From 1950 to 2000, 800,000 homes and apartments were created—while the number of residents only increased by just fewer than 120,000 people. In 1950, only 7% of New Yorkers 25 and older had attended four years or more years of college.

By 2000, the fastest-growing group of jobs in New York City paid less than $25,000 a year. A man calling himself Christopher Rockefeller fleeced Hamptonites out of more than $900,000 over the summer. H&M began its New York invasion. Hillary Clinton "inadvertently" solicited donations from a White House visitors list. 15,000 people rallied for Ralph Nader's presidential campaign. Trump World Tower grew over the U.N.

From August to October, Silicon Alley dot-coms laid off 3000 workers. In November: "Many companies have been forced to devise generous benefits to lure the top candidates to the metropolitan region." Investment banks and insurance companies grab for office space while dot-coms disappear. On November 8th, Hillary Clinton was elected to the Senate. By November 25th, the Williamsburg Domino Sugar plant workers had been on strike for a year and a half.

82 substantiated complaints of abuse by the NYPD got disappeared. Unemployment hit an all-time low of 5.5%.

"Deliverymen who often earn just $2 an hour lugging bags of groceries to apartments up and down Manhattan for the Food Emporium supermarket chain will receive $3 million in back pay under a settlement announced yesterday."

Developers promise to rebuild West Side Rail Yards!

"[W]hat appears to be fashionable for some of the French these days is to pack up one's life in Paris and relocate to the East Village."

December 29: "A federal judge has upheld a Giuliani administration policy that allows police officers to arrest homeless people for sleeping in cardboard boxes in public." Boo.com wins the right in court to sell off their Silicon Alley lease.

From "1992 to 2000 there had been a gain of 35,200 jobs for securities and commodities brokers, whose average salary in 2001 was $147,867."

"The number of New York adults who have a problem speaking English increased by 30 percent between 1990 and 2000, to more than 1.5 million throughout the city."

25-year-old Battery Park City, tasked with building 60,000 units of affordable housing, has only provided a bit more than 1500. The Earth Liberation Front claims they have burned down several houses being built in Long Island on farmland. NewsCorp. lays off hundreds of online staff and closes its internet division offices. New York Times Digital lays off 70 employees. The Giuliani administration is forced to pay out at least $50-million for illegally strip-searching tens of thousands of people in 1996 and 1997.

It is found that the U.S. government had enough evidence to indict Osama bin Laden before the killings of Americans in Somalia in 1993. January 16, 2001: "Manhattan's skyrocketing apartment rental market has turned around and started drifting back toward earth." The U.S. Justice Department declined to file charges against the 4 cops who were acquitted in state court in the shooting of Amadou Diallo. February 7, 2001: "The number of homeless people lodging nightly in the New York City shelter system this winter has risen above 25,000, the most since the late 1980's, city figures show, with the largest increases coming among women and children over the last few years."

Giuliani creates a "Decency Panel" after being outraged by a Renee Cox photograph that depicted a naked black lady Jesus.February 23, 2001: "The World Trade Center, which was derided as a 110-story, 10 million-square-foot example of government excess when it opened in the 1970's, is being handed over to a giant company in the largest real estate deal ever involving a single office complex." The Domino Sugar plant strike ended in a "complete loss" for the strikers.

February 27, 2001:

Perhaps nothing epitomizes what the World Trade Center has become since the bombing more than the visitors desks in its lobbies. That is where 5,000 people wait in line each day to be entered into a computer, photographed and given the plastic ID card that will allow them to enter the elevators. Everyone must be considered a security risk, yet treated with concierge cool."

In the last four years, New York State had not spent more than half of the $1.9 billion allocated for antipoverty programs. May 7, 2001: Twilo shut down. Donna Hanover had her lawyers bar Judith Nathan, Mayor Giuliani's lover, from Gracie Mansion. Mike Bloomberg, a businessman thinking about becoming mayor, buys up nobloomberg.org and ihatebloomberg.com. In May, 2001, New York City began seeing a rise in hotel vacancies and signs of an economic downturn. Restaurants saw a decline in patrons when the Sopranos aired. Then Giuliani had his wife fired as first lady.

