Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has curtailed his public appearances, sometimes going several days without appearing in public and sometimes leaving the events he attends through side doors and service elevators, as he did in Manhattan this week.

[. . .]

On Mr. de Blasio’s internal schedules in recent weeks, blocks of hours are listed away from City Hall, often with little detail. Three people close to the mayor said they don’t know how he is spending this time.

Mr. de Blasio has typically spent Fridays outside his office, making political calls from Gracie Mansion or a coffee shop or restaurant in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, these people said. But that work pattern now extends beyond Fridays, they said.

A person familiar with the mayor’s thinking said Mr. de Blasio has chosen to limit news conferences because he expected he would be asked about the investigations and was frustrated by the attention paid to them. In the past two weeks, he has delivered five speeches closed to the media, more than in previous months, according to his schedules.

That’s a 19-point swing from the previous Q poll, in January, when he de Blasio had a positive, 50-42, rating.

[. . .]

The mayor has acknowledged making calls for the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit group set up to support his agenda whose donor solicitations are now under investigation, and de Blasio has defended the calls as routine.

But elected officials with ties to similar nonprofits have largely avoided taking such a direct role in soliciting money for those groups, and the calls from the mayor were unusual enough to become a topic of conversation among business leaders and CEOs.

One business person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described receiving a surprise call from the mayor at his office early in his first term. De Blasio spoke generally about the need to support his administration’s agenda and to marshal resources for the inevitable attacks against the mayor’s plans for affordable housing and universal pre-kindergarten.

De Blasio did not directly ask for a contribution, according to this person, but said to expect a follow-up call from Ross Offinger, who served as the chief fundraiser for the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit group dedicated to backing the mayor’s agenda. Offinger did call, but this person ultimately decided not to donate.

Some potential contributors who spoke with the mayor but were not inclined to support the Campaign for One New York instructed their assistants to screen the follow-up calls from Offinger, according to several sources.

The solicitations are now part of a sprawling series of investigations into de Blasio’s administration and its fundraising practices, and whether donors received preferential treatment from de Blasio and his aides. De Blasio’s staff has declined to disclose who the mayor contacted on behalf of the group.

[. . .]

The group first received a $10,000 check from Capalino. That same day, identical checks arrived from two of the lobbyist’s deep-pocketed clients, RAL Development and Cipriani USA, for a total of $30,000.

And the very next day, Capalino was on the phone with the man himself — Mayor de Blasio.

Not bad for a guy who, as a lobbyist doing business with the city, is barred from giving more than $400 to a candidate per election.

The mayor’s website and Capalino insist the phone chat concerned a proposed (and ultimately failed) helicopter ban, and Capalino says donations to the mayor’s cause never came up.

Whether anything else came up remains a mystery as City Hall refuses to say whether notes of these lobbying chats exist.

[. . .]

The other key loophole Capalino has tapped into is bundling. Though individuals can’t give more than $4,950, they can collect piles of checks from others and present them to a candidate in a bundle.

Between October and December, Capalino bundled $44,940 for the mayor’s 2017 reelection bid. Donors included some of his clients.

An executive of Bauhouse Group, which needs City Hall support for a huge Upper East Side tower the neighborhood opposes, gave $4,950. Michael Stern, CEO of JDS Development, wrote five checks in one day totaling $4,950. Capalino has lobbied for city approval of a JDS residential tower that would be the tallest in Brooklyn at 1,066 feet.

That’s how much a company that’s been accused of ignoring workers’ rights sent to de Blasio’s campaign just five days after their paid lobbyist snagged a coveted phone chat with Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen.

WeWork, a company that provides office space across the city, paid lobbyist Global Strategy Group Jan. 1 to press the mayor on unspecified “procurement” issues, records show.

Global’s Jon Silvan got right to work, and on Jan. 6 he was able to get the extremely busy Glen, who is running de Blasio’s much-touted affordable housing program, to take his call, the mayor’s office confirmed Saturday.

During the call, Silvan pitched “future projects” WeWork wants to do with the city.

Two days later, on Jan. 8, WeWork Vice President Arana Hankin began collecting 19 checks totaling $68,750 for de Blasio’s 2017 reelection bid.

[. . .]

Ongoing probes of de Blasio’s fund-raising tactics are focused on multiple issues, including whether any of his donors got anything in return for raising or donating big bucks to the mayor.

On Friday, de Blasio spokesman Austin Finan confirmed the chat between WeWork’s lobbyist and Glen and said it “was held to discuss potential future projects.” He declined to discuss the bundled checks.