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Rudy Says Vote for Bloomberg or Dark Days of Gotham Will Return

By Heather Grossmann | October 19, 2009 3:02pm
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at a pensive moment in 2005.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani at a pensive moment in 2005.
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By Heather Grossmann

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani resurrected memories of the crime-filled 1990s while campaigning for Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Sunday, predicting that New York City would be vulnerable to terrorism and lawlessness if the mayor is not reelected.

Giuliani joined the mayor at a breakfast hosted by the Jewish Community Council in Borough Park, Brooklyn, not far from where the stabbing of an Orthodox Jewish man by a black man sparked riots and heightened racial tension in the early ‘90s.

"I worried daily that the city might be turned back to the way it was before 1993 — and you know exactly what I'm talking about," he told the audience of mostly Orthodox Jews, according to the New York Post. "This community remembers the fears, the worries and the crimes — and the great fear of going out at night and walking the streets."

Bill de Blasio, the Democratic nominee for public advocate, denounced Giuliani’s comments as verging on “race baiting.” Comptroller William Thompson’s campaign said that the former mayor was using a “tired Republican campaign tactic” of “inciting unnecessary public fear.” 

The mayor did not say whether or not he agreed with Giuliani’s remarks, instead raising the possibility that without his leadership, New York City could be come another Detroit.

"It went from a great city with lots of good-paying jobs to a city that's basically holding on for dear life,” the mayor said of Detroit, according to the Daily News. “All of our gains are always in danger of being turned around."

Giuliani is not the only one who will be touting Bloomberg’s strong record against crime this week. Several sources say that the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the largest union of police officers, will be endorsing the mayor in the next couple of days.

Fred Siegel, a historian and Giuliani biographer, criticized the former mayor's words and the current mayor's use of Giuliani on the stump.

“It’s smart to have Rudy out there, but not in this way. You want a positive appeal to draw ethnic voters to the polling place. But the overtones here are double-edged," Siegel told the New York Observer. He said the comments were "neither morally defensible nor politically sensible.”