On May 30, 2001, a suspect that may have been a serial killer of gay men is taken into custody.

May 31, 2001:

"Before the embassy bombings trial, Osama bin Laden loomed large in the American psyche, a villain of unimaginable evil and sophisticated reach. It was an image fed by destruction done and by American law enforcement eager to drive home the reality of his threat. In some ways, though, it was an image created because so little was known about how he worked.

But the trial, which left many of the details of the bombings uncontested, made clear that while Mr. bin Laden may be a global menace, his group, Al Qaeda, was at times slipshod, torn by inner strife, betrayal, greed and the banalities of life that one might find in any office."

A group would like to landmark the Meatpacking District, where "the streets, paved with nubby Belgian blocks, splay at awkward angles to the waterfront. The sidewalks run with rivulets of greasy blood, and prostitutes pick their way around discarded chunks of fat."

June 8, 2001:

Jack Newfield, the most liberal voice at The New York Post, was fired today along with Stuart Marques and Marc Kalech, two of its three managing editors. Three other people were dismissed, including two of the five editors on the newspaper's city desk, according to The Post's spokesman, Howard J. Rubenstein. The firings come six weeks after the arrival of The Post's new editor, Col Allan.

August 31, 2001: "The booming late 1990's appear to have left the middle class in the New York region and California no better off than it was a decade before, an analysis of Census Bureau data suggests. The poor got a little poorer, the rich got a lot richer and the large group in the middle emerged slightly worse off than when the decade began."

September 4, 2001: A huge slump seen in high-end restaurant business. Two commercial airliners were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center. New York's secret CIA headquarters were destroyed. September 12, 2001: "Bush Vows to Avenge Attacks." September 14, 2001: "Some of Wall Street's biggest names are signing leases for new office space far from Lower Manhattan." September 15, 2001: "Bush Warns That Coming Conflict Will Not Be Short."

September 20, 2001: "While it was unlikely just two weeks ago that many people outside the five boroughs were terribly interested in glimpsing the soul of Rudolph W. Giuliani, it is now undeniable that the mayor has become an international celebrity."

Tom Brokaw's assistant tests positive for anthrax. The child of an ABC news producer tests positive for anthrax. Governor Pataki evacuates his midtown office after anthrax found. A CBS producer and a postal worker test positive for anthrax. 12 firefighters arrested in Ground Zero fight with police. November 21, 2001: a fifth woman has died of anthrax. Conrad Black and other backers plan launch of new daily paper, the Sun. 10 people murdered in New York in one weekend.

Michael Bloomberg spent $96.20 for each vote received to be elected mayor. Dick Parsons made CEO of AOL Time Warner. Five hundred cops get armed with MP5 submachine guns and Mini-14 assault rifles.

Chartering of private jets goes up 10% after 9/11.

Jim McGreevey becomes governor of New Jersey, issues "an inaugural address notable for its absence of specific program proposals." Crystal meth's invasion of New York begins in earnest. 7000 police turn out to handle maybe a few thousand anti-World Economic forum protestors. Buddhism becomes suddenly unfashionable. New York City has racked up $42 billion dollars in debt.

March 1, 2002: Century 21 reopens.

March 13, 2002:

Despite predictions of a real estate recession in Manhattan after Sept. 11, co-op and condominium sales have rebounded strongly in the last two months, with the number of sales up and prices gradually rising — in some cases even surpassing those of a year ago, when the sales market was still hot.

Open houses are full to bursting, and the agents say they are awash with bids and bidding wars. Even the town house and luxury markets, hit hard by weak Wall Street bonuses at the end of 2001 and a general fear to commit, are starting to move, agents say.

Alfred Taubman, the head of Sotheby's, gets a sentence of a year and a day for price-fixing with Christie's.

April 29, 2002: "Starbucks shops have sprouted all over Manhattan, with 124 at last count and four more on the way." Is Times Square clean? "Packs of streetwalkers" still descend after dark! The grounds of the Statue of Liberty are equipped with face recognition software to recognize terrorists. Woody Allen sues producer; city mildly turns on him. Dee Dee O.D.s.

