New York Foreign Press Center Briefing
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Welcome to New York. For those of you that live here, keep spending a lot of money. We really need the sales tax. Let me just talk for a couple of seconds about what's going to take place in the next week. This is going to be a very trying time for the families of the 2,800 people who died 51 weeks ago and there's nothing the city can say, really, that will either bring back those we lost or express our condolences. And the fact of the matter is, there were some people who found everything that America stands for so threatening that they took 2,800 lives to try to destroy it. Let me assure you they have not and I'll be happy to talk about the recovery effort.
America was founded by people who wanted to be able to go practice their religion and say what they wanted to say and be in control of their own destiny. And that spirit lives and we will rebuild, we will remember, but we are not going to walk away from our responsibility to make a better life in a better world for the people who were left behind or, through the grace of God, the terrorists never touched.
The ceremonies really commence this Friday, when Congress is coming up to New York City to have a joint session of Congress and pass a resolution expressing the nation's solidarity with New York City, and I will take the opportunity, as will the Governor, to thank all of America for the help that they have given New York City. The act took place in New York City, but it really was an attack on the city, the state, the country and everybody in the world who values their freedoms. And it's a bittersweet moment. It's nice to see Congress come up here. It's a good chance to say thank you for all of the federal aid that's been pouring in. The sad part of this is that if we hadn't had 9/11, they wouldn't be coming. But it's going to take place in Federal Hall, which is built on the site where our first President, George Washington, was inaugurated.
There was a time when New York City was the capital of the country and then Congress picked some land that Maryland gave to them. Washington, D.C., is now where the technical capital is for government, but I think it's a fair statement to say that the capital of business, and culture, and entertainment, and journalism and media -- whatever -- is right here where we walk.
The formal ceremony on 9/11 will be run where we're going to try to do two things, and when you try to do that, it's always difficult to strike a balance, but I hope we've found the right balance. We are going to look back and look forward, both, on the same day. The looking back is to remember those that we lost and the looking forward is to show that our spirit is not broken and to get people to focus on what we have to do in terms of rebuilding.
There are a variety of different events that take place in different locations. Each one is trying to symbolize something different. The event itself actually starts in the middle of the night, midnight, one in the morning -- something like that, where we're going to have bagpipers and drummers from all five boroughs start walking to the World Trade Center site. And the reason for that is that the people who we lost in the World Trade Center site came from all five boroughs. They came, actually, a lot from Connecticut and a lot from New Jersey, and we've included them later in the ceremony. But the help, the firefighters and police officers and port authority police officers that came came, really, from five boroughs, so you're going to see a drummer and a bagpiper walking and we will (inaudible) them because it's a long walk, but they start in the far reaches of all five boroughs and walk and they should arrive just before the time in the morning when the first plane hit the first tower.
We will have a ceremony where the Governor is, who was the Governor when the planes hit and has really carried this city and state through a very trying time with, I think, great leadership. The Governor is going to read the Gettysburg Address. The Gettysburg Address was written by Abraham Lincoln. Some people say we should go and have new oratory. I can't think of anything more appropriate than to have something like the Gettysburg Address. When you read it, you'll see that everything that was said about a battlefield and the losses during the Civil War really applies today and I think it's a nice balance between the country's history and patriotism, and yet expressing the emotions that we all feel.
After that the, my predecessor, Mayor Giuliani is going to start a process where in the roughly hour and three-quarters between the time the first plane hit and the time that the second building came down, we're going to read all 2,800 names of those who died. Rudy was the mayor back when the tragedy occurred. His leadership is legendary and I think all the good things people say about what he did in the sense of pulling us together and carrying us through are well deserved. He really did it -- he and the Governor, and that's why they're the two keynotes, really, in the beginning of the ceremony. Rudy will start to read the names and then we will have roughly 200 people, some family members, some elected officials, some people who ran organizations that helped, some people that have made a big difference going forward and cleaning up and recovery, and that sort of thing. And they will alternate in groups and back and forth and we hope in the hour and forty-five minutes read all the names, and if it goes on a little more we'll stop and then pick it up again.
