Tourists and New Yorkers around Ground Zero are getting a fresh look at how Mayor Bill de Blasio is handling the homelessness crisis — and they don’t like what they see.
A vagrant spent his second day in a row living out of a cardboard shanty in the shadow of the World Trade Center on Wednesday, infuriating passers-by.
A Brooklyn woman who works as a lease administrator in the area was outraged by the situation, and blamed de Blasio, who last week became the 24th Democrat to launch a bid for the White House.
“We have a mayor who wants to be president who hasn’t fixed his own city,” said the woman, who gave her name as Linda.
“Clean up your own house before going outside.”
Australian tourist Ann Rhonda McKenzie, a retired teacher who was visiting the Big Apple for the first time, also said the scene didn’t jibe with de Blasio’s political ambitions.
“You can’t manage your housing crisis, you can’t manage the homelessness and you want to be president? How are you going to manage a country?” said McKenzie, 64.
Roque DeCastro, a janitor who lives in the Bronx, was outraged by the hovel’s proximity to the hallowed ground of the fallen Twin Towers.
“It looks really bad to see something like this is this beautiful city, next to this memorial. They really got to take it out,” he fumed.
An Italian tourist even snapped photos of the makeshift shack, which is set up directly across from an entrance to the swank Oculus shopping mall and transit hub.
“It’s disgusting. It doesn’t look good. Right by the tower. Somebody should clean it up,” said Gino, a 70-year-old retiree.
Another tourist — Carol Mutiga, a 49-year-old government worker from Meru County, Kenya — said that while there were homeless people in her country, they’re not allowed to live “near the government buildings.”
“We came to see the World Trade Center, that’s what brought us here, so we would rather not see that,” she said.
The homeless man crawled out of his shack around 9 a.m. and shambled down into the Chambers Street subway station, where he relieved himself in a drainage grate.
He then went back to his box and taped up the plastic garbage bags covering the roof before chowing down on bagels and pastries from a Starbucks bag that appeared to have been left nearby by a good Samaritan.
The man, who appears to be in his 30s, compulsively scratched his hands during a brief interview in which he identified himself as James Eve, 43.
“I used to live in the Bronx. I have no family,” he said.
Asked why he didn’t sleep in a homeless shelter, Eve said, “I’m all right. I’m happy here. This is my home.”
He also apologized for urinating in the subway and promised not to do it again but quickly grew agitated and ended the conversation.
Eve spent the rest of the day tinkering with his shanty, wandering down to the subway and sitting next to a plastic cup in which charitable strangers deposited cash.
Shortly before 3 p.m., three Port Authority cops eyed him from across Church Street but didn’t approach him before moving on.
City Hall did not immediately respond to a request for comment.