As Mayor Bloomberg contemplates his plunge in the opinion polls, he could do worse than to take a ferry over to Staten Island and pay a quiet, unheralded call on Patrick and Deanna Curry. Mr. Curry has lived in Richmond County for his entire 35 years, and judging by the dispatch on Page One of The New York Sun this morning, from our Benj. Smith, he just loves life in the borough where he was born and raised. He has his friends and a wonderful wife and children, and was preparing to add a second floor to his house to accommodate a new daughter.

Then Mr. Bloomberg’s property tax hit, and Mr. Curry did the numbers and decided he was better off leaving the city that he expected to call his home for the rest of his life and move to neighboring New Jersey. This is a quiet tragedy for New York, and one that is no doubt going to be repeated thousands of times as individuals try to maneuver out from under the property tax and excise levies Mr. Bloomberg has piled on and as they contemplate the threat of yet new taxes, whether it be on incomes or property.

This is the kind of thing that it would be a good idea for Mr. Bloomberg to understand. The mayor seems to believe that New York City is the place to be, come hell or high water. But middle class New Yorkers literally can’t afford to see it that way. While Mr. Bloomberg’s spokesman protests that the Currys will be moving to a place with property taxes triple those of New York, the difference is that those taxes will buy something out in Middletown — namely decent schools. In New York, those soaring taxes pay for nothing but failure. This seems to be at the forefront of the Currys’ calculation, as they have been paying roughly $5,000 a year to privately school two boys.

The price of the tax increases will be paid in for sale signs, of which the Currys’ councilman, Andrew Lanza, said he has never seen more. It will also be paid by people such as the construction workers and other contractors who would have built that second floor for the Currys’ daughter. It will also be paid by Staten Island’s merchants, whose customers, as our Alicia Colon writes on the page opposite, will be hopping, skipping, and jumping over to the Garden State to do their shopping.

It’s a point certain not to be lost on New York City’s voters come the next mayoral election. In the most recent City Council races, we have already seen a minor tax revolt, with candidates racing to see who could get more distance between himself or herself and the mayor. It would be something for Mr. Bloomberg to ponder, over a pot of tea, at what is for now still the home of Patrick and Deanna Curry.