As Mayor Bloomberg runs -- most would say cruises -- to a third term, it's fair to say that most New Yorkers know very little about the man who rules their city with almost dictatorial power. Joyce Purnick, a former reporter and columnist for The New York Times, has written the first comprehensive biography about our mayor called Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics.
I can't wait to read this book. Sounds fascinating. Purnick is a great writer and she has found a subject that offers to tell an amazing and mostly unknown story. How did a Jewish kid from suburban Boston, whose origins were very humble, become one of the richest and most powerful men in New York City -- and America? How did he accumulate his billions and then use them to shape the greatest city in the world? Truth be told, until know, we have known very little about this man and that's why this books is so important.
You can't compare Mike Bloomberg to most of our previous mayors because we've had so few mayors like him. Most mayors work their way up through the political process, serving in various elected and appointed posts in government before scoring the big chair in city hall. Not Bloomberg. He never served in government before shocking the political world and winning in 2001, right after 9/11. And he brought to this public position -- a job almost two hundred years older than the US presidency -- a totally different viewpoint and way of doing business that has revolutionized city government.
Nor can you even compare Bloomberg to people like the Rockefellers and Astors, etc., people who, like Bloomberg, built great fortunes and businesses. Unlike Bloomberg, these people never sullied themselves with the dirty business of politics and government. But Bloomberg has and has used his economic and political power to shape this city like no mayor before him.
Is Mike Bloomberg the greatest mayor this city has ever had? Only history will say. But it's clear he's very one of a kind. And as this upcoming book concludes, as far as our mayors go, Bloomberg "fits no paradigm, sets no precedent."
I can't wait to read this book. Sounds fascinating. Purnick is a great writer and she has found a subject that offers to tell an amazing and mostly unknown story. How did a Jewish kid from suburban Boston, whose origins were very humble, become one of the richest and most powerful men in New York City -- and America? How did he accumulate his billions and then use them to shape the greatest city in the world? Truth be told, until know, we have known very little about this man and that's why this books is so important.
You can't compare Mike Bloomberg to most of our previous mayors because we've had so few mayors like him. Most mayors work their way up through the political process, serving in various elected and appointed posts in government before scoring the big chair in city hall. Not Bloomberg. He never served in government before shocking the political world and winning in 2001, right after 9/11. And he brought to this public position -- a job almost two hundred years older than the US presidency -- a totally different viewpoint and way of doing business that has revolutionized city government.
Nor can you even compare Bloomberg to people like the Rockefellers and Astors, etc., people who, like Bloomberg, built great fortunes and businesses. Unlike Bloomberg, these people never sullied themselves with the dirty business of politics and government. But Bloomberg has and has used his economic and political power to shape this city like no mayor before him.
Is Mike Bloomberg the greatest mayor this city has ever had? Only history will say. But it's clear he's very one of a kind. And as this upcoming book concludes, as far as our mayors go, Bloomberg "fits no paradigm, sets no precedent."
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