OEM Building To Be Mayor's Home Away From City Hall

Mayor Bloomberg is boxing up his picture frames and files and moving out of City Hall for two weeks.

Mr. Bloomberg and his staff are leaving the bullpen Monday and moving into the city's emergency operations facility while their municipal home gets an electrical upgrade and facelift.

Mr. Bloomberg said their stay in Brooklyn would serve a dual purpose: allowing the city to test the Office of Emergency Management building as a backup in case City Hall ever needed to be evacuated. In total, 85 people are moving into the facility, located off Cadman Plaza.

"If you don't use the backup you can never be sure that it's going to work," Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday before marching in a Fourth of July parade on Staten Island. "We're going to make sure it works."

In addition to the electrical upgrade, Mr. Bloomberg said the bullpen would also get a new coat of paint and new carpeting.

"It's probably 20 years old. I think the city can go and have some new, inexpensive but durable carpet," he said.

A spokesman for the mayor, Stuart Loeser, said everyone who is moving would be able to take one standard-size cardboard box across the East River. He joked that Mr. Bloomberg would be packing up the picture frames on his desk.

An OEM official said the emergency operations staff is not planning to move out. If there is an emergency, they will work either from there or go to a backup site.

The mayor said he'd continue taking the subway to work, although he will be in Idaho at the end of next week for the annual conference that investor Herb Allen hosts in Sun Valley for press, business, and, technology titans. When asked whether he was trying to get further away from the City Hall press corps, he said: "Keep in mind it's one subway stop away, so let's not get too carried away with how far we're moving."