As he geared up for his first City Hall run in 2001, Michael Bloomberg released a campaign-style autobiography to introduce himself to voters. His book, “Bloomberg by Bloomberg,” sketched a macho portrait of the billionaire as a young millionaire.
He started with the story of his firing from a Wall Street firm 20 years earlier, and how he walked away with a cool $10 million. He bought his wife a fur, immediately started the firm that would make his name synonymous with wealth, and boasted that he never looks back.
“I didn’t sit around wondering what was happening at the old firm. I didn’t go back and visit,” he said of his no-sentiment-allowed philosophy: “I never look over my shoulder. Once finished: Gone. Life continues!”
But as he leaves the mayoralty on Jan. 1 after 12 fascinating years, the 71-year-old Bloomberg is singing a softer tune. In a recent valedictory speech to the Association for a Better New York, he began with his usual raft of statistics about improved services, but quickly shifted into unusually personal territory.
He talked with obvious joy about the imminent birth of his first grandchild and pronounced himself ready and eager to change diapers. Then he weaved the baby’s life into his vision for New York, saying the future for both is unlimited if we adhere to our core values.
“That is my heartfelt hope. That is my wish for our future. And that is what I want, more than anything else, for my little grandson and all the generations to come,” he said.
Alas, headlines focused not on his eloquence, but on his fight to hold back tears. His show of emotion was rare enough to make news. Such a softie — who knew?
• • •
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is Gotham’s 108th mayor, and whether you love him, hate him or love him and hate him, there is no getting around the fact he’s one of a kind.
Money, mountains of it, is a huge part of Bloomberg’s distinction. With a net worth north of $20 billion, he is the richest man ever to hold elective office in the United States.
When he first emerged in 2001, I estimated that his income was about $4 million — a week! It’s gone up since, and no thanks to the $1 annual mayoral pay he accepts. His privately held firm continues to grow and is now a global behemoth with $8 billion in annual revenues.
That wealth, combined with awesome government authority in the hands of a man willing to wield it, creates a power shift unique in history.
There was no fear Bloomberg could be bribed with a paper bag full of cash. Quite the contrary, money flowed in the other direction. He bought the loyalty and ballot line of two parties, Republican and Independence, and gained support for a promise-breaking third term from so-called good- government groups he bankrolled.
He spent nearly $300 million on his three campaigns, and was ready to spend $1 billion in a race for president that he abandoned.
His largess could be dizzying. An insider estimates that Bloomberg gives away about $10 million a year just to city arts and cultural groups. Many fear the spigot will be shut off when he leaves office, forcing them to scramble for government grants or find a new sugar daddy.
Not all his ideas were good ones but virtually all were big ones. Small ball was never his game.
A friend once told of being on a panel discussing urban issues and realizing he was the only one on stage who had never received money from Bloomberg.
Yet it would be a grave disservice to reduce Bloomberg to the sum of his bank accounts. That same energy, smarts and determination that allowed him to build a global empire also defined his time in City Hall. The results are as dramatic and far-reaching as those of any mayor in memory.
Simply put, Bloomberg was a mayor of tremendous consequence. Not all his ideas were good ones — some were bicycle-lane bad — but virtually all were big ones. Small ball was never his game.
Merely listing areas where he broke the mold conveys the scope of his impact. From arts to zoning, and including crime, development, education, the environment, health, housing, infrastructure, jobs, parks, philanthropy, science, technology, tourism and transportation, New York today is a far different city than the one he took over.
His difference has made it better, and in some cases, gloriously so.
Indeed, it is so much better in fundamental ways that I believe Gotham is experiencing a modern Golden Age. Another friend, who has lived all his 75 years here, puts it this way: “New York has never been more beautiful in my lifetime.”
Michael Bloomberg did that, and he did it his way.
Ignoring the hail-fellow-well-met school of political backslapping, he never accepted the need to suffer fools. Testy is his default position, and he so often reveals a cold contempt that he is less beloved than his accomplishments should dictate.
Maybe it is his Boston roots, or the fact that his wealth shields him from the ordinary concerns of ordinary people. Whatever, the common perception of him as a joyless businessman and sometime-scold created an emotional distance between him and many New Yorkers.
Even supporters could get back-of-the-hand treatment. Early on, an affluent man and longtime acquaintance of Bloomberg with knowledge of the government game arranged a breakfast meeting to coach him on an issue.
“I spent a couple minutes making my case, he cut me off, told me I was full of s–t, and then we spent an hour talking about golf,” the man told me. That was their last meeting.
That imperial impatience doesn’t mean Bloomberg wasn’t fully committed to his job. Indeed, New York’s global brand has never been stronger. It’s just that he and the city never fell in love.
Joe Lhota, who ran for mayor and supported many Bloomberg policies, found a curious pattern. “People in every borough think City Hall has ignored them.”
Yet among his many accomplishments, Boston Mike landed a new professional sports team, with the NBA’s Nets bolting New Jersey for a home in a signature arena in Brooklyn. So, more than 50 years after the Dodgers left, the borough finally rebounds under a man who still “pahks his cah in Hahvihd Yahd.”
• • •
Without argument, the mayor’s grandest achievements fall into two broad categories: public safety and public health. The irony is that neither made the top of his priority list at the beginning.
His 2001 campaign featured promises to get the city back on its economic feet after the national recession and the horrors of 9/11. The job losses were staggering, and Bloomberg vowed a bottom- line approach to taxes, spending and job incentives.
