Giuliani Bids New York Adieu

From a church altar a block away from the World Trade Center ruins, Rudolph W. Giuliani bid farewell as mayor Thursday, saying New Yorkers gave him the courage to lead the city beyond the fear and anguish of Sept. 11.

“My strength and energy comes entirely from the people of the city of New York,” said Giuliani, who leaves office at midnight Dec. 31. He added: “You have that strength and you’ve displayed it.”

Acclaimed for the resolute leadership he displayed after the Sept. 11 attack, the two-term Republican departs at the high point of his administration after eight often-tumultuous years at City Hall.

During his address, Giuliani repeated in some of the strongest terms yet his belief that the trade center site be reserved primarily for a monument to those who died there. He called for a “soaring, beautiful memorial.”

“This place has to be sanctified,” he said of the 16-acre site in the financial district. “It has to become a place, when anybody comes, that they immediately feel the power, strength and emotion of what it means to become an American. . . . This is too important a place.”

Giuliani spoke from what he called the “hallowed ground” of St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan, where George Washington came to pray after his inauguration in 1789. The small church escaped the Sept. 11 attack without so much as a broken window pane.

Giuliani’s address focused on the highlights of his administration, particularly the historic drops in crime and the welfare rolls.

“There’s one big change that’s taken place. . . . It’s the change in the spirit of the city, the city that used to be the rotting apple, that 60%, 70%, 80% of the people wanted to leave and nobody wanted to come to,” he said.

“That city now is very strong and it’s a confident city. It’s a city that has withstood the worst attack of any city in America or in the history of America, and people are standing up as tall, as strong and as straight as this church.”