Taking Office, de Blasio Vows to Fix Inequity

Taking Office, de Blasio Vows to Fix Inequity

New York Times – Bill de Blasio, whose fiery populism propelled his rise from obscure neighborhood official to the 109th mayor of New York, was sworn into office on Wednesday, pledging that his ambition for a more humane and equal metropolis would remain undimmed.

In his inaugural address, Mayor de Blasio described social inequality as a “quiet crisis” on a par with the other urban cataclysms of the city’s last half-century, from fiscal collapse to crime waves to terrorist attacks, and said income disparity was a struggle no less urgent to confront.

“We are called to put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love,” he said to about 5,000 people at the ceremony, many beneath blankets on a numbingly cold day.

Mr. de Blasio, 52, the first liberal to lead City Hall in two decades, delivered his critiques as his predecessor, Michael R. Bloomberg, whose Wall Street pedigree and business-first approach to governance seemed to embody the city’s current gilded era, sat unsmiling a few feet away.

It was only one of many potent symbols of change that dominated a ceremony unlike many before it.

Gone was the more solemn air of inaugurations past, replaced by the booming strains of disco, soul, and dance music by the Commodores, Marvin Gaye and Daft Punk, spun by a local D.J. stationed high above the audience. (Even Hillary Rodham Clinton, seated onstage, swayed with the music.)

Several of the nation’s pre-eminent Democrats — including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and former President Bill Clinton, who administered the oath of office over a Bible once owned by Franklin D. Roosevelt — appeared with Mr. de Blasio on the dais, celebrating the elevation of a party stalwart with whom they had close ties.

The ceremony was filled with an unusually open airing of the city’s racial and class tensions, including a poem bristling with frustration about “brownstones and brown skin playing tug-of-war,” a pastor’s words about “the plantation called New York,” and fierce denunciations of luxury condominiums and trickle-down economics.

Mr. de Blasio, a careful custodian of his image, took pains to choreograph the appearance of a newly approachable and inclusive City Hall, arriving with his family on the subway and walking onstage to doo-wop tunes. Even the placement of cameras seemed to ensure that only the dignitaries on stage and ordinary New Yorkers arrayed behind them would be shown — and not the many lobbyists and political operatives in the crowd.

And although he warned that his administration’s work “won’t be easy,” Mr. de Blasio made only passing reference to the myriad and daunting challenges — fiscal, political and structural — that he will face in enacting his ambitious policy agenda.

Several of his proposals, including his signature plan to pay for prekindergarten classes by raising taxes on the wealthy, are at the mercy of the governor and state legislators in Albany. Other elements of his platform are expected to be opposed by powerful interests in the city’s corporate classes.

But in his first hours as mayor, Mr. de Blasio opted to focus more on his aspirations for the office, and fulfilling a campaign promise to change the tone of city government on Day 1.

The mayor’s transition team held a ticket lottery so that ordinary New Yorkers could attend the inaugural ceremony, and the City Hall plaza was quickly filled with a diverse crowd that punctuated speeches with impromptu cheers, lending the feel of a jamboree to an event typically more formal than festive.

From her seat in a back row, Justina Taylor, 16, of the Bronx, started singing along with a Jay-Z song. “This is my kind of inauguration,” she said.

Light moments abounded. The young children of Scott M. Stringer, who was being sworn in as the city comptroller, squealed as their father sought to recite the oath of office and drowned out his words. Mr. Stringer laughed: “He’s not quite ready for a television commercial,” he quipped — a sly reference to the celebrity that Mr. de Blasio’s 16-year-old son, Dante, attained after starring in his father’s campaign ads.

Mr. de Blasio, clad in a black topcoat and red-and-white striped tie, was first glimpsed on a stadium-size screen emerging from a nearby subway station, as the song “Boy From New York City” played over loudspeakers. “He’s kind of tall,” went one lyric, a fitting description for the gangly Mr. de Blasio, who at 6-foot-5 is the tallest to hold the office in at least a generation.

Categories: Politics, U.S.

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