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Transition Begins as Bloomberg Meets With de Blasio

By Aidan Gardiner | November 6, 2013 11:24am
 Mayor Mike Bloomberg congratulated Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on his victory at City Hall on Wednesday.
Mayor Bloomberg and Mayor-Elect de Blasio Sit Down Day After Election
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CIVIC CENTER — Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio met his predecessor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday morning after clinching the city's top post the night before.

The two sat across the table from one another in City Hall at 10:15 a.m., just hours after de Blasio defeated Republican candidate Joe Lhota in a landslide victory.

De Blasio, the first Democrat elected mayor since David Dinkins was voted in in 1989, criticized Bloomberg's economic policies throughout the campaign, saying that he had lost touch with working and middle-class families.

The two men did not speak to reporters during Wednesday's meeting.

De Blasio secured 73 percent of the vote compared to the 24 percent Lhota won. The Republican conceeded the election in a brief speech 45 minutes after polls closed at 9 p.m.

"Progressive changes won't happen overnight, but they will happen," de Blasio told supporters at the Park Slope Armory YMCA Tuesday night.

"There will be many obstacles that stand in our way, but we will overcome them."