Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Operaman Says Goodbye to Rudy Giuliani- He Might Have Liberated Roosevelt Island From New York State!



Arizona Senator John McCain won yesterday's NY State Republican Presidential Primary. Not too long ago conventional wisdom was that today should have been a triumphant day for former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani following his easy win in the New York State Republican Primary and capture of many delegates in the other Super Tuesday Republican state primaries. Alas, that was not to be. Now it is appropriate to join this 2001 Concert for New York City refrain from Adam Sandler's Operaman and ask Rudy Giuliani - "Why must you ever be gone-y".
Rudy may make a comeback. Nixon did.

As reported in this earlier post and the Main Street WIRE, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani took some baby steps toward the liberation of Roosevelt Island from the State of New York in 1999 during a Roosevelt Island Town Hall Meeting when he proclaimed:
"I'm very much in favor of the City controlling our own destiny... Ultimately, you'll be better off when you can touch it, scream at it, deal with it. The Commissioners are accessible... You're much better off moving more of this back to the City. We'll try."
According to the same article this comment from a Roosevelt Island Resident:
"What we're looking for here is democracy," and an escape from the "bureaucratic quagmire" that is RIOC.
drew this response from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani "I would be very happy to work with you to liberate Roosevelt Island".

If Roosevelt Island had been returned to New York City, we would not have had to go through the election of RIOC nominee candidates concluded last night.

I will miss Rudy not because I agreed with everything he did as Mayor. Whether you agreed with him or not on any issue, he certainly made life interesting and entertaining and on balance New York is a better place than it was because he was Mayor. New York is an even better place because Mike Bloomberg is Mayor now.

UPDATE 2/8- A reader sends in this explanation as to why Rudy did not advance in the Presidential Primaries. Rudy's support of the Boston Red Sox in the World Series certainly did not help his credibility since he is known as the world's biggest Yankee fan.

Video from Boston.com

1 comments :

Anonymous said...

What exactly did Giuliani do between the 1999 town hall meeting and leaving office in December 2001 to liberate Roosevelt Island?