The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg

by Eleanor Randolph

  The property owners also worked the streets, passing out flyers with disturbing photos of rusty holes in the beams and heavy debris that looked ready to drop on members of the fashionable set just beginning to discover the area. One flyer said, “Five engineering firms have said the High Line is dangerous. Take it down before someone gets hurt.”6

  Mastro sent a follow-up letter to Doctoroff warning that property owners were “adamantly opposed to attempting to preserve the Highline [sic] as a trail park, and they view such a trail proposal as a ‘pipe dream’ and an impediment to economic development in the area . . . Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how such a proposal could possibly become a reality in the face of adjoining property owners’ unanimous and unwavering opposition.”7

  The Mastro people seemed to be winning in the courts and even inside the Bloomberg administration. A state court issued an order that might have given the city more authority to tear down the structure, and a representative of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, a group in Doctoroff’s bailiwick, expressed some relief. “It’s about eliminating a public safety hazard,” Janel Patterson of the EDC told reporters. “But it’s also about enabling the city to move forward and better develop the area.”8

  Once again, destruction loomed. But advocates for the High Line had a surprise waiting for the naysayers. In late 2002, they put out a report titled “Reclaiming the High Line.” It made all the arguments about how great the elevated park would be, but the big news for most people was at the front of the book. The foreword was written by Michael R. Bloomberg, the new mayor of New York City.9

  “Today, on the West Side of Manhattan, we have an opportunity to create a great, new public promenade on top of an out-of-use elevated rail viaduct called the High Line.” The mayor had spoken.10

  For High Liners it was a reminder that Bloomberg had made them a promise about the railway park when he was running for office in 2001. One of the original advocates, Joshua David, had paid $20 to go to a breakfast session and ask the candidate about the possibility. He was so nervous, he wrote his question down and read it over and over before his chance to ask it. David described the High Line, called it a unique opportunity, and asked the candidate if he supported turning it into a park.

  Bloomberg did not hesitate that day. “Yes,” he said. “It’s a no brainer.” Bloomberg followed up by signing a letter to the railroad that read, in part, “I’m running for mayor, and I support the High Line so please don’t take any action to threaten it.”11

  With memories suddenly restored about how the mayor viewed this venture, the odds shifted again at city hall. Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden and Vishaan Chakrabarti, then city planner for Manhattan, began to work on the details. City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, whose mother, Lynden Miller, was one of the city’s premier urban gardeners, gave his support as well. Their problem? The railway owner, CSX, wanted what seemed impossible. Battling a lawsuit by the property owners near the line, rail executives made it clear that they would only release the High Line to the city if every single property owner agreed to drop the suit. It was a classic tangle that most city officials would have resolved with a quick call to the demolition crew.

  Not Bloomberg. He had given his word and he expected his development team to “figure it out.”12

  Burden and Chakrabarti spent months trying to get approval of the property owners and, in the end, they essentially bought them off by creating a new zoning district. The Special West Chelsea District became a complicated mix of air rights from the railway park and new rules that would allow builders to build far higher than the previous industrial limits. Burden proposed allowing the developers to add even more height if they contributed to the High Line or created plazas or loggias—open walkways—through their buildings.13 The rigid industrial zoning would disappear, making way for housing or offices near an entirely new park. It did not take long before the landowners realized they had suddenly won the zoning lottery. Property near the park became prime real estate. Their parking lots or storage vaults were suddenly worth a fortune.