20-year-old Britney Spears opens a Manhattan restaurant called Nyla. Mayor Bloomberg raises taxes on cigarettes for a total cost of $7 a pack.

July 11, 2001: Rudy Giuliani's marriage finally ends, with a $6.8 million payment to Donna Hanover—plus legal fees and $22,000 a month in child support and an apartment.

A family talking loudly in Malayalam and pointing out the window of an airplane at notable landmarks caused two fighter jets to be dispatched to accompany the plane into La Guardia. The Russian Tea Room closed.

The Citigroup Center begins making secret fortifications. 167 apartments are turned over to squatters. Lizzie Grubman pleaded guilty to charges stemming from having run down 16 people at a Hamptons nightclub. The test run of the AirTrain to JFK airport derails, killing one. Giuliani publishes his Miramax book "Leadership," says that New York City was "well-prepared" for 9/11.

October 7, 2002: "Several thousand people filled the East Meadow on Sunday afternoon to protest a United States invasion of Iraq." Jam Master Jay shot.

Joel Klein, the new School Chancellor, begins to lay off 550 workers to save schools $200 million. The City Council raises property taxes 18%. Jim McGreevey apologizes for billing a $70,000 week-long trip to Ireland to New Jersey—including his $16,000 cellphone bill.

Radiation patients set off detectors on subways and at tunnels. December 13, 2002: "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday offered his vision of the future of Lower Manhattan: a collection of neighborhoods stitched together by large parks and broad pedestrian walkways, with a direct mass transit link to Kennedy Airport via a new tunnel under the East River."

New York State passes, after 31 years of lobbying, a gay rights bill. Smoking is banned in bars and restaurants. Unemployment in New York City is 8%; the national average is 6%.

December 30, 2002:

Less than a quarter of the federal government's financial aid promise to New York City and the region has been realized.

A California group that pays drug addicts to get sterilized sets up shop in Brooklyn. The Greenwich Village Balducci's closes. Mayor Bloomberg plans to save the city by issuing another 1.7 million parking tickets a year. February 18, 2003: Blizzard!

New York City is in a recession.

Daniel Libeskind's design chosen for Ground Zero: it features an "open pit."

Income disparity in adjoining neighborhoods has become more pronounced, as rich people buy in poor neighborhoods:

Now the city has dozens of census tracts — clusters of just a few thousand people — in which the average household income in the top fifth of the income spectrum is at least 24 times the average in the bottom fifth, according to an analysis of census data done for The New York Times. In 15 of those tracts, the average at the top is at least 40 times that at the bottom.

May 13, 2003: The New York City Rent Guidelines Board allows rent increases of 8.5% on two-year leases and 5.5% for one-year leases for the city's one million rent-stabilized apartments. (The city has around three million housing units; two million of them are rentals; 350,000 are rent-controlled. The remaining 650,000 are subject to no guidelines.) More than 100,000 apartments have been removed from rent limitations between 1994 and 2002.

May, 2003: Mayor Bloomberg presides over the wedding of Rudy Giuliani to Judith Nathan before Henry Kissinger and Donald Trump.Housing court cases up 6% over last year. Sales tax goes from 8.25% to 8.625%. The two top-ranking editors of the New York Times step down over one reporter's fabrications and "management style."

Albany passes a bill that will allow market rents in New York City for as many as 300,000 formerly regulated apartments in the decade to come. 38,000 people live in homeless shelters in New York City—16,500 children—with a new surge coming.

The Board of Ed building is sold, to become luxury apartments.

The average sale price of a Manhattan apartment is $864,860; the median price is $575,000.

September 8, 2003:

More than a third of the emergency grant money intended to help small businesses in Lower Manhattan survive after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack went to investment firms, financial traders and lawyers.

In the third quarter of 2003, the average sale price for a Manhattan apartment had climbed to $919,959. The Concorde took its last flight.

October 29: New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey is so unpopular that fellow Democrats running for office won't appear with him—or even mention him.

Jay-Z and Mike Bloomberg turn out to support the unveiling of Bruce Ratner's Nets arena for downtown Brooklyn.