We're going to have a moment of silence and perhaps a poem or something, but we're going to mark the four significant times: the start of the tragedy with the first plane, the second plane, the first building coming down and the second building coming down. And then we will finish that part of the ceremony with Governor McGreevey who's the governor of the state of New Jersey reading some excerpts from the Declaration of Independence. This is an appropriate time to express our patriotism and I can't think of anything other than the Declaration of Independence that says what America is about.
"We the people …," it's really America in the ways that I don't think any other country is. There will be a time where church bells will ring in a variety of discreet events, but also from the time we start reading names, we're going to let the families walk the ramp into the actual World Trade Center site and place a flower in a structure that we're building so that they can go -- you have to remember that there are a large number of families who have never had any remains recovery. And so, in a very real sense, they are where their loved ones is or was.
In the afternoon there are lots of different individual ceremonies: companies are having their own and different organizations are having their own. I'm going to spend the time visiting some firehouses and police stations where we lost some very brave people very tragically, but on the other hand, they did mount the most successful rescue effort in the history of the world. 25,000 people got out of those buildings alive and only 2800 did not. A terrible price to pay, but without these great people, the carnage would have been much worse.
In the evening at the, at Battery Park, which is where we placed the sphere that was outside of the World Trade Center buildings in the big plaza and was damaged when the buildings came down, but survived, we've placed that as a temporary memorial down in Battery Park and I will go there, we'll have the Governor and the predecessor, Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani standing there with me and I will light an eternal flame and we will, we've invited representatives of all of the countries that lost people, there were 91 different nationalities among the 2800 people that died; and we have some other countries visiting New York City because of the General Assembly of the United Nations opening the next day and we've invited heads of state there, as well.
There are countries that lost people and countries that didn't lose people; and there are lots of countries that offered help to New York City. And it's not always just the countries that lost. Some countries didn't lose anybody -- still were very generous and we wanted to let all of them participate.
The Secretary General of the United Nations will participate and the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, will participate, and we'll light a series of candles from the eternal flame. And then we are going to have gatherings in each of the five boroughs and the big parks, Central Park and Prospect Park and Smith (sp) Harbor, Flushing Meadow Park and -- is one of them, where we've asked local cultural groups to perform. Music varies from very serious music that would be appropriate when you are mourning, to more patriotic music, living -- looking to the future. What I'm trying to do is to get that balance that I talked about between looking back and looking forward.
After 9/11, we have to make sure that we build a great memorial and do not forget those we lost. We also have to really start focusing more on the building of the future so that the children and siblings and spouses and parents left behind have a better world. In the end, there's nothing we can do to bring back those we lost. But what we can do in their honor is improve the school system and make the streets even safer than they are and New York the safest large city in the country and one of the safest in the world, but there's always more to do.
We have a housing problem. We don't have enough housing. We don't have enough jobs. We lost some jobs because of 9/11 and we've got to get those back. And so we'll come out of this, I think, looking forward, but we want to make sure that we don't forget. So that's what's going to take place on 9/11.
There will be -- the President will come and participate. It's not quite sure exactly what yet, but he'll announce a schedule and it will be as good a chance as we can to say thank you at the same time -- for all the help at the same time, say we're not going to forget. We have invited the senators from both Connecticut and New Jersey since both states lost a lot of people here. We've invited the Governor of the state of Connecticut to come, you know, if he can, but we'll try to have as much of a balance as we can. That's what we're going to do. I think it will be a solemn day. But I think it's a necessary day to go on. And to the extent that you write or file stories for people around the world on behalf of all New Yorkers, to say that we're touched is vastly understating it.
We are deeply appreciative of all of the help that people from around the world offered. Some of it we couldn't use, but the gesture is what's important. Some of it we did need and we got, and it really made a difference, so I can only hope that we as a society, as a worldwide society, look and see what terrorists can do and make sure that we don't allow terrorists to ruin everything that civilization has built since we started recording history. I'd be happy to take some questions if anybody has any, and I don't know quite where to start but other than the front row and then I'll come over to you two.
