By Philip Newman
That's the appellation Time bestows on Hizzoner in its April 25 issue.”Walls are barriers and my job is to remove them,” Bloomberg tells Time in explanation as to why he sits among his staff at City Hall.Time says Bloomberg “wants visitors to know that he is not your average politician – or even a politician at all. Bloomberg, you see, doesn't really have an office. Instead, he sits alongside much of his staff in the middle of what is known as the bullpen, a large former meeting room now packed with corporate cubicles like a Wall Street trading floor.”Time praises Bloomberg, a longtime Democratic who ran for mayor on the Republican ticket and is now nearing the end of his first term, for bringing down crime, helping the economy and bringing efficiency and transparency to New York City government.”Over the past three-plus years, Bloomberg has trimmed a $6 billion budget deficit (in part by raising property taxes), spurred a wave of new economic development, especially in four other boroughs besides Manhattan, so often ignored by his predecessors, taken control of the city's ailing schools and instituted a uniform math and reading curriculum although the jury is still out on how much that will actually enhance students' educations, improved the city's quality of life by banning smoking from all restaurants and bars, cracking down on noise and creating a one-stop complaint and question line, 311,” the magazine says.For his part, Bloomberg modestly thanked “the hard work and dedication of the thousands of city employees I am privileged to head for the accolade.”Time magazine has recognized that the city is going in the right direction and we are grateful for this honor,” said the billionaire mayor, who made his fortune providing data to investment traders through the Bloomberg news service.”New York City has come a long way over the past four years,” he said. “By making not just the tough decisions, but the right decisions, we've taken our city through a fiscal crisis, put our economy back on track, driven crime down to historic lows, improved our quality of life and begun to reform a school system that failed generations of our children.”The other four Time cited as best mayors were Richard Daley of Chicago, Shirley Franklin of Atlanta, John Hickenlooper of Denver and Martin O'Malley of Baltimore.Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at news@timesledger.com, or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 136.
