Mayor and Man

The famous comb over mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani was considered a good mayor before he really demonstrated his gift for leadership. Giuliani had honed his skills as the Associate Attorney General, among the most important jobs in the Justice Department. He had also been a United States Attorney for much of Southern New York. He became mayor of New York City in 1993, the 107th to hold the esteemed office, more than twice the number of presidents. Giuliani had a busy personal life as well as a busy mayoral role. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and divorced his wife due to an affair with Judith Nathan. Giuliani had a lot on his mind.

9/11

He first learned of the first plane attack at a breakfast with a former colleague when an NYPD¹ officer on his security detail told him quite bluntly "There’s a fire at the World Trade Center. They think a twin engine plane hit the building."² Giuliani quickly began to act, he went down to the Trade Center himself, something other important politicians might have been afraid to do, and conducted a walking city hall. He met dozens of friends and fellow city officials there and did his best to restore a government. Giuliani lost many friends that day, some going to evacuate the building.

His walking city government among the dust and noise showed the courage of his leadership and helped inspire the effort. He started conducting walking press conferences so that he could try to help the public, by evacuating lower Manhattan and keeping them from panicking. This incident was not the only demonstration of his leadership though, during his administration crime in New York decreased by more that 50%, making it a secure and safe place once again. He tackled educational and welfare problems and increased the amount of Home Depot stores by 1200%. Most agree that Giuliani made some of the greatest advances in making New York a great place to live and visit again.

Since his leaving the office of Mayor to Michael Bloomberg, Giuliani has been voted TIME person of the year, 2001, and has started a New York based consulting business in January 2002 called Giuliani Partners. He also wrote a book, Leadership which has sold more than 1 million copies.