Two days ago, Congressman Michael Grimm wrote a letter to the New York City Department of Transportation urging them to name one of their three new Staten Island Ferry boats after former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Giuliani is quite excited about the proposal.
At a press conference this afternoon condemning anti-gay attacks against Councilman Eric Ulrich in his GOP primary for a Queens State Senate seat, Mr. Giuliani and the four Republican Council members present remained fairly subdued and quiet. However, when Politicker asked Mr. Giuliani about the potential plan for Staten Islanders to take the Rudolph W. Giuliani in their daily commutes, the atmosphere became jubilant.
“Koch got a bridge and he got a boat!” Mr. Ulrich joked.
“We’re renaming Staten Island for him!” Councilman Vincent Ignizio quipped.
For his part, Mr. Giuliani pleasantly stated, “Anything connected to Staten Island I’m very proud of. Staten Island made me mayor. So to the extent that people didn’t like me as mayor, they can blame it on Staten Island. To the extent people liked me as mayor, they’re going to have to give Staten Island, and Queens, credit for my being re-elected. I was sort of foisted on the city by Staten Island and Queens.”
Mr. Giuliani went on to jokingly lament that the honor of having a boat named for him won’t come with free tickets because he eliminated the fare during his time in office.
“I think that’s wonderful,” he said. “It would have been a lot more important when you had to pay a fare on the ferry, but some stupid mayor took the fare away, so I won’t even get the break of being able to go on it free.”
The former mayor also took a trip down memory lane and reminisced about all the campaigning he did at the ferry terminal with the borough’s previous representatives, as well as the current one.
“Given the amount of time that I campaigned at the Staten Island Ferry with Guy Molinari and Susan Molinari, with Michael Grimm–we go way back,” he said. “Many, many mornings when I was Mayor, I would get up at 5:30 in the morning because Guy Molinari would drive me crazy if I wasn’t on there on time. If I was late, I would hear this, ‘You’re so damned important now, now that you’re the damn mayor, you couldn’t be on time to greet these people at 6 in the morning?'”
There was also some direct praise for Mr. Grimm in Mr. Giuliani’s answer.
“I think that’s very nice,” he continued. “Michael Grimm is a great addition to our political firmament here in New York City. He’s a great congressman, he’s been a great representative. Of course, I admire his career as an FBI agent having been from law enforcement myself.”
Given Mr. Giuliani’s clear excitement, we’d hate to see what happens if the DOT doesn’t accept the proposal to name one of the ferries after him.