December 19, 2003: The 1776-foot World Trade Center tower might be "the world's tallest building upon completion in 2008 or 2009"!

"Dr. Howard Grossman, one of the city's best-known AIDS specialists, said more than half the men who test positive in his private practice blamed methamphetamine." The Time Warner Center opened. Larry Silverstein took to the courts to decide the question: are two planes crashing into two buildings one incident or two? (The difference is $7 billion.)

February 16, 2004:

The 57,000 Satmar Hasidic Jews living in Williamsburg are alarmed that their neighborhood is being invaded by artists who will drive up rent costs.

After they stopped spraying the city with pesticides, birth weight suddenly went up! Taxicabs have their first fare increase in 8 years—26%.

April 15, 2004: Average Manhattan apartment prices are 32% higher than a year ago; average price,$1,001,000. Bloomberg, once the most-disliked mayor, makes major gains in approval ratings. An independent federal commission announces that 9/11 rescue work was "undermined by poor planning, inadequate equipment, faulty communication and generations-old interagency rivalries." Giuliani testified that "some terrible mistakes were made." New York City proposes a ban on photography and film on the subways.

May 24, 2004:

"The Police Department," said the commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, "practically alone, is defending New York's people, its corporate assets and its infrastructure from another terrorist attack."

Rubenstein Associates celebrated their 50 years in public relations:

He also talked to us about his great uncle, BEN MARDEN, who he said ran with MEYER LANSKY.

"They were beyond the mob,'' David Blaine said admiringly. "They were the brains behind it.''

But didn't they do some unsavory things?

"They were doing what Rubenstein is doing now, but illegally,'' Mr. Blaine said. "Rubenstein controls everything legally.''

Ooops. We'd better trot over to Mr. Rubenstein's mouthpiece, for a rebuttal.

"Ach,'' Howard Rubenstein said slowly, a little put off. Then he laughed. "O.K.,'' he said. "I don't know what he means, but O.K. At least I'm treading on the right side of the street.''

"[K]araoke is suddenly enjoying a second wave of popularity." New Jersey real estate developer and Jim McGreevey supporter Charles Kushner was charged with "obstructing a federal investigation into his business dealings and political contributions by hiring prostitutes to try to seduce two men he believed were cooperating with federal prosecutors in the case. One of the prostitutes succeeded in the seduction plan and the result was a videotape, which federal investigators said Mr. Kushner and his co-conspirators secretly made, then mailed to the man's wife—Mr. Kushner's sister Esther."

Bloomberg denies Central Park to 250,000 people planning on protesting the Republican convention. "[B]reak dancing, known on the street as b-boying, is enjoying a full-blown revival."

Jim Mcgreevey announced that he would resign as New Jersey governor, and that he is gay. July 2004: Martha Stewart sentenced to five months in prison. A Williamsburg hipster fell in love and rented out his loft. August 30, 2004: "A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington." Home Depot opened on 23rd Street. The Bush administration proposes to put the Section 8 rent cap for 110,000 New York City families at $1,286 a month.

35 of the 51 centers that help high school dropouts prepare for the GED are shuttered. "There is scarcely a New York neighborhood that is not on an upswing."

"More than one-third of the 226 criminal cases of bias or hatred filed this year have involved the swastika."

"There are no official gauges of the sex industry, but if the Manhattan Yellow Pages is any guide, it is thriving, with more than 30 pages under the heading 'escorts.'" The $858-million MoMA reopens.

Rupert Murdoch sets records by purchasing a $44-million penthouse, the most expensive private residence in New York. More than 25,000 housing units had been built in New York City in 2004. A wheaten terrier was given a "bark mitvah."

December 24, 2004:

In the three years since Michael R. Bloomberg succeeded Mr. Giuliani, the city has spent close to $2 million to settle lawsuits brought by residents and city workers who accused the Giuliani administration of retaliating against them for exercising free speech or other constitutional rights.

33% of residential sales over the year were for prices over $500,000. In 2000, just 10% of sales were that high.

