David Dinkins, New York City’s first and only Black mayor has died at 93.
TNBC New York reports that Dinkins’ health aide found him unresponsive in his Lenox Hill apartment Monday night, having apparently died of natural causes. The former mayor died a little more than a month after his wife, Joyce Dinkins, passed away.
During his term as mayor from 1990 to 1993, Dinkins vowed to be “mayor of all the people of New York,” and declared: “We are all foot soldiers on the march to freedom.”
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11 Responses
Sad, yes I remember the riots & the crime.
He was a wonderful warm person, not an anti-semite, but he was just enept at running the city. His heart was in the right place.
YM”S
Remember Yankel Rosenbaum HY”D
I won’t quote Jakie Mason. I would only say he was a gentleman. To fine of a man to lead this city. His downfall was the Crown Hights pogroms, but there was ineptness in almost every single agency in his administration. He had a Hazel Dukes run the OTB. I still remember the talk shows like Bob Grant having a field day with her. Lee (outa town) Brown as police commissioner didn’t help him either. The liberals would have still voted for him in 93. But the Crown Hights pogroms were too much to overcome.
Long Island Yid and Ah Yid, you have no chiyuv to be dan him lekaf zechus. Don’t be naive. He was intelligent and well-connected. His cronies and he were a team up to no good. He had choices to make at every juncture and he knew exactly what he was doing. Being a “gentleman” and a “meek men’s room attendant ” was the persona he hid behind.
In his ealrier days he was nothing more than a City Clerk …who signed marriage certificates (including mine in 1979). The only thing he did half-decently.
*earlier
Yeah, I remember Bob Grant referring to Dinkins as a wash room attendant. Closest thing to the n-word.
The biggest & only appropriate כבוד אחרן that deBlasio could possibly bestow, is stay far away from Dinkin’s funeral, and not even to bother eulogizing remotely, but to focus on his work of arresting all 25 shooters from this past weekend, and every subway pusher, and then getting lost for ever.
We always considered him the worst mayor nyc ever had but then deblazio came along
His mayorality wil be remembered for 3 things, Crown Heights, Washington Heights and the Korean Boycott.
will*
Firstly, I think the nickname from the great Bob Grant, of “washroom attendant”, came from Mr. Dinkins’ frequent wearing of black tuxedos with white scarves.
Secondly, aside from his failures with crime and race relations, he was one of the first major proponents of teaching about “alternative” lifestyles. Anyone remember “Heather has two mommies”?