He also pledged to be the “education mayor,” saying he wanted to have the same success in improving schools that Rudy Giuliani had in reducing crime.
So much for plans. The economy recovered all the lost jobs and added more, with private-sector jobs now at a record 3.4 million. But, reflecting the national trend, many are in service sectors, such as tourism, and pay less than those jobs that were lost. One result is that median family income is stuck at around $50,000 and poverty levels remain largely untouched.
Early on, Bloomberg declared New York was a “luxury product” that could not be managed on the cheap. He meant it, imposing relentless tax and fee increases, and spending ran 57 percent above inflation.
But that wasn’t enough to cover his ambitions. Debt surpassed $100 billion for the first time, and he leaves his successor the burden of dealing with unions that have not had contracts for years.
Indeed, his handling of the unions disappoints. He said his wealth would mean he wasn’t beholden to special interests, but he never fully delivered on that promise as it relates to municipal workers. He achieved no major changes of antiquated work rules or civil service reform, and he was late to sound the alarm about the explosion of pension costs.
As for education, the first mayor to enjoy full control of the schools proudly cites major statistical gains in student achievement. But it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff because social promotion and dumbed-down tests inflated the appearance of success. More students are going to college, but more also need major remediation.
I believe Bloomberg’s most important educational impact will come through his strong support for charter schools. The incredible success of many of these innovative efforts offers a real-life rebuke to the monopoly of mediocrity imposed by the teachers’ union. And the charters’ popularity with parents makes them a political force critics can’t ignore.
We can say for certain that, in the most important ways, he passed the Big Test: He made New York a better city.
In other areas — notably public safety and public health — Bloomberg’s legacy is not at all mixed. It is brilliant, bold and life-saving.
The crime reduction story is well documented, but even now, to repeat the numbers is to realize anew that the achievement is a man-made miracle. It is so stunning that, if that is all he had done, it would have been enough.
Building on Giuliani’s achievement of driving down crime for eight years, Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly refined and broadened the approach over the next 12 years. The result is two decades of unprecedented improvement, an era that tamed the violent streets and unleashed private investment and neighborhood rebirth across the five boroughs.
Look at it this way: Before Giuliani, the city suffered an average of 2,000 murders a year, or about 40 a week. This year, it will have approximately 350 murders, or about seven a week.
Thousands of people are alive today who would have been killed had Giuliani and Bloomberg failed. The economic impact is also dramatic, from real estate prices to the boom in foreign investment and the tsunami of tourists. Here’s how an official of the Gray Line sightseeing company described the city’s appeal to tourists.
“It’s common sense,” he told The Post. “New York City has one-of-a-kind attractions, world-class shopping and food and, most important, safe streets and neighborhoods.”
Repeat — “most important, safe streets and neighborhoods.”
That insight is the key to a functioning city. (For a nonfunctioning city, see Detroit.) The expectation of safety also changes the police culture. Before Giuliani, cops were not expected to prevent crime and, as a result, no police commissioner was fired even when the streets ran red with blood.
Now it is impossible to imagine a commissioner, or a mayor, surviving a prolonged increase in crime or failing to stop a major, localized terror attack. The public wouldn’t stand for it.
That dramatic change is the essence of leadership. Giuliani proved it could be done, and Bloomberg improved it. There should be a Nobel Peace Prize for the two mayors who created this historic breakthrough.
Obviously, not all New Yorkers understand or appreciate that history, and so the most prominent political critic of the police, Bill de Blasio, takes over City Hall next month. It will be more than a curiosity to see whether responsibility for public safety guides him toward wisdom. If not, New York will risk losing everything it gained in the last 20 years.
Public health is Bloomberg’s other brightest star. He began with the ban on cigarettes in restaurants and ended trying to ban large, sugary sodas. None of his initiatives was greeted with wholesale applause at first, but most are now accepted as progress.
That shows Nanny Mike is on to something, namely that the public realizes the epidemics of obesity, diabetes and other “consumption” diseases of our era can be defeated only by changing behavior. And if individuals won’t change on their own, then government has a role.
Of course, the debate is whether that role should be one of education or compulsion. I lean toward favoring the heavy hand because taxpayers involuntarily pay the health care costs for much of that self-destructive behavior.
So, if fatties want to gorge all day on cigarettes, Twinkies and sweetened corn syrup, they have my blessing — as soon as they sign a waiver saying they won’t take a dollar of public health services when they keel over.
• • •
A legacy is a moving target. In 1972, nearly 200 years after the French Revolution, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked whether it was a success. He reportedly paused for a moment before saying, “It’s too early to tell.”
We don’t have to wait that long to assess the impact of Michael Bloomberg. While some of his policies will be more clearly understood in the fullness of time, we can say for certain right now that, in the most important ways, he passed the Big Test: He made New York a better city.
He made it better for millions of people who live here, work here and visit. You can quibble — and we wouldn’t be New Yorkers if we didn’t quibble — but ultimately the case is overwhelming. As he departs, he leaves behind a much safer, more prosperous, more beautiful city than the one he inherited 12 years ago.
Perfection isn’t the test — progress is. If his successor is wise, he will build on those gains and further improve life here for generations to come, just as Bloomberg hopes.
So thank you, Mr. Mayor. You kept it interesting and you had the courage to make a difference. From New York to you, Godspeed.