New York's recession could be declared over; unemployment was at its lowest since 2000, tourism was beginning to rise again—but it wasn't because of Wall Street, though big '04 bonuses were good for the city's tax income. Of the 60,000 jobs lost in finance from early 2001 through mid-2003, only 500 have been recovered.

Minimum wage rose to $6 an hour; Manhattan apartment sale average stabilized around $1 million for the last nine months. Food became 5.5% more expensive.

George Pataki's new budget proposal would cut $1 billion in health spending, which means "reducing benefits" for 340,000 working poor; George Bush's new budget proposal would slash daycare, literacy programs, elderly services, housing.

For no known reason, Department of Health officials invent the idea of super-HIV.

HIP, which provides insurance to 1.1 million New York City metro area people, begins a transition from non-profit to for-profit. Unemployment drops to 5.1%—but strong gains are in the unstable retail workforce. The financial district becomes residential. The city has a $3.6 billion surplus; Bloomberg's approval ratings have doubled since 2001, and he personally gives $20 million to non-profits, his largest donation yet.

Bruce Ratner announces he plans to ring his new Nets stadium in Brooklyn with 17 buildings, "creating a dense urban skyline reminiscent of Houston or Dallas."The design of the World Trade Center's "Freedom Tower" is tossed out and started from scratch.

"In the fiscal year ended July 1, New York City took in $2.2 billion in real estate transfer taxes, generated in large part from the sale of existing real estate but also from new homes. By comparison, in the 2000 fiscal year, the city took in a $875 million."

Snakeheads found in Queens! August 10, 2005:

Foreign citizens who change planes at airports in the United States can legally be seized, detained without charges, deprived of access to a lawyer or the courts, and even denied basic necessities like food, lawyers for the government said in Brooklyn federal court yesterday.

The city sells off its last remaining 248 vacant lots to developers.

September 4, 2005:

The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now make 52 times what the lowest fifth make - $365,826 compared with $7,047 - which is roughly comparable to the income disparity in Namibia.... In 1980, the top fifth of earners made 21 times what the bottom fifth made in Manhattan, which ranked 17th among the nation's counties in income disparity.

By 1990, Manhattan ranked second behind Kalawao County, Hawaii, a former leper colony.... The rich in Manhattan made 32 times the average of the poor then, or $174,486 versus $5,435.

The maples syrup smell came and went. The low-income housing and office jobs disappeared from the Forest City Ratner plan for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. 240 Park and Essex House were bought by the royal family of Dubai for more than $1.1 billion. In the first six months of 2005, permits were given for 15,870 housing units; "A large proportion of the newest units are being marketed as 'luxury' apartments."

MTA workers go on strike—the workers balked at a pension proposal that would have saved the MTA less than $20 million over three years. The NYPD has been secretly infiltrating anti-war demonstrations.

"A former cabdriver who struck it rich in Russian oil and went on to invest in Manhattan real estate has signed a contract to buy a Fifth Avenue mansion for $40 million." Bloomberg has ditched his Boston accent.

More than half of the tax cuts and rebates in Governor Pataki's proposed budget were geared to benefit New Yorkers who earn more than $100,000, about 10% of the population. "In Manhattan, real wages—earnings adjusted for inflation—rose 5.4 percent between the first quarters of 2002 and 2005... but in the rest of the city, those wages fell at least 2.9 percent." The last heavy-machinery dealer departed from downtown. "Officials no longer put any stock in a 2008 completion date for the 'Freedom Tower' of the World Trade Center."

Larry Silverstein gets out of the way so rebuilding can perhaps begin at Ground Zero. New York State property takes have grown 60% in the last ten years. 3/4s of all households in Manhattan are renters; the apartment vacancy rate was 3.8% in 2002, 1.5% in 2005, and .075 percent in March of 2006. June 16, 2006:

The number of New York City apartments considered affordable to hundreds of thousands of moderate-income households... plunged by 17 percent between 2002 and 2005.... [T]he median rent for unsubsidized apartments jumped to $900 from $750 — a 20 percent increase in three years — the median household income in the city shrank to $40,000 from $42,700.

