Among the many books stacked decoratively within the neat mahogany bookcases of Gracie Mansion are a series of ruminations on the concept-and consequences-of power.

There is The Power Broker, sitting next to The Price of Power, an intricate account of the cloak-room machinations that ruled, and ended, the Nixon administration.

Perhaps the theme is appropriate: even though Michael Bloomberg does not live in the historic home perched above the East River, Gracie Mansion remains a vital and bustling place of business for the Bloomberg administration.

Once a retreat for mayors and their families--the Giuliani family wore the place out so thoroughly that extensive renovations were required after they left--Bloomberg has turned Gracie Mansion into a place where city agencies and community activists go to do business and connect, while he stays in his townhouse just under a mile away, on East 79th Street.

"Gracie is unique in that it's a little bit of everything for a lot of different people," said Evelyn Erskine, a spokesperson for the Bloomberg administration.

The mayor's office and other city agencies hold more than 150 events there each year, including receptions, agency get-togethers and even the occasional labor dispute.

The building is also used for staff retreats, the onslaught of administration holiday parties in December and meetings which members of the administration prefer to hold outside of the City Hall bullpen-where no one, Bloomberg included, has either a door or wall.

The imposing home has also become a place for politicking.

At the height of the mayor's push for congestion pricing in February and March, he met with 23 members of the City Council and 17 members of the Assembly for coffee or dinner on five occasions, trying to woo the undecided legislators to his side.

Some, like Council Member Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan), came out of the meetings in favor of the mayor's plan.
Maybe it was the food.

"The best," Jackson recalled. "It was five-star, without a doubt."

But Jackson said the more casual atmosphere of Gracie was the real selling point, enabling the legislators to discuss the congestion plan and other things differently than at his office at City Hall.

"When the mayor hosts a dinner, he talks freely and openly," Jackson said.

The environment, with light glancing off the East River and a regular breeze brushing in from Hell's Gate, helps too. 
 "It's spacious, it has an antiquity and a history, and people enjoy being there," said former Mayor Ed Koch (D), who lived in Gracie Mansion and used it occasionally for meetings and official dinners himself.

The most striking feature about the mansion today is its delicately crafted stillness-even more striking considering the mansion's condition just a few years ago. By the time Donna Hanover left at the end of 2001-her husband, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), had left months earlier, when they separated-the whole place was on the verge of collapsing. 
"Staircases were sagging, the porch was in danger of collapsing and the indoor plumbing was not working," said Susan Danilow, director and president of the Gracie Mansion Conservancy.

Shortly after taking office, Bloomberg appointed a decorator to oversee the multi-million-dollar restoration of the mansion's interior. With a sizeable cash infusion from the mayor himself, the vestiges of Federal-era décor were carefully manicured and restored. The result is a conventionally straightforward mansion-much like the conventionally straightforward administration which now uses the official residence as its own home.

The interior is pristine, the façade accessible and the mansion, above all, well-managed.


That helps make the receptions, dinners and barbeques held on the grounds a powerful political tool for cementing the mayor's connections to key political allies and repairing relationships when necessary.

"It gives representatives and key people within city government an opportunity to connect and to relate to the leadership of that given community, to build trust and also a collaborative relationship," said Guillermo Linares, commissioner of the Office of Immigrant Affairs.

Like all agencies, Linares' office works in coordination with the Gracie Mansion Conservancy and the Mayor's Office of Special Events to book the popular space.

"Very often, when we invite people to these events, it is reflective of already ongoing relationships that are developing with city agencies," Linares said.

And sometimes the house works to develop new relationships.

Maura Giannini, former chief negotiator for the New York musicians union, was there in 2003 when a strike by her organization crippled Broadway for days. Though the mayor stopped in only briefly during the round-the-clock talks, by sequestering negotiators in Gracie Mansion, he established himself as a constant presence. The final deal was the product of small bands of negotiators who met in the large wooden foyer in the middle of the night.

"It is important where it is, and that both sides perceived that there was pressure from the mayor in some way to reach a deal," Giannini said. "I think it makes a big difference that you're in this neutral place that has a lot of political overtones."