Clinton’s King of the Hill, but Can He Make It in N.Y.?

As he begins his new life in Manhattan, Bill Clinton--like an out-of-town musical--is opening to mixed reviews. While many New Yorkers say they’re embarrassed by his pardon of financier Marc Rich and the uproar over White House gifts, others have welcomed him like an adopted son.

All agree he’ll quickly learn the cardinal rule of celebrity life in the Big Apple: “He may be bigger than big, but nobody’s bigger than New York,” says former Mayor Edward I. Koch.

“If this guy’s a 9 on the Richter scale, we’ll bring him down to a 5,” adds author David Halberstam. “The controversy he generates in the media all the time ensures that people will eventually get tired of hearing every single thing that he does.”

These days, Bubba does Babbo, a hot Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. He’s escaping the winter chill by playing golf in Florida, another ritual Gotham knows well. Like his White House predecessors, he’s going to shop a book proposal around town, to tell his version of political events, and he’s begun collecting checks for out-of-town speaking engagements.

In other ways, though, Clinton is breaking new ground. It’s one thing for an ex-president to live in New York but quite another for his wife to be the state’s newly elected U.S. senator. Although he’s been criticized for a series of questionable decisions, observers say the negative publicity is more likely to affect Hillary Rodham Clinton’s political career.

“He’s home free, because his public service is over and New York loves celebrities,” said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “But Hillary has an image to take care of. She’s got to worry about some of this heat.”

The heat just keeps on coming. In the days since he left Washington, Bill Clinton has dominated New York news, and most of the coverage has been relentlessly negative. Staunch supporters, for example, have winced at the $800,000 annual rent Clinton wants to pay for swank new offices overlooking Central Park. The ex-president has pledged to contribute $300,000 annually from his library foundation to augment the federal contribution, saying, “I’m not going to let the taxpayers get gigged on this.” But even then, the balance coming from tax dollars would be more than the annual office rents paid for Presidents Reagan, Ford and Carter combined.

Meanwhile, Koch, New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer and other Democrats have criticized the pardon of fugitive financier Rich, calling it indefensible. Others have questioned Clinton’s commutation of prison sentences for four New York Hasidim who embezzled $40 million in U.S. funds. The spectacle of Clinton and his wife returning personal gifts they took from the White House has also drawn a chorus of Bronx cheers. They have now returned $28,000 of gifts that they mistakenly believed were intended for them.

“You begin to think this is all really unseemly,” said Halberstam, who defended Clinton during his impeachment. “All of the ambivalence that supporters have had about them is now coming to the fore.”

In a stinging editorial, the New York Daily News blasted the spreading “taint” of Clinton’s White House departure and his “scandal-plagued post-presidency.” The New York Post ridiculed the “sleaze” coloring his New York profile, moaning: “When, oh when, will Bill Clinton go away?” Not soon enough, suggested the New York Observer, speculating that Manhattan’s social elites are aghast at the Clintons’ actions and will shun them.

Still, it’s not been all negative. On his fourth night as a private citizen, the ex-president got an ovation at the Metropolitan Opera. Clinton has long enjoyed strong political support in New York. He carried the city twice by lopsided electoral margins, and some observers say it’s just a matter of time before the former president settles comfortably into his new midtown offices, as well as his suburban home in Chappaqua. The city has a habit of absorbing VIPs, they say, and Clinton will be no different.

“I think he’s going to fit in quite well here because most New Yorkers aren’t really fazed by all these troublesome stories,” said Mitchell Moss, director of New York University’s Taub Urban Research Center. “They won’t judge Bill Clinton by his post-presidency. They’ll remember that their pension funds and Wall Street stocks have done quite well under him.”

Besides, Moss added, the bad publicity Clinton has been getting in New York is nothing compared to the ferocious attacks he endured as president. “By comparison, dealing with this local stuff is like flicking fleas off his back. No politician alive can take a hit better than Bill Clinton.”

Many New Yorkers seemed to share that sentiment as they rushed by the entrance to Carnegie Hall Tower, the elite 60-story building on West 57th Street where Clinton hopes to open his offices on the 56th floor. The cascade of attacks on the former president “is just one more example of people trying to get him now that he’s out of office,” said Mike Eagle, a businessman lining up for tickets at Carnegie Hall next door. “To me, none of this stuff matters.”

Lennett Octaviani, a Fordham University student, chuckled at the mention of Clinton. “Come on. He’s the only dude who got caught doing what every president since George Washington has done in this country. Most New Yorkers will say: ‘Why should I care?’ ”

“I care about it,” said Bill, another New Yorker, who refused to give his last name while hurrying by. “Who needs this . . . trash in New York? I wish he’d go back to Arkansas.”

The debate reaches up the block, where owners of the Pick-A-Bagel coffee shop have hung a “Welcome to New York President Clinton” sign in two of their windows. Most people appreciate the message, said one of the shop managers, but “we’ve also gotten six strong protests, from people who say they don’t think we should put this up. So we don’t know what to do.”

To some, the New York hurly-burly is a rite of passage. “Celebrities here get a honeymoon, then they take a pounding and finally they’re in the clear,” said Lynn Goldberg, who runs a large public relations agency.

“I love how Clinton says: ‘You want me to return the furniture? OK, we’ll do that. You want my foundation to pay the rent? OK, we’ll do that too.’ This guy plays all the angles. He’ll fit in here perfectly.”

But if Clinton ever needs advice about New York City, the last president to live here offered it in a 1984 magazine interview.

“People who want a quiet life, unchallenged, should not live here,” Richard Nixon said. “It’s the fastest track in the world.”