2 Years Under Cuomo Proved a 'Lifetime Job'

Midway through Rudy Giuliani’s first term, ex-Mayor Ed Koch—who had endorsed him in 1993 but within two years was having doubts about him—tried to dissuade Mr. Giuliani from forcing out his Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton.

A reduction in crime in the city that began during the final two years of David Dinkins’s mayoralty had accelerated two years into the Giuliani administration. There were four prime factors: more-aggressive policing tactics; the CompStat system devised by Mr. Bratton’s top lieutenant since their time in the old Transit Police Department, Jack Maple; 6,500 additional cops in the NYPD, most funded by the “Safe Streets, Safe City” legislation passed in Albany at the urging of Mr. Dinkins after murders climbed to 2,245 in 1990, and a sharp decline in the use of crack in poorer city neighborhoods as awareness of its negative effects grew.