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Walking to work, Bloomberg denounces strike

BY DAN JANISON | STAFF WRITER

December 21, 2005

Mayor Michael Bloomberg responded to the city's first transit strike in 25 years with an early morning photo-op procession over the Brooklyn Bridge, denouncing the shutdown of subways and buses as "unconscionable and reprehensible."

"I hope the city doesn't have to withstand it for very long," he said as he hoofed over the famous span to City Hall, surrounded by aides, police, reporters and photographers.

On one level it was a re-enactment of then-Mayor Ed Koch's cheerleading of pedestrians on the walkway in 1980, the last time the Transport Workers Union struck. For Bloomberg, there was little interaction with the public as the mayor's retinue jammed the bike path.

"Mike! Let the people through!" yelled an early-morning cyclist. Another shouted a cheery good morning. Before Bloomberg arrived, three TWU members in orange vests and wearing protest signs told a TV camera crew awaiting the mayor, "Mike, where's the bike?" -- a reference to the $600 bicycle he purchased in 2002 but later donated to a child.

Bloomberg said of the strike: "I expected the TWU to act more responsibly. They didn't."

As part of the public show, Bloomberg stayed overnight at the Office of Emergency Management, located in a converted warehouse at the base of the bridge's Brooklyn tower. That's where he held a 3:30 a.m. news conference blasting TWU Local 100 president Roger Toussaint's actions, calling the strike "cowardly."

At 7:02 a.m., Bloomberg departed from the headquarters in the DUMBO neighborhood and walked with others in tow to the bridge entrance. His first act on the landmark span was an interview with NBC.

"Ambulances can't get to somebody in need. Fire trucks can't get to a fire as quickly," he said. But he spoke more cheerfully of the weather, the Christmas season and tourism in the city.

In the morning cold, the mayor went hatless, wearing a sweater under a leather bomber jacket and blue jeans with black shoes. Helicopters whirled overhead as the electronic sign on the Watchtower building in Brooklyn read 24 degrees.

Bloomberg, walking between transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshall and emergency management chief Joseph Bruno, gazed below to the FDR Drive and noted that traffic was moving well -- a tribute, he said, to the four-passengers-per-car rule imposed to deal with the strike.

As the walk neared an end, a group of men dressed in Santa Claus suits near the Manhattan walkway entrance faced the retinue.

They turned out to be promoting an electric massager available by mail order.

Bloomberg reached City Hall about 7:43 a.m. to begin his first day of business without mass transit.