Rudy Giuliani: The Quintessential Control Freak

• Published in: The New York observer (New York, N.Y. 1987)
• Main Author: NYO Staff
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, N.Y New York Observer, LP 04.02.2002
• Subjects: Giuliani, Rudolph W
• ISSN: 1052-2948

  After eight years as one of the most formidable and successful Mayors New York City has ever known, Rudolph Giuliani is still incapable of overcoming a quirk in his character that leads him, time and again, to cast a shadow over his own achievements. After accomplishing something remarkable, such as guiding the city through Sept. 11 and its aftermath, Mr. Giuliani inevitably does something loopy and incomprehensible that makes city residents scratch their heads. The latest eruption of Mr. Giuliani's particular madness occurred during his last week in office when, rather than turn over the mountain of Mayoral papers and artifacts from the past eight years to the Municipal Archives (as Mayors before him have done), he quietly made arrangements to place them with a private nonprofit group controlled by ... [Rudy Giuliani]. Talk about a cheap ending: Not content with worldwide acclaim, Time magazine's "Man of the Year" overreaches and decides that he alone must control what materials historians will have access to when they start sifting the history of New York circa 1993--2001. While Mayors prior to Mr. Giuliani have placed some of their personal papers out of public view, none has claimed control over the thousands of documents, photographs and artifacts that are generated during a Mayor's time in City Hall. Indeed, these items remain city property, yet Mr. Giuliani managed to cut a deal, approved by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which will let him decide who gets to see what, with access to the materials to be controlled by something he calls the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs. If Mr. Giuliani does not wish to make certain documents available, historians, journalists and the general public will have to go through the lengthy process of filing a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Historians, aware of the Giuliani administration's record of trying to keep even routine information from the public eye, predict a whitewashing of history. It's bad for the city to have the record of such a crucial time subject to the whims of any one person, particularly an ex-Mayor who has shown himself impatient with versions of reality that differ from his own.