QUESTION: I believe there's still and effort in place to try and determine the exact number of the victims. I think that there are some, maybe duplicate numbers or people that might be missing. Do you have, like, the numbers as they stand today?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well, the last time I checked it was 2,800 and 10-ish. When you're dealing with large numbers of people, these numbers change and will probably continue to change. The greatest dream we could have is that we find some of the people that are presumed dead living elsewhere in the world. Why we not want to, why would that not be our greatest dream? Nobody hopes that the number is what it is. We hope that it's overstated and we're trying to make sure that we investigate every single person. We're also working very hard with the most modern technologies through our medical examiner's office to try to identify using DNA all of the bodies. But until we have identified every single person, those efforts are not going to stop. There will be a point where our technology just can't get anymore and hopefully, down the road somebody -- some scientist will come up with something that is more accurate and we can go back and identify. I'm terribly sympathetic to those who don't have a body to grieve over, but that's just the kind of accident that it was.
Yeah, the striped shirt first and then (inaudible).
QUESTION: Yes, sir, (inaudible) Switzerland (inaudible). I'm still intrigued by the fact that none of the politicians within the tri-state area is going to hold a speech on this momentous day. I wonder how did that come about? Did you want to prevent competition or because --
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Do you want me to answer the question or do you want to make a speech? It was totally my decision. I think that the families probably didn't want this to be a political event. Having said that, I think from a practical point of view elected officials have an appropriate role to play. I think the Gettysburg Address, the Declaration of Independence, and I'm going to, in the evening read less than a minute's worth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" speech, which I think talks to the future of what America is all about. I think these are appropriate things to do.
The President, if he gives a speech, will clearly give a speech. And that's -- he's the right person to do that. He is the leader of this country and I think he's doing a fine job. And he's the one that's leading the fight against terrorism, which we just have to win because we don't want this ever again. But the decision to read three great, very American things, sets of words, was totally mine and I think it's exactly the right thing and most people do. Speechwriters don't because they didn't get any business other than that.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Mastroelli (sp) for the Italian leading newspaper La Stampa and the Vatican Radio. Could maybe Mayor Giuliani just say that Ground Zero is a cemetery and according to him should be completely devoted to a memorial? Do you like, now, what do you think about that? What do you think about the plan to rebuild Ground Zero?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well, Mayor Giuliani has had that position from the first time I heard him speak about it. He thinks that all 16 acres should be kept as a memorial. I do not. I think that the needs of those left behind require us to build. I think that the greatest memorial that we could build to those that we lost would be a better world for those they left behind. We will clearly build a memorial and I hope it will be, I hope that generations from now, decades from now is the first time you'll really know, you only, with having some time before you can look back, I hope the memorial will be one people will say, "I remember those that were that were lost and I understand why they died." And those are the two things that I think a memorial should do. What that memorial will look like, I have no preconceived notions. But I do thing that we want to have housing and schools and jobs for those left behind and I certainly will push for a mixed use of that site, but I think the memorial has to be something that is, since it sits next to other development, it has to interact with that development and the development has to interact with it. And so none of these things are done separately. There are as many different ideas as we have people. That is one of the most wonderful things, not just about American, but particularly about New York, and you will come to know the longer you stay here, if there are 8 million people in New York, there are probably 9 million different ideas. That's our great strength.
All the way in the back. Yes. Blue shirt.
QUESTION: (Inaudible).
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: There are always in a dangerous world the threats of people destroying others. I hope our security forces and intelligence forces work well enough to keep great tragedies from ever happening again. I think, however, that what most people should focus on is the day-in and day-out things that will prolong their lives.
People die because they don't wear seatbelts. People die because they drink when they're intoxicated. People die when they smoke. Most of us will have to deal with the world at that level and try to keep ourselves and our families safe. In terms of large-scale things, some things we have plans for common sense reasons, no security service or intelligent government would ever discuss them. Some things, there just are no solutions to: radiation pills, everything I've ever read about them basically say that they are relatively ineffective. They're only effective against one kind of cancer and if you have a significant risk of getting that cancer, you've got lots of other things to worry about. The danger is that we let the terrorists win by letting the press sensationalize possibilities that have always been there and will always be there, but are relatively unlikely.
New York City is blessed with the world's greatest police department. We focus on intelligence gathering and counterterrorism measures, I think, probably better than anyplace else. But I don't think that we should for a second let our guard down, nor do I think that if you live someplace you should let your guard down. The fact of the matter is you are probably much more safer living right here in New York City than you would be anyplace else in the world. I certainly believe that and my family and I live here.