  On a sweltering June day in 2009, a beaming Mike Bloomberg cut the ribbon on the High Line park he had endorsed eight years earlier. He was surrounded by dignitaries including Diane von Furstenberg and Barry Diller who had contributed $20 million to the new venture.14 The state had put up $400,000 and the federal government pitched in $20 million. But the Bloomberg administration had put in the most, adding about $112 million including the money Doctoroff and Bloomberg had spent in the city’s financially shaky early years to shore up the literally shaky structure.15

  When it opened, though, Bloomberg knew it had all been worth it. “Ten years ago, detractors thought the High Line was an eyesore,” he said, adding that the visionaries who “recycled” the railway had presented an “extraordinary gift to our city’s future.” With oversized scissors in hand, he declared that “today we’re about to unwrap that gift.”16

  It was indeed a gift to the city. When Bloomberg left office, you could wander along the High Line and see its plantings of 350 species of perennials. There were views of the Hudson River and a nice panorama of what was once the rough terrain of refrigerator plants and cobbled streets for Manhattan’s butchers and meat handlers. One high-rise hotel with windows facing the High Line became a particular attraction for a while when guests seemed to enjoy appearing in nude to shock park visitors.17

  The park was free and often crowded, and by 2018, the railway was drawing as many as seven million people a year from around the world. Even Bloomberg’s successor finally visited the park in 2017. Bill de Blasio, who had made a point of staying away from what was clearly a Bloomberg success, eventually toured the city attraction with a herd of schoolchildren whose main job seemed to be helping him avoid the media. Begrudgingly, it seemed, de Blasio managed to christen at least one section of the prized park “very cool.”18

  By then, the High Line had more than paid for itself. City officials at first estimated that the building boom in the area would bring in about $30 million a year. Instead, real estate taxes from the High Line neighborhood reached $100 million in 2010 and were expected to bring the city an additional $900 million over twenty years.19 There were new buildings on almost every corner, and new apartments were anything but cheap. 20

  One of the most strident opponents of the High Line and a leader in the group working hard to destroy it was Jerry Gottesman, a New Jersey real estate baron who owned parking lots around the New York City area. Gottesman owned land around the High Line including a large parking area beside the old railway. He had purchased the underused land in the early 1980s for $2.4 million. When he finally dropped his opposition, the city began to create the park. And in 2014, Gottesman sold his property for $870 million.21

  While the area improved considerably with the High Line, there were housing projects nearby that did not get their share of attention. Some advocates for the park lamented that it brought an economic boost to everybody but those on limited incomes who could not afford groceries in the swanky new shops in their area. These advocates suggested that some of those rich tax revenues should go to help the people who can’t afford the luxuries around them.

  For city lovers, there is another worry that the railroad will become a canyon, a thin green line surrounded by tall, opaque buildings. The desire for an apartment or hotel or office building near the beautifully landscaped railway could become so intense that developers would block the views of the park and the river for all but their own fortunate residents. The High Line’s creators insist they have made it impossible for developers to create a dismal pathway through the area. But the city is a living beast, and if Bloomberg and Burden could change the zoning to create the High Line, a new crowd of city officials could adjust it again to wall off the park.

  That said, the High Line was a clear Bloomberg success and an example of how he saw one big part of his job as mayor. As he told the British conservatives, government’s role is “to create
conditions that will allow development to take place.”22 The High Line fit that requirement almost perfectly.

  20

  FROM LOW POINT TO LANDSLIDE—2005

  “You always want to press, and you want to tackle issues that are unpopular, that nobody else will go after.”

  —Bloomberg, on low polls as mayor1

  It was clear to anybody who watched the mayor buzz from event to event, making policy pronouncements, cutting ribbons, even snarling at the press, that Michael Bloomberg loved being mayor of New York City. It was not so clear that New Yorkers felt the same way about him.

  To begin with, Bloomberg was competent but not lovable. The property tax increase was so jarring that at one point he earned a 24 percent approval rating, the lowest for any mayor since the New York Times had been polling such questions. To a city full of Democrats, he brought in the Republicans—the Republicans, mind you—to renominate George Bush for president at the Republican convention in 2004. Hundreds of protesters were arrested that week, and some were so roughed up by Ray Kelly’s police that the city eventually paid nearly $18 million in settlements.2

  With the city souring on their billionaire mayor, Bloomberg had a ready supply of quotes to explain his sudden unpopularity. Besides the staple about the short attention span for the media—i.e., “Eventually even Monica got off the cover”—he could be more serious. His version was always: If everybody loves you, you’re doing something wrong—or doing nothing at all. Or, if you don’t fall, you’re skiing on the baby slopes. Great, his political advisers grumbled, but if nobody loves you by election season 2005, you go back to private life. Instead, the savvy political team scrambled to find ways to make their candidate palatable.

