“Call Me Charlotte”

  If you think you know New York City’s most famous groundhog,

        you don’t know Chuck.

On Groundhog Day, 2014 newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio fumbled the pride of Staten Island: he dropped Staten Island Chuck, groundhog and famously feisty forecaster of Spring. Donning oversized fireplace gloves as a precaution, the mayor was looking to avoid being bitten by the critter, as his predecessor Michael Bloomberg had been in 2009. But then, in what many considered to be an eerie echo of the Bush Doctrine, Mayor de Blasio took preemptive action against the perceived threat with a first-strike dropping of Staten Island Chuck. Just thirty-three days into his mayoralty a scandal was born.

As with most scandals, the cover-up was bigger than the actual misdeed. Staten Island Chuck was dead one week after being dropped by the Mayor, but the news was kept under wraps until September. The necropsy found “acute internal injuries” consistent wi...