The Honorable David N. Dinkins, 106th Mayor of New York City (1990-93), in his office at Columbia University. He has taught at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs since 1994.
David Dinkins doesn’t think you, or just about anyone else, can claim to be old—at least in comparison to him. The 106th Mayor of New York City, who turned 90 in July, is still going strong. He hasn’t played tennis in three or four years and now uses a cane, but he remains lucid and witty as ever.
Dinkins continues to teach at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he has been a professor of professional practice since 1994. I took his “Practical Problems in Urban Politics” seminar in the spring of 2010, but I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since. The class, referred to as “Dinkins & Friends” by some students, is a “Who’s Who” of New York City movers and shakers. The semester I took it featured visits by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, Comptroller John Liu, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, and former Comptroller and mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, among others.
I recently sat down with Dinkins to discuss New York City, Columbia’s controversial expansion into Manhattanville, Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. I also asked him how he views his legacy as New York City’s first—and, to this day, only—black mayor.
Before I began asking questions, he asked one of me—whether he’d given me an A in his class. I allowed that he had.
We shared a laugh at that, before diving into my questions. The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
Q: What do you think of the current state of New York City?
Dinkins: “We’re doing all right. We need to work out the problems with the transit. That’s the mayor and the governor. But I have a suggestion on where the city might get money for this purpose: what they used to call a commuter tax. Personal income tax on non-residents who work in the city. In fact, when I was mayor, I was not able to get it, but the cost to the taxpayer is very slight. It’s not the same amount as we residents pay. It’s a very small percentage. In order to get that, you need the consent of the state legislature. The city may not tax itself without the permission of Albany. It’s a difficult achievement because you need the whole state legislature, not just New York City people. And a legislator who lives in the far reaches of the state, they don’t care one way or the other. But the counties around New York City, they care because a lot of those people work in New York City. So obviously they’re not interested in paying any tax at all.”
Q: What did you think of Michael Bloomberg getting a third term as Mayor of New York City?
Dinkins: “I thought he should not have done it. In fact, I called him, some of his people, his aides, colleagues—they didn’t want him to do it. Someone told me they wanted me to tell him. I said, ‘No, I’m not meddling in his politics.’ But they prevailed upon me. So I called him, and he listened politely, and then a few weeks later, he made his move. And I saw him and he said, ‘You see I didn’t take your advice.’ I said, ‘Yes, and you’ll notice I haven’t had anything to say about it.’ The reason I didn’t think he should do it is because the whole city, by referendum, had said no. You don’t take you and 26—meaning, a majority of the City Council—and go in the opposite direction. I told him I thought it would be a negative on his legacy. Mike was a pretty good mayor. I don’t think he should have done it. This is not to say he did not do a sufficiently good job in his third term, but I wished he had not sought it that way. But Mike’s a good guy. And is [Bill] de Blasio. One of de Blasio’s big mistakes early on, for which I blame his staff, is being late all the time. He got a reputation for being late. That’s his staff—I blame them. I said, ‘Damn it, when I was mayor, Bill Lynch [a deputy mayor under Dinkins] would have said, Mayor, you’ve gotta go now! and he would grab me and pull me out.’ ”
Q: Why do you think the Columbia expansion into Manhattanville is good for the neighborhood?
Dinkins: “I think it’s very good for the neighborhood and the fashion in which it is done, although those who oppose it were very vocal and suggested that [Columbia was] going to use eminent domain—and that was utter bullshit. I think there were maybe two, three, maybe four, commercial developments (a storage place, gas station) holding out. Eminent domain was not used to force out any tenant. But I went with [Columbia’s] president, Lee Bollinger, to speak at one of the community board meetings—they raised so much hell that we couldn’t even talk. And then people came up to me afterward and said, ‘Dave, you know, you’re all right with us, we don’t mean you.’ It’s good for the university, and it’s good for the community. Maxine Griffith … she’s an architect and an urban planner. She was executive vice president to Bollinger. She was mindful of such things as to not have a gated community where Columbia was, so people can walk through the university. I think it’s a very good thing. Gentrification anywhere will get complaints because, among other things, the prices go up. Some call it ‘gentrification,’ others call it ‘progress.’ ”
Q: Did you ever think you would see a president like Donald J. Trump?
Dinkins: “No, and I almost still can’t believe it. How could people have voted for him over Hillary? As you know, she got more popular votes than did he, by close to three million. All those people who said, ‘Oh, Hillary—the emails. And, oh, Bill Clinton.’ Are you kidding me? Did you hear what the guy said? … So now we have Trump. And you see what we’ve got—oh, God. … I hope he doesn’t start a war over North Korea.”
Q: Did you ever think we would have a President Obama?
Dinkins: “No, I was pleasantly surprised when he succeeded, although I was for Hillary [in the 2008 Democratic primary]. I was delighted that he succeeded. But, hell, I didn’t think we’d ever have a black mayor of New York City.”
Q: What are you most proud of, as far as your legacy is concerned, and why?
Dinkins: “We’ve been able to do some things for kids, which is my special passion—I love young people. When we took office, the homicide rate in New York City was about 2,000 a year, although some people would write of it as though on December 31, 1989 there was no crime, just the next day when I became mayor, in 1990. But we had a plan, a program, called ‘Safe Streets, Safe City: Cops and Kids.’ The ‘cops and kids’ portion of it had to do with, among other things, what we called the Beacon schools. That went very well. To get the money for these things we had, of course, to go to Albany. We put a surcharge on personal income tax, that’s where we got the money for the cops and the related areas. You’re going to need more police officers, more assistant district attorneys, more probation [officers], and on and on. So we did very, very well. But it was tough to get.
I am proud that we were able to get Madiba [Nelson Mandela] here in 1990. He stayed at Gracie Mansion. I love to tell the story, how I was concerned that the bed on which he was going to sleep might not be sufficiently long because he is a tall man. But it was sufficiently long. It wasn’t until two years later, in 1992, at the Democratic National Convention, I took Al Gore and Bill Clinton to meet him. He had come back from South Africa. A lot of photographs were taken. In some of them, you can see Clinton is maybe a shade taller [than Mandela], and then I realized: the problem was, Mandela, to me, was a giant. It was like he was 10 feet tall. That’s why I was worried [about the size of the bed]. Oh, what a man! After more than 27 years in prison, not a trace of bitterness. Absolutely amazing. …He’s one of my heroes, for sure.”