  One afternoon in early 2004, two of Michael Bloomberg’s most seasoned aides slipped out of a city event and reconvened at an Irish bar in uptown Manhattan. Marc Shaw, now the first deputy mayor for operations, and Bill Cunningham, the mayor’s communications director, were dressed in their business attire that day—suits, ties, good shoes, the works—and the regulars suddenly grew silent and eyed them warily. “They thought we were the Feds,” Cunningham recalled with a chuckle. Instead, the two were trying to figure out a way to help the mayor politically without hurting the city’s finances, and after a few rounds of Dewar’s for the budget man and Jamesons for the media expert, they hatched a solution. They would not cut the property tax, now a stable source of funds for the city. But since there was extra money coming in, they would give some of it back to the voters as a kind of annual bonus.

  Their plan was a classic political solution—a rebate, a check with the mayor’s name on it to offer taxpayers a little relief. It was a modern version of the roasted turkey or fifth of bourbon handed out by the politicians of old. When they brought the idea to Bloomberg, he saw the deal as a cheap political ruse. Cunningham remembered the mayor’s first reaction. He said, “Cunningham, you’re crazy.” So Cunningham, Shaw, the budget director Mark Page, and a city lawyer began working on the mayor, showing him exactly how it could be done. The average homeowner’s property taxes increased by about $400, so why not send a $400 check to every homeowner who paid that much more in taxes. That would include owners of houses, co-ops, and condo apartments—many of them Bloomberg voters. Renters got zilch, and commercial real estate got zip. Even Donald J. Trump got a $400 rebate on his gilded apartment. “That is just wonderful,” the future president sniffed after he complained about commercial real estate taxes in the city. “Today that buys one tank of gas.” For a limousine, maybe.3

  With approval from Albany, the city gave out relief checks every year from 2004 to 2008. It cost the city about $250 million a year in rebates, but, more important, Shaw and company preserved 80 percent of the revenue from the property tax increase.4

  After grumbling privately about the checks as a political gimmick, when the first batch of over 600,000 went out to homeowners in September 2004, Bloomberg looked like the real winner. He stood beside a large cardboard version of the $400 check, like one of the mock-ups for lottery winners. This was not a gift from the mayor’s office, he insisted; he was returning people’s own money.

  When journalists pointed out how big his name was on the mock-up, he grinned. “For some reason, they put my name on it, too. It doesn’t hurt.”

  It also didn’t hurt later when another round of checks went out in October 2005, a few weeks before Bloomberg was facing reelection.

  * * *

  Bloomberg’s staff never expected an easy slide into a second term. Many Democrats saw him as an outlier, the accidental mayor who only won last time because the city was busy nursing its wounds from 9/11. Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx Democrat, was the early front-runner who vowed to become the city’s first Hispanic mayor.5

  Plus, even after four years, Bloomberg was still awkward on the campaign trail, and his speeches read a lot better when he wasn’t the one reading them. He didn’t see political opportunities naturally, like an old pro. New York’s senior U.S. senator Charles Schumer recalled being at an event with the mayor when they spotted a sweet-sixteen party, a crowded celebration for a young teenager. Schumer said he told Bloomberg, “Come on, let’s go. Parents vote.” Bloomberg, however, was reluctant. They weren’t invited, he said. Wouldn’t politicians ruin such a personal event? Schumer practically dragged him through the door, and once inside, the mayor worked the room so expertly that aides were tapping on their watches, trying to get the two back on the road. As they emerged, Schumer remembered that Bloomberg was elated. “They loved me,” he said, clearly surprised.6