Sir.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Baryshkov (sp), Russia's newspaper (inaudible). I have heard from police officers that to New York took a blow for the whole country. Can you tell me what do you think about how long does it take to heal the wound?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well some wounds never heal. My father died when I was 23 years old. I'm 60 years old and I still feel his loss. But over a period of time your mourning goes to a different level. You don't forget, but you don't cry either. I have nothing but great memories of my father. I know my sister does. I know my 93-year-old mother does. And that's just the healing process. And some people do it quickly and some people do it slowly. The great tragedy is, I've always thought, are those that never feel it to begin with, or those that let it consume their lives. You have to go on, particularly if you have children to raise, and that sort of thing.
So with time, you don't forget. You just get on with your life and do something -- you have to do, it seems to me, what the deceased would have wanted you to do. And I don't know of any deceased that I've ever thought wanted the families to not build a better life. That's what they died for. They gave their lives because our lifestyle is so threatening to some people, it would be a terrible tragedy and just not fair to those we lost to not look to the future.
In black, yes.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) from Portugal. What do you think about making September 11th a holiday, a national holiday or a state holiday? Did you --
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: I've gone against making it a holiday. I think we tend to have holidays and turn them into a vacation day. And this is certainly not an event that I want to see remembered by people at the beach or playing a round of golf. I think that the best thing that we could do as a memorial to those that we lost is to come back and show the terrorists that we are strong, and that we are building, and our schools should be open so we can educate our kids, our churches and temples and mosques should be open so people can pray, our offices should be open so that we can build. I think it -- I've always thought it was not a great idea.
Sir.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Lanski (sp), Russian Television. What was the main lesson for the city's security agencies, the lesson of 9/11, in how far the security should go before it prevents the city of growing -- the city businesses of growing?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well I think it's fair to say that nobody anticipated this kind of a terrorist event. What the, we did have one of the two or three best consulting firms in the world, on a pro bono basis, did a study of how we responded, both the police department and the fire department. The most impressive thing in the report, at least to me, was that on 9/11, while hundreds of firefighters died -- 343 -- many times that responded and mounted this great rescue effort along with the police department and the port authority police department and the court officers. During that time, with all the equipment and all the resources that were focused downtown on the World Trade Center site, in the rest of the city, roughly 2300 times a fire truck or engine was required to be dispatched and the response time was less than one minute worse than it was on a normal day. So the fire department and the police department did a great job downtown, but they also did their usual great job throughout the whole city, and fundamentally what we -- in looking back -- found, is that we did it right.
Would you have done it differently? Of course you would have done it differently. But you're never going to have a chance to relive the same experience or have the same terrorist activity. Hopefully we can prevent another major problem. And the next major problem is much more likely to be an accident as opposed to terrorism. But what we have to do is constantly improve our training, our management skills, our communications, our planning, our interagency cooperation, all of which we're doing, so that we can respond to as yet an ill-defined, undefined, unnamed event someplace we don't know at a time we least expect it. And as I say, it's more likely to be an accident than anything else. But I think we did learn that we did a lot more things right than wrong and there are things that we can do better; and the most important thing is that we don't, don't find ourselves afraid to ask difficult questions and to look at our behavior, examine it and be open enough and comfortable enough with the decisions that we made to say hey, if we did it again, what else could we do?
Miss. Down here.
QUESTION: (Inaudible). Only one-third of the companies who used to work at the World Trade Center have returned to Wall Street and a report said today that 9/11 has cost $96 billion. How do you expect to recover from this?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well I don't know, number one, I don't know whether the numbers are right. There no ways to -- we were going into a national economic downturn. If you take a look at the unemployment rate and the vacancy rate for office buildings, they both had been going up since mid-year 2000 and 9/11 exacerbated that, but it was a trend that was taking place and so an awful lot of the job losses downtown are, for example, Wall Street contracting and that has not a lot to do with 9/11. It has to do with the economic effects of 9/11, but that was an industry that was contracting. They'd been through an enormous boom, bubble, however you want to describe it, and they were coming out the other side of that.
