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Thursday, Jan 17, 2002

man of the year

"Everyone knows that Rudy Giuliani went out on top, ending his operatic eight-year reign over New York City as the Person of the Year. But hardly anyone noticed that he left behind a parting gift. On his last day in office, Rudy signed an agreement to proceed with the largest corporate subsidy in New York history: up to $1.1 billion in cash and tax breaks for the New York Stock Exchange. Even when the deal was announced three years earlier, it committed money the city didn't really have to a new trading floor the exchange didn't really need in order to generate a new skyscraper no one really wanted in response to a flee-the-city threat no one really believed. And that was before the city began to hemorrhage cash, skyscrapers began to look like targets, and flee-the-city threats began to feel like municipal treason."

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