier to the Press tent, set up outside the Gracie Mansion entrance, at the head of a line of two and three abreast which stretched all the way round the bend in the path to a stand from which hot chocolate and cider was dispensed to ameliorate the foot stamping, turned left into a small tent where a musical group was playing amid the temporary warmth of that shelter, out again and along the promenade alongside the river and view of the white encrusted vista of Brooklyn and Queens. We were informed, however, by the nice lady at the Press tent counter, that the staff dealing with the press had gone off at 2 pm, when so many press had arrived that they had to impose a cutoff for them too. So we went along the line, taking a few pictures of the happy souls who were nearing the Mansion after as many as two hours in the cold, they said. We came upon reporter Roger Hanwehr, who with his colleague Julia Minerva was doing the same. They had arrived in time to go through the Mansion and have their photo op with de Blasio earlier. Had they had any exchange with de Blasio? “No,” said Roger, “I was so stone cold!” Despite the frosty damp – which was alleviated with blasts from hot air generators at times, we heard – all the de Blasio enthusiasts in the line seemed in high spirits. Katherine James with her son Dylan, 12,