It’s not a simple case of “like father, like son” when it comes
to Rudy Giuliani.
Rudy’s father, Harold Giuliani, spent time in Sing Sing for
armed robbery. In contrast, as U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York, appointed by President Reagan, Rudolph
Giuliani targeted and prosecuted the heads of New York’s five mob
families — Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino crime family;
Carmine Persico, head of the Colombo crime family; Tony Corallo,
head of the Lucchese crime family; Philip Rastelli, head of the
Bonanno crime family; and Tony Salerno, head of the Genovese crime
family.
Selecting Rudy Giuliani as its Person of the Year for 2001,
Time magazine included the following information on
Giuliani’s father in its “Mayor of the World” profile: “By
conventional standards, Harold Giuliani was not a great man. In
1934, he was arrested for robbing a milkman at gunpoint in the
vestibule of a Manhattan apartment building. A court-appointed
psychiatrist diagnosed him as an ‘aggressive, egocentric type.’ He
served a year and a half, and then went to work as a bartender and
enforcer for his brother-in-law Leo D’Avanzo’s loan-sharking
operation, according to court documents and eyewitness accounts
uncovered by Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett.”
As the case against the top bosses of the New York Mafia began,
Rudy Giuliani explained his strategy and objective in simple terms:
“Our approach is to wipe out the Five Families.” In equally simple
terms, he described his overall mission: “To make the justice
system a reality for the criminal.”
The “reality” in this case turned out to be hundreds of years in
prison terms for eight top-level New York mob bosses. Prior to
leaving the courthouse and never to see freedom again, Corallo
offered the traditional “Cent’Anni” toast, “May we live 100 years.”
Replied Lucchese family underboss Salvatore Santoro, “I think it’s
time to get a new toast.”
Arguing that it’s a mistake to “socialize the responsibility for
crime,” a mistake to turn the explanations for crime into excuses
for crime, Giuliani stresses individual accountability rather than
collective culpability: “We elevate human beings by holding them
responsible. Ultimately, you diminish human individuality and
importance when you say, ‘Oh, well, you’re not really responsible
for what you did. Your parents are responsible for it, or your
neighborhood is responsible for it, or society is responsible for
it.’ In fact, if you harm another human being, you’re responsible
for it.”
Said another way, Giuliani didn’t use his neighborhood or his
mob-connected in-laws or his father’s criminal past as an excuse
for failure.
In 1993, he became the first Republican in a generation to be
elected mayor of New York City. In 1997, in a city where Democrats
hold a five-to-one registration advantage over Republicans,
Giuliani was re-elected with nearly 60 percent of the vote.
By the time his eight years were completed, overall crime in the
city (rapes, assaults, burglaries and car thefts) was down by 64
percent, the murder rate was reduced by 67 percent, taxes were cut
by 20 percent, the squeegee men (windshield cleaners who coerced
drivers into giving them money at traffic lights) were out of
business, the city’s economy was growing faster than the nation’s
for the first time since World War II, Times Square was no longer a
porno district, tourism had increased by 50 percent, the city’s
payroll was cut by 20,000 jobs without layoffs, construction
permits had increased by 60 percent, the mob was gone from the
Fulton Fish Market, the city’s unemployment rate had dropped from
10.3 to 5.1 percent, 640,000 fewer people in the city were
collecting welfare, and an inherited $2.2 billion budget deficit
was turned into a multibillion dollar surplus.
Prior to Giuliani’s election, between 1990 and 1993, taxes in
New York City had been raised by $1.5 billion and the city had lost
340,000 jobs — 192,000 in 1991 alone, the largest annual job loss
ever experienced in an American city.
To reverse the downward spiral, Giuliani eliminated or reduced
23 taxes, saving individuals and businesses a record $8.1 billion.
The result was a record 450,000 new jobs created in the city’s
private sector within seven years and a 55 percent increase in
overall personal income. “Tax reductions spur growth,” explained
Giuliani.
All told, not a bad step up from Sing Sing in one
generation.
