SPRING 2013 BROOKLYN COLLEGE HISTORY 3480: HISTORY OF NYC BRENDAN O’MALLEY, INSTRUCTOR

1. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York SPRING 2013 BROOKLYN COLLEGE HISTORY 3480: HISTORY OF NYC BRENDAN O’MALLEY, INSTRUCTOR BOMALLEY@BROOKLYN.CUNY.EDU

2. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • FILM CLIPS • Excerpts from Spike Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING (1989) • 1) “Racial Slurs” Montage • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLYTObRhcSY • 2) “Your Jordans Are Fucked Up” • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc6_XgtOQgI

3. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • FROM KOCH TO DINKINS • Koch elected first in 1977, re-elected in 1981, and finally in 1985. • Koch elected first with a cross-racial coalition in 1977 as a “law-and-order” liberal • after the black out and riots. • In 1981, Koch loses some of the minority vote as a fiscal conservative and cutter • of city social services, but gets middle-class and business vote as both Democratic • and Republican nominee. His failed run for governor in 1982 temporarily • weakens him. • In Jan. 1984, Jesse Jackson refers to New York as “Hymie Town” in an interview • with a newspaper reporter. • Koch manages to retire the city’s federal loans ahead of time in 1985, but city’s • poverty rate increases to 23.9 percent; Koch also angered activists of Gay Men’s • Health Crisis (founded 1982), and later, ACT UP (founded 1987). Leading cause • of death in 1985 for New Yorkers between 20-24 years of age was homicide; • between 25-44, it was AIDS.

4. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York Yusuf Hawkins (1973-1989) • FROM KOCH TO DINKINS • Koch wins re-election in 1985, but the 1986 suicide of Queen borough president Donald • Manes soon triggers investigations into corruption, revealing payoff rings in multiple city • agencies: Parking Violations Bureau, Housing Authority, Department of Environment • Protection, the Department of Education, Taxi Commission, etc. • Howard Beach Incident: After midnight on Dec. 20, 1986, four black men are attacked by a • mob of young Italian American men outside a pizzeria in Howard Beach, Queens. Their car • had stalled there. One man, Michael Griffith, was killed fleeing the mob when he was struck • by a car while running across the Belt Parkway. • October 16. 1987: “Black Monday” – stock market crashes 508 points, and 9,000 Wall • Street jobs are lost. • Koch harshly criticizes Jesse Jackson during his 1988 presidential bid. • March 22, 1989: Board of Estimates structure ruled as unconstitutional: against one person/ • one vote. Brooklyn plaintiffs bring the case because more populous than Staten Island or Queens and thus deserves more representation. • On Aug. 23, 1989, Yusuf Hawkins, an African American teen, was killed in Bensonhurst by • a group of Italian American youth thinking Hawkins was meeting a white girl. • On Sep. 12, David Dinkins beats Koch in the Democratic primary, carrying • Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. White liberals support him as a racial healer.

5. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • DAVID DINKINS (1927- ) • After beating Koch in the Democratic primary, Dinkins beats Republican Rudolph • Giuliani by less than 50,000 votes; Giuliani carried Staten Island and Queens. • Dinkins served in the Marine Corps in 1945 and 1946, and then went Howard • University and obtained a law degree at Brooklyn Law. Became involved with the • Harlem black Democratic machine alongside politicians like Percy Sutton and • Charles Rangel. Served as City Clerk from 1975 to 1985, and then was elected as • Manhattan Borough President on his third try in 1985. • In the 1989 election, Dinkins won 90 percent of the black vote, 73 of the Latino, • and 27 percent of the white. • The “Glorious Mosaic”: The 1990 census indicates for the first time that NYC is • less than 50 percent white. • “Great Bull Market”: City economy goes into a downturn in 1990; in Dinkins’s • term, the city lost over 400, jobs. • Dinkins’s reputation as a racial healer is hurt by his failure to act in a 1990 black • boycott of two Korean markets in Flatbush; things get even worse for him in • August 1991.

6. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • CROWN HEIGHTS RIOT • AUGUST 19-21, 1991

7. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • RUDOLPH GIULIANI (1944- ) • Born in an Italian section of East Flatbush, his father Harold had served prison time at Sing • Sing for robbery and worked as a mob enforcer. • Attended Manhattan College and then NYU Law, from which he graduated cum • laude in 1968. Initially a Democrat, he became an independent in 1975 and then • switched to Republican in 1980 to get an appointment in the Reagan Administration, and • was named associate attorney general. • In 1983, Giuliani became U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1983-1989) • and prosecuted high-profile cases like his 1985-1986 “Five Families” trial that employed the • Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). He also prosecuted Wall • Streeters like Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky for insider trading. • Ran as Republican candidate for mayor in 1989 to unseat Koch; he won the Republican • primary but was defeated in the general election by Democrat David Dinkins. • In 1993, he runs a successful campaign to unseat Dinkins with a strong “law and order” • message. He sought and received the endorsement of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. He wons with • a relatively small margin of 53,367 votes. He is the first Republican to win since John • Lindsay in 1965 (Lindsay ran as an independent in his re-election campaigns).

8. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York Amadou Diallo • RUDOLPH GIULIANI (1944- ) • The Mollen Commission that started under Dinkins in 1992 to investigate police corruption • issues its report in July 1994; Giuliani uses it to consolidate three separate police branches—regular, transit, and housing—under the NYPD in 1995. • For governor in 1994, Giuliani endorses Mario Cuomo, a Democrat, over Republican • George Pataki; he saw Pataki as a puppet of his enemy, Senator Alfonse D’Amato. • Institutes a policing policy based on James Q. Wilson’s “broken windows” theory, which is • executed by the new commissioner and former subway police head, William Bratton. Tracks • crime “hotspots” through a computer system known as “CompStat.” Crime rates dropped, • but the degree to which policing deserves credit is highly disputed: murder rate decreased • by half between 1994 and 1996. • The Giuliani-era police force did gain a reputation for brutality, especially toward people of • color. Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was sodomized with a plunger by cops while • inside a Brooklyn station house. Louima claimed that one officer said, “This is Giuliani • time” while committing the act. Amadou Diallo (1975-1999) was a Guinean immigrant shot • by the NYPD on his stoop Feb. 4, 1999 in the Soundview section of the South Bronx. • Patrick Dorismond (1974-2000) was an unarmed security guard shot by the NYPD outside • of a Manhattan cocktail lounge on March 16, 2000.

9. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • RUDOLPH GIULIANI (1944- ) • Giuliani won re-election easily in 1997, but with virtually no African American support. • Blacks overwhelmingly voted for Democrat and Manhattan Borough President Ruth • Messinger, who lost by a wide margin. • Giuliani’s second term often seemed marred by pettiness, but he did increase social • spending as the economy got better. He did famously cut funding to the Brooklyn Museum • in 1999 because of an exhibition he thought showed art that was offensive to Catholics. • Giuliani ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000, but drops out because of his prostate cancer • diagnosis; Hillary Clinton wins. His troubled marriage to newscaster Donna Hanover falls • apart that year as well. • Giuliani was praised worldwide for his strong leadership during the September 11 attacks, • and his reputation was largely restored. He contemplated trying to remove the two-term of • the 1993 City Charter, but after some delay, gives his endorsement to the Republican • candidate, Michael R. Bloomberg.

10. CHAPTER ELEVEN Contemporary New York • MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG (1942- ) • With a divided Democrat field thrown into disarray due to the • cancellation of the primary because of September 11 and with $30 • million of his own money that he spent on TV and radio advertising, • his campaign catches fire. • Born in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, he grew up in Medford and became an Eagle • Scout. He attended Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, majoring in electrical engineering, and then • received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1966. • He worked at Salomon Brothers as an investment banker until he formed his own company • in 1981, which specialized in delivering business information through “Bloomberg • Terminals”; Merrill Lynch was the first to install 22 of these machines in 1982. • His 2001 election marked the first time that two separate Republicans were elected mayor • consecutively in the history of the city. • He easily won reelection in 2005 with a 20 percent margin, the largest by a Republican in • the history of the city.