The 110-building, 11,200 unit, 25,000-resident Stuytown/Peter Cooper complex went on the market and sold in October, in the largest American real estate deal to date; 3/4s of its apartments had been rent-regulated. The concrete and metal barriers that went up all over New York a few years back mostly get dismantled, as they are useless or worse. Several thousand people line up for candy store jobs that pay $10.75 an hour. Half a million people are stopped and searched on the street over the year, half of them black.

"The 280,000 workers in the finance industry collect more than half of all the wages paid in Manhattan..... For all of the 1.8 million jobs in Manhattan, the average weekly salary in the first quarter of this year was slightly more than $2,500."

Buoyed almost entirely by real estate transfer taxes, the city is projected to have a $3.9 billion surplus. Bloomberg's homelessness plan fails, with more than 35,000 people in shelters and family homelessness at a record high since 1978—though home ownership is at 33%, a record high. The NYPD had infiltrated groups all around the country before the 2004 Republican convention.

In the first quarter of 2007, "The wealthiest New Yorkers paid 20 percent more for apartments with four or more bedrooms than they did in the first quarter a year ago."

The Department of Health become circumcision advocates. The sex ratio in Lower Manhattan "increased to 126 men per 100 women in 2005, from 101 men per 100 women in 2000. In the rest of Manhattan, and in the city over all, there were only 90 men for every 100 women."

Mike Bloomberg suddenly reveals himself to be fluent in Spanish. The Irish start to buy midtown. The 10,000 cases of respiratory illnesses related to 9/11 do not impinge on Giuliani's reputation.

JP Morgan Chase will build a 42-story tower near Ground Zero—in exchange for $100 million in corporate welfare. Bloomberg ditches the Republican party—and is driven to the subway for his daily commute.

Five parking spaces go on sale for on 17th Street for $225,000. A tornado strikes Brooklyn and syphilis returns! Giuliani seriously recasts his financial record as mayor in political ads.

August 29, 2007: "The wealthiest 20 percent of Manhattanites made nearly 40 times more than the poorest 20 percent — $351,333, on average, compared with $8,855, a bigger gap than in any other county." 9/11 memorial fatigue sets in, even as lawsuits against airlines finally go forward and the area around Ground Zero fills with baby carriages. The Canadian dollar catches up with the American one.

"So far this year, 324 buyers purchased Manhattan apartments worth more than $5 million." 42,404 jobs at financial services were eliminated from January to October, nearly as many as were eliminated in 2001. But if everything goes well today, New York this year will have had fewer than 100 people murdered by strangers, so happy New Year.

Bloomberg Concedes Closer Ties to Company [NYT]

But what company gets sued this hard and this much?

"Mayor Bloomberg's media and financial-services company is a 'cesspool of discrimination' where some females, people over 35 and employees with health problems are harassed, belittled and 'managed out' of the company, according to dozens of lawsuits and complaints," say the Post—which even goes back to recall a mid-90s incident in which Michael Bloomberg himself was alleged to have told an employee "If only you had legs and ass like Cybill Shepherd."

But good news! All this may actually improve his chances for a run at the White House, now that we think about it. What will not: hiding out in his grand London pad with Red Ken Livingstone,

Come celebrate the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonment with New York's most elite Jews. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor Elliot Spitzer, DA Robert Morganthau and Top Wall Street Executives, to name a few...

I have 2 tickets to both of the following events:
Rosh Hashanah September 13, 2007
Yom Kippur September 22, 2007

These tickets are only given to members of Congrigation Emanu-El and if you weigh the membership dues against the low, low price of $150 per ticket in section C; you are making out with the best deal of the season. Take a look at what the members pay:

Per Seat Section
$1,290 A
$1,100 B
$960 C
$710 D

Remember 5769 only happens once, why not celebrate at one of the most beautiful houses of worship in the world?

Steam Blast Jolts Midtown, Killing One [NYT] [Image: Jimmy]

During a sometimes-testy hourlong closed-door meeting with the mayor, Senate Democrats said Bloomberg cut off their questions and at times insulted them.

According to two senators, when the mayor was asked a question, he responded, "We sent you a packet of materials on it. Didn't you bother opening your mail?"

"He does not accept criticism and he views advice as criticism," said one Senate Democrat. "He had no answers for complaints that weren't flippant."

