Mayors Pal And Archivist Says Boss Getting Bad Rap

A close ally of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said that supervising the former Mayors City Hall archives is the equivalent of "doing the Lords work."
Saul Cohen, a partner in the Proskauer Rose Law Firm and president of the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs, angrily rejected published reports that Giuliani is "hijacking" documents that belong to the public.
"The media has complained that it is unusual for Mayors documents to be moved from City Hall to private facilities," Cohen said. "Thats not true. Many other New York City Mayors have done the same thing." He cited the papers of Mayors Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Wagner and Ed Koch.
But a story in the Daily News reported that Koch, at least, played no role in determining what portions of his archives would be made public.
The contract between Giuliani and the City says: "whereas the Mayors official papers, records and other documents…are of great historical significance; whereas in light of their significance, the City desires to properly archive and maintain the documents, so that they may be conveniently available for scholarly research and general public access."
Cohens organization hired a professional private archival consulting firm, The Winthrop Group, to oversee the papers. Its director Linda Edgerly said that Giulianis records have now been inventoried and an archiving plan has been submitted to the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban affairs.
Edgerly estimated that it would take three years before the inventory work is completed. She said that no fee had been arrived at for the work performed by The Winthrop Group.