Saturday, March 11, 2023
The much-maligned Rudy Giuliani was, in my view, an excellent mayor in New York, especially during 9/11 and its aftermath. (We belonged to the same cigar club in Manhattan, and he was back then a gregarious, friendly guy with everyone who approached him. Obviously, things changed.)
One of his beliefs was that you stop major crime by stopping smaller crimes (e.g., jumping turnstiles and not paying for the subway, shoplifting, blocking intersections, and so on—there were serious fines for blocking intersections). Today, the city’s own bus drivers block intersections with impunity, and some prosecutors are actually claiming that shoplifting merchandise below a certain threshold won’t be prosecuted at all.
New York was once the safest large city in the world. No more.