ALBANY PUTS BRAKES ON CONGE$TION PLAN [NYP]
[Image via]

Previously: Gynecomastia

The papers are still going nuts over the prospect of a Bloomberg for President campaign, which the mayor swears is not going to happen. (But it might!) (And will!)

Both the Times and the Post shift into overdrive, reporting that Bloomberg's advisors have been planning a run for two years and speculating that his candidacy would draw votes away from the Democrats, which is almost certainly true: Are Republicans really going to pull the lever for a dope-smoking, vertically-challenged Hebrew from the capital of Godless America? Mike better get some platform shoes and marry up a cousin right quick.

Speaking of cousin-marriers, former mayor Rudy Giuliani quipped that "I was the first Republican elected mayor in New York City in 25 years, and I was the first one to remain Republican in 50 years and counting," which at least shows that Rudy remembers John Lindsay. While most people are making Ross Perot analogies, we're going to look a little further back for a historical parallel: In 1936, Louisiana Senator Huey Long had a plan to run an independent campaign against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which would split the Democratic vote and let a Republican take the office. Huey figured that the Republicans would fuck up so badly that the 1940 Democratic nominee, i.e. Huey, would be a shoo-in. Long got shot before he could test the theory, but imagine if he had lived. And had billions of dollars. As we've said, we're not averse to the mayor, but if the cost of seeing him become president is four years of incompetence and folksy bullshit from Fred Thompson, it's a bill we don't wanna pay.

Mayor to GOP: We're through [NYDN]

There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life.

Bloomberg On JFK Plot: 'Stop Worrying, Get A Life' [WCBS]

Bloomberg poised for third-party campaign [Washington Times]
[Image: AP]

Yeas & Nays [Examiner]

has tasked his administration to boost efforts through undercover investigations and inspections, documenting trademark infringements, and using nuisance abatement law to hold accountable the owners of buildings where movies are duped and sold.

Costs up for illegally videotaping films [Variety]

Mayor: Quit Griping [NYT]
[Image: AP]

Rudy Giuliani made an appearance on "Today" this morning to discuss President Bush's State of the Union address. The appearance fueled speculation that - holy crap, did he have some kind of eye job? Watch this brief clip from the interview and see if you can count how many times his peepers pop out or blink. He's definitely looking a little softer around the edges. It's kind of creepy. Okay, it's a lot creepy.

The former mayor is also in the news elsewhere: Mike Bloomberg offers up a shot to the post concerning his predecessor's tenure ("Rudy Giuliani had the executive chef prepare food for his mother three times a week, then would have it delivered to her 10 blocks away. The taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for things like that.") which has got to be considered some kind of pre-presidential race jostling, and Ben Smith takes you on a tour of that leaked campaign dossier he broke news of earlier this month.. We're so excited that there is potentially another year of this stuff before he finally drops out of the race.

The Giuliani Dossier: A Brief Tour [The Politico]
MIKE: GRACIE NOT FOR MAYORS [NYP]

"Yes, you may ask me anything. I work for you, a taxpayer. There's 8 million of you, and I make $1 a year. Do the math, and you can see how much of me you own."

CHARLES AND CAMILLA TO MAKE ROYAL VISIT [NYP]

[Image: AP]

"He said Mr. Greenberg was just a magician who gave out cheap gifts to all the employees at Christmastime, and said, 'What can you expect from him, he's Jewish?'" Gover charged in his complaint.

Bank Boss a Big-Time Bigot, Sez Suit [NYDN]

As a devoted listener of WNYC, and having spent much of my time in New York living in a virtual closet, I was too totally jazzed when tapped to cover the Press Club's Holiday Jumpoff. All these bold-faced names leapt out from the press release: Spitzer, Menedez, Schumer, and (hell-fire yeah!) Chuck Motherfuckin' Scarborough. If heaven is a place on Earth, surely, at least for a few hours, it could be found at the Gilt Restaurant in Midtown. Armed with pad, paper, a few pre-party pills (don't judge - everyone needs a little "courage" once in a while), I was determined to TPC the hell outta that place and do right by Gawker's good name.

