New York mourns its first Black mayor, David Dinkins, 93
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Leaders and residents across Manhattan
continue to mourn former Mayor
David Dinkins, the first Black man
ever to serve the highest executive office in
New York City, who died on Monday night
at the age of 93.
Dinkins was elected mayor in 1989
after defeating then three-term incumbent
Mayor Ed Koch in the Democratic primary,
and besting then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani
that November.
The next four years would be among
the toughest in city history. Dinkins often
referred to New York as the “beautiful mosaic,”
and labored to end long-simmering
racial tension throughout the city. He
championed equality, and welcomed Nelson
Mandela to New York in 1990, just
weeks after the South African civil rights
icon had been released from prison.
Yet the racial tension never fully faded,
and Dinkins struggled to heal the wounds
reopened following the Crown Heights
riots of 1991.
Dinkins also led the response to the
first terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center in February 1993, when evildoers
ignited a giant bomb in the underground
parking garage of the Twin Towers, killing
six people and injuring hundreds.
The crack-cocaine epidemic in New
York also led to a peak of more than 2,000
homicides in 1990, and Dinkins worked
closely with the NYPD to turn crime
around. Though his reforms led to modest
reductions in felonies, it wasn’t enough to
shake the city’s crime-riddled reputation.
As a result, Giuliani came back in 1993
to defeat Dinkins in the general election
and deny him a second term in office. Yet
history would prove kinder to Dinkins,
as some of the programs born during his
brief tenure at City Hall spurred the city’s
comeback in the years that followed.
Dinkins helped lead a cleanup of Times
Square and lure the Walt Disney Corporation
to invest in the Theater District, turning
the notorious red light district into a familyfriendly
tourism and entertainment mecca.
His administration also oversaw reinvestment
in the housing stock of long-ignored
areas such as Harlem and the South Bronx.
A huge tennis fan, one of Dinkins’ prime
achievements in office was approving the
construction of Arthur Ashe Stadium at
the National Tennis Center in Queens’
Flushing Meadows Corona Park. The deal
kept the annual US Open tournament in
New York, and the city reaps hundreds
of millions of dollars every year from the
two-week competition.
It would take Democrats another 20
years before recapturing Gracie Mansion
with Bill de Blasio’s triumph in 2013. De
Blasio had campaigned for Dinkins in
1989, and would serve as a City Hall aide
the following year.
De Blasio remembered Dinkins as a
personal mentor who “simply set this city
on a better path.”
“He was my mentor, he was my friend,
and his steadfast commitment to fight for
Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins
that “gorgeous mosaic” inspires me every
single day,” de Blasio tweeted on Tuesday
morning. “We’ll keep up his fight.”
Born in 1927 in Trenton, New Jersey,
Dinkins briefly moved with his family
to Harlem as a child, but they ultimately
wound up moving back to Trenton. He later
served in the Marine Corps following his
high school graduation in 1945, and would
later go on to get his degree from Howard
University in Washington in 1950.
Dinkins came back to New York and
graduated Brooklyn Law School in 1956.
Over the next two decades, he became active
in politics in his home neighborhood
of Harlem and joined a group of four
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
influential Black politicians including Percy
Sutton, Basil Paterson and Charlie Rangel,
then known as the “Gang of Four.”
Sutton and Dinkins also co-founded
Inner City Broadcasting, which purchased
WBLS radio and was one of the first
American broadcasting corporations entirely
owned by African Americans.
Dinkins would later serve as president of
the city’s Board of Elections between 1972
and 1973, and as the New York City clerk
between 1975 and 1985. That year, he was
elected as Manhattan borough president.
The former mayor was preceded in death
by his wife of 67 years, Joyce, who died just
last month.
RBG honored in the East Village with public art
BY TEQUILA MINSKY
Dominating the E. 11th St. corner,
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s visage —
three stories high—looks up First
Avenue. The mural commemorates this
Brooklyn native who sat on the Supreme
Court for 27 years, and whose death in
September left many of us bereft.
Intrepid muralist Elle was spotted on
Instagram (@ellestreetart) and recruited,
her artistry joined in partnership with
the LISA Project NYC to create this huge
public homage to RGB.
Previously, Shepard Fairey’s “Rise Above”
mural painted four years ago resided at this
site. The wall ravaged by a bad pipe burst
and predictably weathered; Fairey’s mural
was taken down the end of last month.
On Nov. 9, the mural homage to Ruth
Bader Ginsburg began. In addition to
a facial portrait of Ginsburg and her
iconic white collars, symbols abound: Lady
The East Village mural of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Justice, a detail from Congress’ rotunda
ceiling, the statue Contemplation of Justice
at the Supreme Court, the Brooklyn Bridge
arch. By November 17, street artist Elle was
adding finishing touches, spray painting the
PHOTOS BY TEQUILA MINSKY
lettering that represent names of legal cases
Ginsburg worked on.
In addition to this monumental art piece,
there are smaller and equally heartfelt public
art works honoring Justice Ginsburg in the
Intrepid muralist Elle
East Village. The First Street Green art installation
curated by Centrifuge Public Art
Project displays two portraits of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg in the passageway that connects
First Street with the Houston St. side. Lexi
Bella painted a black and white portrait of
Ginsburg and Bianca Romero a color portrait.
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