Chirlane McCray on Love, Politics and Bloomberg

Todd Heisler/The New York Times Chirlane McCray and Bill de Blasio embraced at his primary night victory party.

Chirlane McCray, the wife of Bill de Blasio, sat down with me recently for a two-hour interview at Little Purity Diner in Park Slope, speaking openly about her personal life, her politics and her role in the campaign.

Below are edited excerpts from that conversation:

On whether she ever voted for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg:

No-o-o-o-o. Why would I do that?

On the difference between a de Blasio and Bloomberg mayoralty:

We are much more accessible. I mean, we really like to go out and be with the people. We really like that. Now I know there will be certain constraints.

I like to go to the subway and hear what people are thinking and feeling and what their concerns are. You learn so much that way. You really do.

And I can’t imagine Bill being mayor and not having just an entirely different tone, in terms of accessibility and listening and conversations.

On what New York City must become post-Bloomberg:

The city needs to become, in terms of opportunities, more like what it used to be. Now I know, people say, oh, the crime, the blah, blah. You know. That’s â€" we are never going to go back to those days. We don’t want to go back to those days. That’s not even an issue. What we want is for people to feel like they can raise their families here. That their kids can go to college. They can do better themselves. There is a route into the middle class. We want young people to feel like they can come here.

On the gentrification of neighborhoods, especially luxury condominiums:

It’s a worry because I feel like we are losing our neighborhoods. We are losing our communities. When we moved here, 22 years ago, there were so many more mom-and-pops, so many families that â€" that aren’t here because they were priced out. They were totally priced out. And I know that’s true of so many other communities across the city. You can’t â€" people don’t want to have banks â€" not that I have anything against banks. But you have banks, and chain stores - all the chain stores. And they take over a neighborhood. You lose so much.

On bringing home female companions to meet her parents before she began dating Mr. de Blasio:

My mother managed it. My father, the third time, said, “Don’t do this any more.”

On her time at the Combahee River Collective, a group of black feminists, many of them gay:

We just talked. Which was enough. We talked about current events. We talked about our lives. Because the feeling was at that time - black women’s lives were not reflected in the information people received. You know, it was therapeutic. People were so isolated. Every single woman who would be in this group for the most part, probably worked or lived or played â€" they were the minority. They were one of a handful. It was very difficult to navigate life when you are surrounded by hostile forces, or even forces who are not sympathetic to your being.

On meeting her future husband at City Hall:

He was on the phone. He was sitting on a chair that was too small for him, at a desk that was too small for him. There were yellow Post-its everywhere. I was writing a press release. Everybody said, “You don’t know Bill de Blasio?” He looks at me, and goes like, he holds his finger up to signal for me to wait, but he can’t get off the phone. Finally he gets off, we are introduced, I asked him, “I need to know who the mayor is endorsing for the City Council races.” He says, “I don’t really have this information right now.”

On deciding to date a man after years of describing herself as a lesbian:

I didn’t know if I wanted to do that. It was a very big decision. A huge decision. In addition to figuring out, do I like this guy, do I not like this guy, it was what does it mean?

On her parents meeting Mr. de Blasio:

The race was not a huge deal. But he still was a big white guy. I didn’t know how they were going to take him. They loved him.

On her bond with Mr. de Blasio:

I think both of us in different ways had a deep yearning for family and for a certain kind of connectedness. Bill, because his family was structurally broken. Right? And me, because I had never had a deep sense of belonging anywhere. I always felt I was an outsider. Even though I had an intact family structure.

On why they didn’t tell their children that their honeymoon included a stop in Cuba:

I think that at the time they were too young. We didn’t want to give them information they could not process properly.

On first ladies’ role models:

Obvious one is Hillary. Eleanor Roosevelt.

On whether that group of role models includes Barbara Bush:

No.