Yes, it's true that only a third of the companies within the World Trade Center buildings themselves will come back, but remember, an awful lot of the companies that lost their offices are waiting for rebuilding, for rebuilt space. Those that were outside of the World Trade Center buildings and were forced to move out for a period, the vast bulk of those have come back. The vacancy rate keeps going down. Battery Park City, where a month after the tragedy there were articles in the paper saying, "I would never want to live there," "Nobody's going to want to rent my apartment, buy my apartment," -- Battery Park City is 95 percent full with a waiting list and they're starting three new buildings. So the resiliency of New York and New Yorkers is quite strong. It still is the place that you want to go to raise your family, to get an education, to get medical care, to enjoy all of the cultural developments over the centuries and the terrorists haven't taken that away. They've made it more difficult for a brief period of time. Business is coming back. The number of job losses has been coming down each month and there's no reason to think that that won't continue. I think if you want to know the best days of New York, they are tomorrow and the days afterwards as opposed to the days before. Real estate prices are another measure of people's confidence in New York City. I don't think real estate has ever sold at this price before. It just keeps going up and up. People want to come back to New York City and one of the most exciting things is that I hope we're doing something about improving our school system; and that will get more and more people wanting to come here. We've continued to bring down the crime rate.
I inherited a very low crime rate. Giuliani's administration did an enormous amount of reducing crime and everybody said, oh, you won't be able to maintain it. They were right. We didn't maintain it. We reduced it further. Major crime is down another six percent; murder rate's down another 14 percent. Welfare rolls continue to decline in New York City, and both the crime rate and the welfare rolls are going up in most other major cities because of the economic downturn, but in spite of the economic downturn, which has certainly hit New York City and hit us hard. So those two rates continue to go down, so I really am very optimistic. We have budget problems to get through. We'll eventually get the tax base back up. Wall Street will come back and so will other industries.
But nobody's moving out of New York City. What you found when the 13 million square feet of office space were destroyed and 23 million square feet of office space was damaged. The vacancy rate in lower Manhattan went up. Now, that wasn't because companies left. Companies can't move overnight. I don't know if any of you know how companies work, but that's ridiculous to think that a company can move overnight. What happened was there were a lot of people who, in anticipating growth, had rented whole buildings and they were sitting there, they were paying rent on them, they were vacant. They were just speculating that they were going to need the space, and then they panicked and said, we don't need the space, and they put it on the market. But I know of almost no company that's moved out of Manhattan, out of lower Manhattan, and I would argue any company that did is really being very shortsighted. There is a reason why you want to have your company in Manhattan. There are two reasons, and there are only two. One is that your competitors, customers, suppliers, the media that covers you are all here. It's the critical mass issue that you have to be where the action is. In a lot of businesses that really does make sense. You can't do it totally separately.
For all of the talk, I'm sure all of you wrote stories about the e-mail world where we were going to work from home. Well, people working from home is a concept that has come and gone and there is more interaction for all of the expert communications we have where you get all the e-mails and voicemails and everything, the number of face-to-face contacts in business meetings has gone up, not down, thank you very much. The number of phone calls, where people actually talked has gone up, not down. But that's one reason, that critical mass. The other reason why you want to have your company here is that this is where the workforce that you need to succeed wants to live and work. And that's why I want to build more housing, that's why I want to focus on schools and clean, safe streets. I think if you do that, I don't have any doubt in my mind -- companies aren't going to be able to move from here. In fact, if you ever want to write an insightful piece, do a study about companies that have moved out of Manhattan and how well they have succeeded. You will be shocked at how few -- there are a handful -- but you'll be shocked at how few have done well.
It sounds easy to move out, but it's hard because you cannot, you can even take your people with you if you've got tough economic time for a day, or for a month or for a year. But let the economy improve and you are not going to get the people that you need wanting to work in the suburbs. They want to work where, for the cultural events, with the stores and the restaurants, where the action is. And there's no place that remotely comes close to New York City. If you want to work in a city that reflects the world, 40 percent of New York City was born outside of America. It's quite amazing. This is the place where companies that are going to succeed have to be. They really don't have any choice.
Back there in the red sweater.