Thing is, when I got there, I had no idea which silver-haired dude was which, and apparently name tags are too "sales convention-y" for this crowd. I grabbed a glass of white from a passing tray and put on my thinking cap; sadly, the best idea I came up with was to stand in the back and text-harass the tardy Nikola with plaintive missives such as "for the love of all that you hold dear, please, sweet mother-loving Jesus, get here quick." Apparently, my furrowed brow was like a distress beacon and within mere moments, Press Club members flocked to my aid and began pointing out all the party-frocked politicians a girl could ask for. Click over to the Gallery and be amazed; sycophants can check out Nikola's complete photo orgy here.

New York Press Club Holiday Party @ Gilt [Photos]

The Mayor's Tall Tales [NYT]

[Image via]

Okay, okay, this editor stands five-feet-nine, but the right styling product gives another inch to the hair.

Well, sure, but it'd be tough playing through all the body fragments on the course.

Mike's Ego
More 9/11 vics ID'd [NYDN]

[Image via]

Bloomberg Dismisses Talk of Sale [NYT]
Mike aide carjacked [NYDN]

When asked about the Bloomberg deal, the developers replied, "There have been negotiations with an American high-ranking political figure regarding the purchase of an apartment in the project. If the deal is signed and the property owner wishes us to do so, we will give a thorough update."

If you're anything like us, right now you're thinking, "Please be Koch, please be Koch."

Bloomberg Isn't Buying, but Israel Property Uses Him in Its Sales Promotion Effort [NYS]
New York mayor's new property in Jerusalem [Developer website]

[T]here has been a complete scientific study - from Mount Sinai research that shows that at least 70 percent of the thousands who labored at Ground Zero as first responders reported, and proved, that they had awful trouble breathing or worse.

Mount Sinai and the sycophantic media are no friends of those brave men and women who rushed to the World Trade Center on 9/11 or helped in the cleanup; they are their tormenters. Our heroes deserve our compassion and help for their WTC-related illnesses, whether psychogenic or not. But true compassion begins with informing them there is no scientific evidence indicating they should be sicker than anyone else.

CIG-BANNING DR. BLOOMY FANS THE FUMES OF HYPOCRISY
Media Torment [NYP]

The New York City Health Department issued long-awaited instructions to doctors Thursday for treating and detecting 9/11-related illnesses, including a warning that smoking worsens World Trade Center-related diseases.

Okay, Mike, we get it, smoking bad. Now how about fixing that gaping hole in the ground? Could we get started on that? Thanks!

Guidelines issued for treating WTC-related ills [AP]
[Illustration: David Chelsea]

"I think you can expect me to be mayor through my term and leave political life and try and do something else and continue to make the world better for my kids," he said. Asked whether that was a definite no, Mr. Bloomberg said: "I do not know how many times I have to say I am not going to run for president. But I'll say it one more time. I have no plans to run for president."

Sounds pretty ironclad. That must be why typing "bloomberg08.com" into our browser brings us to the mayor's homepage.

Bloomberg, on Ireland Trip, Rules Out White House Run [NYT]

Well, the Mayor's one of those guys. Sewell Chan reports that Bloomberg puts his suit-wearing down to "64 years of training," and believes that he has "a responsibility to conduct myself in a ways I think the public wants to have its mayor."

On the other hand, it could be worse.

A Mayor Cool Under the Collar [NYT]

"I think in retrospect I probably made one mistake here," Mr. Bloomberg said, as dozens of reportorial ears suddenly pricked up. "The mistake I made was not going out and irresponsibly attacking a company that as far as I can tell had an accident that befell them that they didn't deliberately cause and I didn't go and scream at them in a ways that would keep them from focusing on doing what they should have done, returning the power as quickly as possible."

Were we to do sarcasm, we'd suggest that the mayor look toward his native Boston, where public officials take the fall for terrible events that occur upon their watch, but we're not those kind of people. Also, we're trying to save energy in case our power goes out.

Bloomberg's Mea Culpa (Almost)
[NYT]
Mass. 'Big Dig' chair to step down after collapse [Reuters]
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