Discussion
  • Read More
    MaxyPerk4Brendan O'Connor
    6/06/16 8:20pm

    I never thought I’d say this but only the fact that Rudy Giuliani is batshit crazy keeps this man from being the worst mayor of my lifetime in NYC (and I’ve lived through five mayors).

    I mean, that company includes the ineffective David Dinkins (who at least locked up the US Open in NYC for life and so has my eternal gratitude) and Michael stop’n’frisk Bloomberg. It takes some doing to be next-to-last on that list.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      WhatthefoxsaysMaxyPerk4
      6/06/16 9:43pm

      I’m curious why you think he is so bad. I've lived in Manhattan for 17 years and I haven't noticed any drop in quality of life since DeBlasio took office.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      MaxyPerk4Whatthefoxsays
      6/07/16 7:16am

      he’s ludicrously incompentent. Rikers Island is still a cesspit after years of his failed efforts to clean it up. His Police Dept is riddled with corruption and yet he’s utterly failed to rein in the union. Like a political neophyte he antagonized the Republican State Senate majority and the Democratic governor so that the city is getting screwed over in Albany (newsflash Mr Mayor: you need Albany. Trying to campaign for a Democratic State Senate is a laudable goal but not one you should have been doing as mayor. Leave it to others you moron.) He’s done two things right in his entire term as mayor: ending stop and frisk and universal pre-K. He’s completely knuckled under to the loathsome Hasidic bloc — repeatedly delaying investigations that show they are grossly uneducating the kids, especially little girls, in their schools — because they donate to him. He’s wasted time and money on the damn carriage horses because his masters demanded it, despite 95% of the city (a) disagreeing and (b) wanting our damn mayor to actually solve some problems. He’s repeatedly reacted to events rather than led them. He’s a great activist but a terrible leader.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    MeetTheMatzBrendan O'Connor
    6/06/16 6:30pm

    Gawker writes about the horrors of racial profiling; the way the pervasive destruction of the unions and pro-union sentiment around the country is destroying the working class; the way New York under Bloomberg became unaffordable for all but the richest; the chronic and destructive underfunding of the MTA. New York elects a mayor who is (though, yeah, frequently failing) to fix all of these issues and all Gawker can do is write hit pieces about him that replace actual reporting with vague complaints, insinuations of a shadow government and snarky comments about his choice of words.

    Can someone give me actual bad things de Blasio has done to get so much vitriol thrown at him? I know he’s not perfect (far from it). He seems a bit corrupt, though no more than most New York mayors—Giuliani for some reason got a pass on the emergency crisis center he built that was riddled by graft (and was built in the World Trade Center on top of that—which, uh, oops, so much for that) or all the cronyism he perpetrated. He backed down from his campaign promise to address the issue of the insane market for luxury apartments in Manhattan, though it seems like he’s trying to get back to that these days. These are legitimate complaints.

    But the reforms to the police department were long overdue. His unpopularity with the police and their supporters seems to be entirely their fault, not his. The insane slow down, the refusal to face him, the Daily News headlines, all because he had the gaul to call the NYPD on their shit and instruct them to stop profiling and stop killing black folks. He also is trying to undo some of the incredible harm Bloomberg did to the public schools. Similarly, to blame him for the 7 is absurd—that shut down came from the decades of bad management and underfunding of the MTA. Giuliani was the one that started slashing MTA budgets and Bloomberg went on right behind him doing the same. They cried budget shortfalls while, meanwhile, the World Trade Center sat unbuilt for over 10 years, mired in bickering and poor planning, not generating any property or corporate taxes despite sitting on one of the most valuable pieces of property in the entire world. It was this bad management and neglect that lead to the current state of the trains, and the schools, and the NYPD. de Blasio’s New York is one he inherited—the task he’s struggling to fulfill is one of undoing the damage caused by the past four mayors of the city. He has little time to do anything new and good.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      lilopumlyMeetTheMatz
      6/06/16 9:59pm

      Hooray for free pre-k! Can’t understand how he is not getting more credit for that. And I love the pedestrian plazas except for the big-ass planters which he as a tall person might not understand can actually make some of us invisible to cars.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      legaltrutherlilopumly
      6/07/16 10:33am

      His Pre-K program is an excellent idea, but (as with all things dreamed up by someone incompetent to manage them) its implementation has been a disaster. It’s being run by the teachers union, whose management approach is effectively “we’re not here to run a daycare” - even though that is LITERALLY what the universal Pre-K program is!!!!!!!

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Blackie62Brendan O'Connor
    6/06/16 5:30pm

    Gawker, that headline, your doing that “New York is the only city” thing again.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      louboudreauBlackie62
      6/07/16 12:01pm

      It’s the mayor of the biggest city in America.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Gary-XBrendan O'Connor
    6/06/16 5:27pm

    Ugh, hope he can start pulling up those pesky pedestrian plazas to get rid of the rampant nipples on them.

    Reply
    <