Calling on New Yorkers to cast aside fears and doubts, Rudolph William Giuliani, a former Federal prosecutor who cracked two decades of Democratic dominance of City Hall, was inaugurated yesterday as the 107th Mayor of New York City and promised that his administration would usher in an era of innovation and revived confidence.
"The era of fear has had a long enough reign," said Mr. Giuliani in a speech from the steps of City Hall. "The period of doubt has run its course. As of this moment, the expressions of cynicism -- New York is not governable, New York is not manageable, New York is not worth it -- all of these I declare politically incorrect. Let's not use them anymore."
$2 Billion Budget Deficit
Addressing an audience of 5,000 gathered on a brilliant and crisp winter day, Mr. Giuliani pledged to "summon our courage to raise our hope and to build our confidence." Mr. Giuliani, the first Republican to be elected Mayor since 1966, also asked for a chance to demonstrate his ideas. "Don't let those who are so fearful of transformation stop the process before it begins, killing ideas by fear," he said.
While acknowledging the challenges he faces and the looming difficulty of a $2 billion budget deficit, Mr. Giuliani urged New Yorkers to celebrate their resilience, using the orderly evacuation of the World Trade Center after last February's bombing as a metaphor for the city and for self-help.
'The Best in the Nation'
"It was a day in which 50,000 New Yorkers took charge of themselves and each other," he said, "showing on their own, even before any city worker could help them, that New Yorkers of the 1990's, all of you, have the same ingenuity, the same sensitivity, the same talent and same courage as our ancestors had who built this great city."
But he was also quick to praise the city workers who responded to the bombing as "the best in the nation," although in the past he has called the municipal government bloated and out of control.
As he had throughout his campaign, Mr. Giuliani also vowed fiercely to battle crime and reduce violence. "I will place a much greater emphasis on stricter enforcement of the law to reverse the growing trend of ever increasing tolerance for lawless behavior," he said.
Sharing the City Hall steps with many Democratic city and state officials, Mr. Giuliani was sworn in -- his third such ceremony in less than a week -- at 11:50 A.M. by Federal District Judge Michael B. Mukasey, a longtime friend who is presiding over one case to grow out of the World Trade Center bombing. Mr. Giuliani's towheaded 7-year-old son, Andrew, stood next to him and also repeated the oath.
And when Mr. Giuliani delivered his address, Andrew stood at his side, at one point shouting out a sentence of the speech along with him. Mr. Giuliani's daughter, Caroline, 4, wriggled in the lap of her mother, Donna Hanover Giuliani, a former television news anchorwoman.
With a change of judges to Judith S. Kaye, the Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, the city's two new Democratic officeholders were also sworn into office, Mark Green, 48, as Public Advocate, and Alan G. Hevesi, 53, as Comptroller, the city's chief financial officer.
Although the new post of Public Advocate was intended as a scaled-down version of the former City Council president post, Mr. Green made the most of his new role, as technically the highest-ranking Democrat elected citywide. He delivered a speech that amounted to a second inaugural address, even giving out the mailing address of his office.
"As your first Public Advocate, I may wear you out but I promise to never let you down," he wound up.
A Five-Year Quest
For Mr. Giuliani, 49, a former United States Attorney whose high-profile prosecutions targeted political corruption, Wall Street and the mob, the ascension to the mayoralty was the culmination of a five-year quest and two campaigns against David N. Dinkins, the outgoing Mayor, who was warmly praised by many speakers as he sat prominently in the front row of officials on the steps of City Hall for the ceremonies.
In 1989, Mr. Dinkins won a narrow victory over Mr. Giuliani to become New York's first black Mayor. But after four years of perseverance, Mr. Giuliani triumphed in the rematch, a victory he has attributed largely to his vows to fight crime and restore the quality of life in the city.
The bitter campaign produced a racially polarized result, with Mr. Giuliani winning three-quarters of the white vote. According to exit polls, Mr. Dinkins received 95 percent of the black vote and 60 percent of the Hispanic vote. Political analysts said Mr. Giuliani had largely reassembled the Koch coalition of ethnic white residents of the boroughs outside Manhattan, moderate Jews, and conservative to moderate Hispanic voters.
In fact, it was former Mayor Edward I. Koch, in the front row with a red scarf draped around his neck, who received the most enthusiastic ovation of the day from the audience.
Mr. Giuliani called upon New Yorkers "to look beyond our perceived differences," and he said that he extended his hand "in friendship and love to New Yorkers of every race, religion, ethnic background, gender or sexual orientation."
"I know your diversity," he said. "I respect it, I see it as a source of our strength. But mostly I see us as New Yorkers sharing common interests and common bonds."
Lionel Hampton, the legendary jazz band leader, frail at age 80, helped open the inauguration ceremonies, saying, "Let the festivities begin." Another black musician, the opera singer Harolyn Blackwell, sang the national anthem. And a black minister, the Rev. Charles W. Mixon of the Maranatha Baptist Church in Queens Village was one of the three religious leaders to officiate, along with John Cardinal O'Connor and Rabbi Morris Sherer. But the audience was predominantly white.
Mr. Hevesi, in his own remarks, delivered a blunt invitation for racists to leave the city. "New York's bigots can pack up and leave as soon as possible as far as I'm concerned," he said, drawing applause from the public officials but little from the audience. "And I don't care if they are white bigots or black bigots or Jewish bigots or Christian bigots, or Muslim bigots. We don't need them in New York City. We don't need their poison in the city."
Because the City Charter says that a new Mayor takes office on Jan. 1 but does not specify a time, it has been a tradition for the incoming Mayor to hold a private swearing-in near midnight on New Year's Eve and a public one on New Year's Day. Mr. Giuliani transformed the festivities into a nearly weeklong celebration. He was sworn in by the City Clerk Carlos Cuevas, in the only oath of office that is legally binding, on Tuesday.
He held a second swearing-in at 6 P.M. New Year's Eve in the home of Judge Mukasey. And he moved the formal Inaugural ceremonies to yesterday, Jan. 2, because his many Orthodox Jewish supporters -- liberally represented yesterday -- would not have been able to attend an inauguration held on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. "Rudy promises this will be his last swearing-in this week," said Ron Silver, the actor, who was presiding over the ceremonies.
Attends Mass
Mr. Giuliani began his day at Mass at St. Monica's Church near his Upper East Side apartment, still traveling in the silver campaign van that the police have threatened to take from him as a security risk. He had breakfast with his family. After the City Hall ceremony, he led a chaotic march to the Borough of Manhattan Community College, for a party where soft drinks -- and nothing harder -- were served.
With a Republican taking control of the executive branch and Democrats still running the City Council, odd groupings cropped up all day inside City Hall and among the officials seated in rows for the inauguration.
Raymond B. Harding, the Liberal Party leader who was a crucial early supporter of Mr. Giuliani, spoke happily of the end of the "hegemony" of Democrats at City Hall, even as Democratic members of the City Council gathered nearby. Democratic City Councilman Michael DeMarco chatted with State Republican Chairman William Powers. And Democratic Gov. Mario M. Cuomo talked animatedly to the woman next to him -- Mr. Giuliani's 84-year-old mother, Helen.
