Replies

Rudy was a prosecuter, so he's gonna be the law and order mayor. Koch was pretty much the anti-machine, machine mayor.

Most of the deals involving Times Square were cut under Koch. The fashion industry stuff, like fashion week, etc. which brings in a couple hundred million to the city, was under Koch. A lot of development downtown. Closing the SROs, etc. were all under Koch.

So, all this stuff is in place when Rudy comes in, but the city is in a recession. Property values falling, crack running wild. Murder rate above 2,000. And Rudy hires/promotes a bunch of genius cops -- Bratton, Timmony (sp?), Jack Maple, Kelly, etc. They start enforcing quality of life laws, put computers in cars, put computers in 1PP. etc. etc.

To some degree crack is a "self cleaning oven" and crime drops, but to a larger degree, all the new programs work as the deals that Koch cut come to fruition.

Describing Koch as the 'anti-machine, machine mayor' is 100% accurate. Koch could usually be counted on to see things clearly.

I recall Koch during the Bernie Goetz situation, while prominent black leaders in town were quick to play the race issue, Koch clearly said that you can't jump to a conclusion of racism every time a black is the victim of a crime.

Koch lost a lot of his steam when he criticized Jewish NYers who consider supporting Jesse Jackson in his 1988 bid for the Presidency. This cost him with blacks and with Jewish NYCers, and he lost the party primary for Mayor to Dinkins a year or so later.

The thing is, while Koch to an extent set the stage for the NYC resurgence, the Dinkins admin was sandwiched between Koch and Rudy. If anyone would have been the beneficiary of that foundation, it would have been Dinkins. The problem was he was just a terrible mayor with rotten judgment. His tenure certainly set things backwards, while to be fair to Rudy, his tenure set things forward, on a fairly fast track.

Best thing with Mayor Ed is there was seldom any doubt as to where he stood on an issue. Even if I disagreed with him, he was clear and unambiguous. He wouldn't cart out 1/2-assed arguments for his positions, he would (usually) make a rational case for it, even if I thought he was wrong.

I'd vote for him. I think 21st century politicians on both sides of the aisle can take some lessons from that.

The one thing Koch did consistently obfuscate about was various legal problems or indictments all over NYC politics during his (long) watch. Some of them clearly traced back to City Hall, so he had to circle the wagons a bit. Most of it was off the beaten path - there is no way that any Mayors Office can prepare for the questions following the freaky Donald Manes story, for example. Koch did well.

Speaking of the Fashion industry, remember when you couldn't walk down 7th Ave in the 30s because of all the guys with the carts of dresses, suits, coats, etc? Haha! Back when NYC actually manufactured something! I miss that - I think that scene petered out as the 80s ended!

John Timoney was a bona-fide, tough Irish NYC cop (I think he was born in the old country). Good guy. His contributions went a long way to cleaning up NYC, which under the Dinkins watch was considered fairly unfixable.