He was a lame duck. That’s the first thing you have to remember. In early September 2001, the mayor of New York City during 9/11, Rudy Giuliani, was basically packing his bags. His second term was ending, the city was obsessed with the primary election to replace him, and his personal reputation was, frankly, a bit of a mess. New Yorkers were tired of the combativeness. Then the first plane hit the North Tower.
History has a funny way of flattening people into two-dimensional characters. If you look at Giuliani today, you see a polarized, controversial figure. But if you were standing in Lower Manhattan on that Tuesday morning, he was something else entirely. He was the person who stayed. He didn't hide in a bunker; he almost died when his temporary command center at 75 Barclay Street was choked with dust and debris as the towers fell.
People forget how close it was. He was literally running for his life through the soot.
The Command Center Collapse and the First Hours
Giuliani’s primary mistake, and one that critics hammered him for later, was putting the city’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) inside 7 World Trade Center. It was a 47-story building right next to the Twin Towers. Why was that a problem? Well, it had been a target before in 1993. Putting the "nerve center" in the bullseye was, in hindsight, a disaster.
When the planes hit, that high-tech command center became useless almost immediately. Giuliani and his top aides—men like Bernard Kerik and Terry Howard—had to scramble. They ended up wandering the streets of Tribeca, trying to find a landline because the cell networks had fried.
Think about that for a second. The leader of the most powerful city on earth was basically homeless for a few hours, ducking into a firehouse, then a police precinct, trying to find a place to lead. He eventually set up shop at the Police Academy. This wasn't some polished, Hollywood-style response. It was raw. It was frantic. It was messy.
Why They Called Him "America’s Mayor"
The phrase "America's Mayor" actually came from Oprah Winfrey during a prayer service at Yankee Stadium, but the sentiment stuck because Giuliani filled a vacuum. While President George W. Bush was being shuttled around on Air Force One for security reasons, Giuliani was on the ground. He was visible.
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He gave people information.
He didn't sugarcoat it, either. When a reporter asked him how many people had died, he didn't give a fake number. He said the number would be "more than any of us can bear." That honesty bought him a massive amount of trust. He was on the news every hour, covered in that ghostly grey ash, looking like he hadn't slept in a week—because he hadn't.
He became the voice of the city. He told people to go to dinner. He told them to see a Broadway show. He was trying to jumpstart the heart of a city that had just suffered a massive cardiac arrest. It worked, mostly. For a few months, his approval rating in New York—a city that usually hates everyone—was around 79%. That’s unheard of.
The Complicated Reality of the Recovery
Look, it wasn't all heroism and unity. There’s a darker side to the tenure of the mayor of New York City during 9/11 that historians still argue about.
The biggest issue? The air.
Giuliani pushed to get Wall Street reopened quickly. He wanted to show the world that New York wasn't defeated. But that meant thousands of construction workers, cops, and firefighters were working on "The Pile" without proper respiratory gear. The EPA, led by Christine Todd Whitman at the time, said the air was safe. Giuliani echoed that. We now know, decades later, that the dust was a toxic cocktail of pulverized concrete, asbestos, and lead.
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Thousands of first responders are now sick or dead because of those weeks at Ground Zero. Was Giuliani's rush to reopen the city a sign of strength or a reckless disregard for health? It depends on who you ask at the 9/11 Memorial.
Then there was the radio problem. The FDNY radios had failed during the 1993 bombing. On 9/11, they failed again. Firefighters in the towers didn't get the evacuation orders that the police got because their tech was outdated and didn't play nice with other departments. Giuliani had been in office for eight years at that point. Some say the blood is on the administration's hands for not fixing those communication gaps sooner.
The Attempt to Stay in Power
This is a part of the story that often gets skipped over in the documentaries. Giuliani actually tried to extend his term. He argued that the city was in too much of a crisis to handle a transition of power to a new mayor. He wanted to stick around for an extra three months, maybe longer.
New York politics is a blood sport. Even in the middle of a national tragedy, people weren't having it.
His rivals, like Mark Green and Michael Bloomberg, weren't exactly thrilled. The New York Times editorial board called it a "grab for power." Eventually, Giuliani backed off, but it showed that even in his finest hour, his instincts were still those of a bare-knuckled brawler. He ended up endorsing Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire Republican-turned-Independent, who went on to win.
Historical Impact and Legacy
It’s impossible to talk about the mayor of New York City during 9/11 without acknowledging how that day defined his entire life. Before 9/11, he was the "Broken Windows" guy. He was the prosecutor who took down the mob. After 9/11, he was a global icon. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He was Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.
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But that legacy is heavy.
He spent the next two decades trying to trade on that "America's Mayor" brand. Some say it’s a tragedy how his later political career overshadowed his leadership in 2001. Others say the traits he showed on 9/11—the stubbornness, the combativeness, the "my way or the highway" attitude—are the exact same traits that led to his later legal and political troubles.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
What You Should Do Next
If you want to actually understand what happened during those months, don't just watch the news clips of the speeches.
- Visit the 9/11 Memorial & Museum: Specifically, look for the exhibits on the "Recovery" phase. It shows the sheer scale of the debris removal and the logistical nightmare Giuliani had to manage.
- Read "Grand Illusion" by Wayne Barrett: If you want a counter-narrative to the "hero" story, this is the book. Barrett was a legendary investigative reporter who dug into the failures of the Giuliani administration leading up to the attacks.
- Listen to the Oral Histories: The New York Public Library and the 9/11 Museum have archived thousands of recordings from people who were there. Hearing the voices of the average New Yorkers who lived through the Giuliani era gives you a much better sense of the atmosphere than any textbook can.
- Research the Zadroga Act: Understand the ongoing legal and medical battles for 9/11 survivors. It’s a direct link to the decisions made by the mayor’s office in the weeks following the collapse.
The story of the mayor of New York City during 9/11 isn't just a biography of one man. It’s a case study in how a city reacts to the unthinkable. It's about how we choose our heroes and how we handle it when those heroes turn out to be deeply, fundamentally human.