Giuliani Insists He’s Not Pestering Clinton

Republican Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said Thursday he was “not trying to create any problems” for Bill Clinton in the haggling over the Democratic former president’s proposed office space in Harlem.

Giuliani said New York City officials have rejected “two or three” offers made by the landlord who wants to rent offices to Clinton that have already been leased to the city’s child welfare agency.

“I know this is very cute and funny and all that. . . . We’re not trying to create any problems for President Clinton,” said Giuliani, who was a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2000 against Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, before pulling out because he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Clinton went on to be elected.

“If we can straighten this out we would like to, but the city has legitimate concerns,” Giuliani said at his daily briefing.

Giuliani said there are issues of security around the former president, and the city wanted assurances that staff members and children would be safe and have access to the building.

“Flexibility is easy, spending money is hard for a landlord,” Giuliani said.

Clinton looked to the building on Harlem’s main thoroughfare after questions were raised about his proposal to rent space in a Manhattan skyscraper at a cost of almost $800,000 a year to taxpayers. The annual rent for the Harlem office space was expected to be about $200,000 a year.

A representative of Cogswell Realty Group, landlord of 55 W. 125th St. in Harlem, did not return calls for comment. Clinton spokeswoman Julia Payne declined comment, saying the matter is between the city and the landlord.

Negotiations over the office hit snags because of the conditions set for the landlord by the city before it would turn over the 14th floor to Clinton in exchange for other space in the building for the city’s child welfare agency.