QUESTION: Jane Standley (sp), BBC. I don't know if you've seen around the World Trade Center site. There seems to be, well, every time I go down there, there are more and more vendors selling memorabilia for the World Trade Center and some of it in questionable taste, certainly. And today there's, over the last three days the vendors say that they're being deliberately moved on and moved away in the run-up to September 11th to kind of cleaning operations because of the visitors that are coming to the city. I mean is that a deliberate policy? Do you know about that and would you approve of it if were for days?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: We have a series of laws that allow people to sell what they want to sell. Generally there are exceptions, but generally. Your definition of tasteless may not be somebody else's definition of tasteless and here in America, we don't have an official standard of taste. We allow everybody to set their own. I find a lot of it tasteless, but that's my personal view.
I don't know whether I find the people that sell some of this junk or the people that buy it more despicable, but it's not what I think should happen. Having said that, the laws protect some and don't protect others. We have registration, licensing for street vendors, and we're trying to enforce those rules and regulations and sometimes the law doesn't work as well as you'd like. Sometimes, like a balloon, you push it in and another side goes out, but the city is trying to enforce the laws on street vendors to the extent that we can. Having said that, it is a free country.
So what else? The lady back there. Hang on, we'll get a microphone all the way over to the side -- running around.
QUESTION: Mona Gannei (sp) with Voice of America radio. Actually, my question is about the General Assembly beginning on September 12 and the security of New York. How, I guess, how confident are you of foreign dignitaries that are coming to New York during these things for them?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Do you really expect somebody to say, "Oh, I'm not confident at all"? (Laughter.) I mean, could I just ask you the question? Think about what New York City has done since 9/11. We've held a marathon, a World Series, a Macy's Day Parade, the Times Square celebration on New Year's, which included my inauguration. We held the World Economic Forum where, and in every one of these events, two things have been true. It's been a very safe city and we have allowed people who want to express themselves to do so, but in a manner that does not impinge on the freedoms of others. I don't know of any other city in the world that can boast the ability that our police department has shown to balance the rights to be free and express yourselves with the necessity for public safety. This city remains the safest big city. I have no qualms whatsoever. Tomorrow night I'm going to go to Times Square where the NFL, the big football league, is going to kick off their season with a celebration (inaudible) Times Square is cleaned up. The peep shows have gone. The crime rate is so low it's hard to measure sometimes. This is where you and your family can come for good, wholesome entertainment.
The next day, we have Congress here. The following week we have the 9/11 ceremonies, a full day, two or three days (inaudible) two or three days after we have the General Assembly. Every one of these events are events that will be difficult for any other city to host. Not only will you be safe, not only will you continue to be able to express yourselves, but most people would go to work and go to school and go to -- and enjoy entertainment and lead normal lives. The rest of the city is so vast and it is so competent and people work together in ways that we're going to host all these events, do it safely, and everybody is going to go on with their lives who doesn't want to participate. I just came from a press conference with Governor George Pataki where we gave a year's summary of where we stand today in terms of the economic development, not the development of developing a memorial, and we have to remember that one of the most biggest priorities is to remember those that were lost, but there is an economic development and should -- and if you go to www.lowermanhattan.info, you can see the presentation that the Governor and I gave to the US press corps about two hours ago. But it's very impressive (inaudible) the transportation is virtually all back with the exception of (inaudible) which is really (inaudible) December of '03. We have (inaudible) the ferry service, we've redone the roads, we've done all the infrastructure for electrical and communications and gas and water and those kinds of things. We've had a lot of economic stimulus activities for businesses and outreach programs for people who need counseling or need help when they've lost their jobs. They've done an enormous amount.
I've only got time for one or two questions (inaudible).
QUESTION: (Inaudible) could you tell us about the (inaudible)?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Yeah, I mean, I think (inaudible) you grieve internally. It's your own emotions. And my company lost three employees. They were on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center. They've never been found. And I guess my biggest memory was having to call the families and tell them that their sons, in one case a woman's husband, was lost. Not easy calls to make, but I think that's the most personal thing to me. Of all of the firefighters and police officers that died, and I've been to, I don't know, probably about 25 funerals since and given eulogies at most. I went to another police officer's funeral this morning, although he died from an aneurysm in the line of duty about a week ago. Of all of them, I knew one firefighter, happened to know him, and I thought about that guy as well.
