Rudy Looks Back, Frighteningly, in Borough Park

Here are some highlights from the breakfast at Borough Park, Brooklyn yesterday, where Bloomberg supporters stressed the notion that crime could escalate if he wasn't re-elected. The speakers, Simcha Felder and Rudy Giuliani, both referenced the crime era just before 1993, when David Dinkins was replaced by Giuliani in City Hall, in no small part because of high crime and racial tensions.

Critics like Bill de Blasio (who served in the Dinkins administration under Bill Lynch) and others say the comments had racial undertones.

“I remember as a kid being mugged for five cents,” said Simcha Felder. Later Felder said, “If people cannot feel safe and secure then nothing, nothing else matters.”

Giuliani said he worried “daily” that “the city might be turned back to the way it was, to the way it was before 1993. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.” (!)

Giuliani also said, “Politics is important. It’s important to our safety,” and “There’s no community in New York City that understands it more than this community.”