This morning I learned how to take the subway. I had to buy something called a MetroCard, which looks like a thin credit card and has a cash value. I swipe my MetroCard in a slot at the subway turnstile, and it allows me access to the NYC subway system.
This Morning I am taking the 1 Train downtown, to the Mayor’s office. The Mayor is the head of the Executive branch of the local government. His office is in City Hall.
CITY HALL BUILDING
The current Mayor of New York City is Michael Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg is a very rich man. In fact, he is the 13th richest person in the United States. He is the founder and owner of Bloomberg L.P., a financial news and information services media company. People here refer to his company as Bloomberg Radio. Mayor Bloomberg is also very short! I was surprised when I met him to find out that he is only a little bit taller than I am!
MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND ME
On my tour of City Hall, I learned that the Mayor of New York City can serve a maximum of two terms in office, each lasting for 4 years. One of the most significant and extremely controversial decisions that Mayor Bloomberg has made while in office, was to seek re-election for a third term. In October of 2008, Mr. Bloomberg announced that he would seek to extend the city's term limits law, and run for mayor a third time in 2009. He argued that New York City needed an expert in finance during the "Wall Street financial crisis". Apparently New Yorkers agreed with him, and he won the third election by a landslide. Many people believe that one of the reasons Mayor Bloomberg was re-elected for a third time is that, because he is so rich, he has never taken a paycheck from the City of New York.
I also learned that Mr. Bloomberg was a lifelong Democrat before seeking elective office. He changed his registration in 2001 and ran for mayor as a Republican, winning the election that year and a second term in 2005. After winning the 2005 election, Mayor Bloomberg left the Republican Party over policy disagreements and ran for his third term in 2009 as an Independent candidate.
Fun NYC Factoid:
Before Metrocards, New Yorkers used tokens to ride the subway. Subway tokens were about the size of a Loonie, with a hole punched in the middle.
New York City finally eliminated the use of subway tokens in May, 2003. The introduction of MetroCards did eliminate one class of criminals. When the NYC subway still used tokens, criminals who were referred to as “token suckers” would steal tokens by jamming turnstile coin slots, waiting for unsuspecting passengers to deposit tokens (only to discover that the turnstile did not work), then returning to “suck” out the token. The retirement of tokens in 2003 put the token suckers out of commission, or, at the very least, forced them to find new ways of scamming the system.
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