Bloomberg was the city’s greatest modern mayor, say the city’s greatest documentarians
Ric Burns lays out the case for Mike Bloomberg’s place on the mountain top with Fiorella LaGuardia.
Twenty-five years after signing off with a sweeping history of New York City from its first Native American settlers through the late 20th century, and two years after inspiring my most niche tattoo, Ric Burns has returned to New York: A Documentary Film. This time around, he’s tackling the city’s post-World War II and post-9/11 decades, with two new episodes that stretch his 17-hour history of New York into an almost day-long viewing experience.
A quarter of the way through the 21st century, Burns and his production partner James Sanders find a city that escaped the downward spiral that sucked in so many other port and industrial cities in America. And they put the credit for that resurgence in two distinct sets of hands: the rush of immigrants that settled in the city in the back half of the 20th century, and Mike Bloomberg, a man they say was as great a mayoral figure as Fiorella LaGuardia.
“The things that have happened in the last 25 years, I feel that with [Mike] Bloomberg, there is not going to be much of a change in the understanding of the Bloomberg administrations,” Burns explained in a recent episode of FAQ NYC featuring himself and Sanders, and guest hosted by none other than me, Dave.
