Mayor Giuliani last night tried to boot Donna Hanover from the hospital where his critically ill mom was being treated – just hours after a court barred his “good friend” Judi Nathan from Gracie Mansion.
But Hanover stubbornly refused to leave the Mount Sinai Medical Center emergency room, where Helen Giuliani, 91, had been rushed from her Upper East Side home at around 6:30 p.m., NYPD and City Hall sources said.
The sources described a heated exchange inside the E.R., during which a visibly angry mayor – who did not raise his voice – asked Hanover to leave. But an exasperated Hanover, her arms waving, resisted, and inadvertently hit mayoral aide Manny Papir.
Another aide, chief-of-staff Tony Carponetti, then asked Hanover to hit the road.
But the actress and TV broadcaster, who apparently had been tipped off to Helen Giuliani’s trip to the hospital, refused to budge, the sources said.
Instead, she waited outside the curtained cubicle where the mayor stayed with his mom. It wasn’t clear if she ever got a chance to see her mother-in-law, who turns 92 on Sept. 26.
Helen Giuliani was admitted to the intensive-care unit, according to the sources. It was not known what she was suffering from.
The hospital would not comment.
“Here’s the mayor. He’s worrying about his mother,” said one insider. “It was completely insensitive of [Hanover] to stay there.
“She stayed about an hour until she knew the TV cameras were there, and then she left.”
The two left separately, by different entrances.
Hanover’s spokeswoman wasn’t immediately available for comment.
Earlier, a judge established Gracie Mansion as a Judi-free zone – and ordered that the warring first couple figure out a way for Rudy and Donna’s kids to meet Nathan.
“There is no public or governmental interest served by having [Nathan] at the mansion,” wrote Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische, responding to Hanover’s bid to have Giuliani’s gal pal banned from visiting the official mayoral residence.
The judge backed the ban bid because it’s in “the best interest of the children” to keep Nathan away from them – at least for now.
“Donna is grateful for the court’s decision to put the children’s well-being first,” said her lawyer, Helene Brezinsky.
Giuliani brushed off reporters who asked about the ruling.
“Oh, now, now, come on,” Giuliani said, adding later, “I’m not going to comment on that.”
His lawyer, Raoul Felder, said the mayor was “disappointed” with the decision.
The judge noted that Giuliani, 56, and Hanover, 51, opted to live together until he leaves office in December in order “to provide a smoother transition for [their] children to their new lives,” but that they’re now “having enormous conflict in maintaining a common, albeit temporary, household.”
Giuliani and Hanover sleep in separate bedrooms in the 200-year-old home on the Upper East Side.
Their court filings are “replete with accounts of hurts and humiliations that each believes he or she has suffered at the hands of the other,” Gische wrote.
The 10-page decision in the case captioned “Anonymous vs. Anonymous” identifies the 46-year-old Nathan only as “J.N.”
Hanover said she wants Nathan kept away from her two kids, Caroline, 11, and Andrew, 15, because meeting her will be “psychologically harmful to them” and they’re not “emotionally ready.”
Giuliani said he wants the kids to meet and have “positive exposure” to Nathan because he’s worried they’ll “form a negative impression” of her “based upon what they hear from [Hanover] and what they may read in the press.”
But in a not-so-subtle swipe at Giuliani and Felder – who called Hanover “an uncaring mother” after the last court hearing in the case – the judge said “the unfortunate recent negative comments to the media have … not helped [Giuliani’s] desired objective for a sensitive introduction of J.N. to the children.”
Gische said that it’s “inevitable” that they’ll meet, and that the kids “will need to learn to accept her in their lives.”
She wants the city’s feuding first couple to come up with a plan for such a meeting in the next 30 days. If they can’t, the judge will appoint a law guardian and mental-health expert for the kids and devise a plan herself.
“The mayor feels, as far as the children are concerned, this should be done carefully and with sensitivity,” Felder said.
Brezinsky wouldn’t say whether Hanover would go along with the request.
Gische also ruled against the mayor’s request for a permanent gag order in the case, saying she couldn’t order one because Hanover doesn’t want it – but she did urge both sides to “use good sense and personal restraint.”
“The barrage of negative comments that ensued after the court lifted the temporary gag order were embarrassing and no doubt painful for these children,” she wrote.