Hollywood actors Debra Messing and Michael Rapaport, reliable cheerleaders for Republican leadership, are openly seething over the filthy, snow-choked streets of New York City nearly a week after a major winter storm.
According to Fox News, the two actors have turned their ire on Mayor Zohran Mamdani, accusing his administration of failing at the most basic function of city government: keeping the streets clear and passable. Their frustration underscores a growing sense among residents that, under left-wing leadership, New York can no longer manage routine public services, even in neighborhoods just minutes from City Hall.
Rapaport, filming the aftermath for his Instagram followers, panned across mounds of snow and heaps of uncollected trash that had congealed into a grim urban landscape. The "Only Murders in the Building" actor documented large piles of snow left from the initial plowing that never fully melted, alongside mountains of trash that sanitation crews had yet to remove.
A week after the snowstorm and this is what we got Zoron the Shoveler! Filthy black snow, garbage soup, ice rinks on every corner, cars buried like fossils, he wrote in his caption, mocking the mayor by name. People slipping, breaking ankles, nobody shoveling, nobody salting, nobody doing S---.
This is New York City, Rapaport continued, emphasizing how close the mess was to the seat of power. Three minutes from the mayors house. Start spreading the news this place is a dirty snow covered dump. Clean it the f--- up Mayor!
Messing, star of Will & Grace, took to X to describe her own ordeal simply trying to cross town for an appointment. What should have been a 20-minute drive, she said, turned into more than an hour and 10 minutes trapped in gridlocked traffic on streets that still looked like a disaster zone.
The streets are a disaster, Messing wrote, stressing that the storm had long since passed. It hasnt snowed in 5 days and the streets still havent been cleared. Poor ambulance sitting in aessentially [sic] a parking lot with sirens going.
Im praying for the person needing emergency care, she added, highlighting the real human cost of bureaucratic failure. Ive lived here for 15 years (this go around) and this has never happened. The plows have always worked around the clock to get the city back to working. I wonder what happened?
Hang in there New Yorkers, Messing concluded, offering encouragement even as she questioned why a city with New Yorks resources cannot manage what previous administrations treated as routine. Her comments implicitly contrasted past, more competent snow responses with the current state of affairs under progressive governance.
Mayor Mamdani, facing mounting criticism, attempted to explain the sluggish cleanup effort at an unrelated press conference on Monday. Typically, after snowfall of any kinds, rising temperatures would assist in the melting of that snow. Instead, what we are all experiencing is a cold that is continuing at a record pace, frankly, he told reporters.
And what that has meant is that the entirety of the city's response is up to the city workers themselves. And they have been doing an incredible job. However, it is a job that must continue, and it is also a job that has required us to go beyond the typical. The mayor insisted that his administration had surged manpower to address the crisis.
What I mean by that is we might typically have sanitation workers doing a lot of this work, he added, detailing the citys deployment. Right now, we have 2,500 sanitation workers each 12-hour shift, and we now have 1,500 additional workers, many of them coming from separate city agencies, who are supplementing that work, especially when it comes to bus stops and crosswalks. And, at this time, we are seeing that that is going to continue. What I'm thankful to see is that the pace of cleanup is increasing, and I'm hopeful that that continues to be the case across the five boroughs.
The storm that triggered this breakdown was severe, dumping sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the United States on Jan. 25, driving temperatures below zero and shutting down air and road travel. In New York City alone, at least 10 people died, many of them believed to be homeless and some showing signs of hypothermia.
Those deaths have intensified scrutiny of whether city leaders did enough to protect the most vulnerable, even as basic services like plowing and trash removal faltered in core neighborhoods. With even left-leaning celebrities now publicly blasting the mayor over filthy black snow and garbage soup, the episode has become a stark illustration of what happens when progressive city halls prioritize ideology and bureaucracy over the fundamental duties of governance.
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