  It also helped that Bloomberg quickly bumped his only Republican competitor from the city ballot. A former city council member, Tom Ognibene, submitted what he thought were enough signatures to challenge the mayor in the Republican race, but Bloomberg’s operatives quickly moved in and challenged every name, ultimately bouncing Ognibene from the ballot. It was a stunning turnaround from when Bloomberg complained that it was time “to end this ‘gotcha’ kind of technique when lawyers comb petitions to find some technical violation.” He was talking about such attempts to keep his friend Senator John McCain out of the running for president in New York in 2000. When he had changed his mind, Bloomberg told the Times, “The law is the law. You either follow the law, or you don’t.”7

  There had been harder lessons for the businessman-turned-mayor. Only one union had openly supported Bloomberg in 2001—the correction officers. To be reelected this time, he needed more. One way was to give the workers better, cushier contracts since the city’s finances were getting back to normal. In April 2004, Bloomberg had announced a tentative labor agreement with DC 37, the city’s union of public employees with more than 120,000 members.8 That agreement included a $1,000 lump sum cash payment for every employee, a 3 percent retroactive wage increase for the previous year, and 2 percent plus an extra 1 percent if the union agreed to productivity changes. The total one-time cost to the city was $73 million plus an extra $98 million a year.9 A year later, the union endorsed Bloomberg for reelection. Some union members argued that the endorsement—which came in mid-July—was made before the Democrats had even chosen their candidate. Wayne Barrett, the city’s watchdog at the Village Voice,was particularly outraged. His article was illustrated by a picture of a goofy-looking Bloomberg holding up a T-shirt that read “Everyday Heroes.” Barrett’s headline read “Billionaire Buys Union.”10

  That endorsement was like a quiet announcement that the 2005 election was over. The loss of DC 37 for a Democratic candidate for mayor meant that a full legion of campaign workers had defected to the Republican side. Even worse for the Democrats, Bloomberg and Randi Weingarten, head of the United Federation of Teachers union, negotiated a contract that boosted teachers’ salaries considerably and gave principals more power over which teachers worked in their schools. It was not perfect, but it was a good deal, and to the chagrin of the Democrats, the UFT did not endorse that year.

  The Bloomberg team was not ready to
relax, of course. They would fight through Election Day. They would spend $85 million11 of his then net worth of $5.1 billion to tout his successes ($11 million more than in 2001)—the smoking ban, the mayoral control of schools, an economy that had revived, a city budget that was looking good for the next few years. Crime was down. Garbage was picked up. The city was humming along at a comfortable pace for most people.

  In the end, voters agreed that Bloomberg should keep running the city. He won by a stunning 20 percent of the vote, landslide territory. Out of 1.3 million ballots, Bloomberg got 753,089 votes to 503,219. The Democrat Ferrer had tried a campaign warning that New York had become a tale of two cities—the few rich and the growing poor. (It failed Ferrer, but Bloomberg’s eventual successor, Bill de Blasio, used the tale of two cities theme to win in 2013.)

  * * *

  Two important events would stand out among those many changes during those next four years as mayor. He began the fight against guns and the National Rifle Association (see chapter 16), increasingly getting other mayors to join him. And in 2007, he launched another mission that would carry him through the next decade and beyond. Welcome Michael Bloomberg, environmentalist.

  Bloomberg made his real debut as one of the city’s most active environmentalists during a dazzling event on Earth Day in April 2007. Under the ninety-four-foot-long, fiberglass replica of a blue whale12 at the city’s Museum of Natural History, Bloomberg enjoyed praise (on video) from California’s then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the room packed with city dignitaries, including most of the environmental advocates in the region, Bloomberg announced 127 separate initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases and improve the environment as the city was expected to add a million people by 2030. It was called PlaNYC—A Greener, Greater New York, and it was widely viewed as one of the most ambitious city plans to deal with everything from transportation to air and water quality to the changing climate. Bloomberg promised to push for fewer cars during rush hours, to plant one million trees, to paint more roofs white to save electricity, to demand cleaner heating oil, clean up brownfields, add housing.13 Every year until he left office, Bloomberg would issue a progress report, a reminder of how far the city still needed to go.