But, you know, you look at the building and it's very impersonal (inaudible) and that's why you have to step back when you meet one of the family members and understand that it's easy for us to say let's go keep building, and we have to do that. But you have to remember that if you lost somebody that is a family member, there's an emotional component that's really hard to describe unless it's your emotion.
And we have time for two more questions. I'm trying to spread it around. The gentleman over here.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) newspaper, Brazil. You mentioned briefly some of the (inaudible) that the city (inaudible) accept as (inaudible).
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well, if somebody offered blankets, for example, the weather wasn't cold, we didn't need them. I mean, it's that kind of thing. Or people that wanted to send us a fire truck, but it's a fire truck that doesn't fit our standards. It's that kind of stuff. Or people wanted to send some of their citizens to help work and our problem was we had so many volunteers it was keeping them down to a manageable number and deploying them in the ways we needed it. It's that kind of thing.
(Inaudible) microphone (inaudible).
QUESTION: (Inaudible) about the future (inaudible) and today there were two more people (inaudible) how do you deal with that? And do you think the problem will be (inaudible)?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well, I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't know whether we'll come up with the ways to stop the virus. This is a virus that's spread by mosquitoes. We've had a very active program of putting larvacide into standing water, getting rid of standing waters, and then spraying. Some people don't like spraying but it's -- we happen to have the Commissioner of the Department of Public Health, one of the top two or three people in the world in terms of epidemiology. Tom Friedman (ph) is one of the luckiest catches this city ever made when I put together an administration. And his considered judgment is that it's dangerous and we'd be better off spraying, but people can help by looking around their properties and if there's any standing water, getting rid of it. It's very tragic what was a New York problem has now become a countrywide problem. I believe there's only been one fatality in New York but there's been a number down in Louisiana and other states. And it's going to be -- (end of Side A) -- go to the hospital. It unfortunately is a disease that (inaudible) elderly (inaudible) and die, and unfortunately if you take a look at (inaudible) who and where the fatalities are, they're (inaudible) almost (inaudible).
Back here, I guess.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) Germany (inaudible) spoke about (inaudible) and how (inaudible) the great job (inaudible) pulling the people together (inaudible). How would you describe your role as the new mayor (inaudible)?
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Well, my role was to take what I inherited and take it on to the next level. All of us build on what came before. None of us do anything alone. I think it's fair to say that Rudy is -- he was a great mayor, but when you talk about Rudy Giuliani, to some extent you're talking about a symbol of an awful lot of people that he assembled or that were there from his predecessors that really did the work day in and day out. And I would like to think that I have put together the best team any mayor has ever had. I have the luxury of inheriting the progress that Rudy made, the misfortune of inheriting the aftermath of 9/11, but I have a unique opportunity now to focus on some things that Rudy didn't. He had to focus on crime. Because he did such a good job and because I've got the greatest police commissioner I think this city's ever had, crime is something that I can leave to the police department, and my focus has been on public education. And I've been very lucky in having the Governor and the state legislature give me the authority that I need to be able to effect changes that I hope a year or two from now you'll look back and say, you know, I never thought anybody could change public education this much to the good, the same ways we look back and say I never thought anybody could improve the crime problem the way Rudy Giuliani did. So I have an opportunity, he had an opportunity. He was dealt a hand by his predecessors, I was dealt a hand by him. But I think Rudy is one of these people that loves his city and he's been my biggest supporter. And so nothing but good things about him. And I think all of those things actually are justified. Rudy stood up, and not everybody agreed with him, and a lot of times Rudy Giuliani stood up in the (inaudible) years before 9/11 he was in office, those were the tough times. Everybody supported him after 9/11. He had to do the work, but there was nobody fighting him. It was the government of all the years before that (inaudible) an awful lot of times (inaudible) Rudy was standing there alone and (inaudible) strength of his personality and the depth of his beliefs and feelings (inaudible) awful lot (inaudible) during his (inaudible) eight years and not just in the last months.
Anyway, I guess I'm on to the next event. Thank you very much and I will just urge you (inaudible) 9/11 try to remember the two things that (inaudible) people really have to (inaudible) have to remember and explain why (inaudible) future and make sure that it doesn't happen again.
God bless.
