New York Post reports:
David Dinkins, who was elected New York City’s first black mayor in 1989 and famously referred to the nation’s largest metropolis as a “gorgeous mosaic,” died Monday night, sources told The Post.
The former mayor passed away due to natural causes at his Upper East Side home at around 9:30 p.m. He was 93 years old.
Dinkins — who defeated three-term incumbent Ed Koch in the 1989 Democratic primary — beat Republican Rudy Giuliani that year to become the city’s 106th mayor.
He would serve one-term until 1993, when he narrowly lost his re-election bid in a re-match against his GOP foe.
His turbulent time in office was marked by rampant crime and racial unrest. But despite the turmoil, he led the city with a grace and dignity that was respected even by his political foes and left him an admired figure when his tenure was long over.
Perhaps the biggest fumble by the Dinkins administration was the belated response to racial rioting in Crown Heights in 1991.
The disturbances erupted after a station wagon driven by a Hasidic driver struck and killed black 7-year-old Gavin Cato. In retaliation, angry black youths assaulted Jewish residents. Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year-old Hasidic scholar, was stabbed to death.
A damning state report concluded Dinkins “failed to act in a timely and decisive manner” and also rapped his Police Commissioner Lee Brown and for “inadequate” supervision.
“I wish I had challenged police accounts earlier,” Dinkins said at the time. “The larger lesson is, one has to challenge, cross-examine and question,” he said after the report’s release.
The report was released just months before his re-election bid, against Giuliani, a mob-busting former US Attorney. Many believe the mishandling of the Crown Heights contributed to Dinkins’ defeat.
Dinkins was initially elected as a healer. But now his critics — including rival Giuliani — said he couldn’t keep the peace and was soft on crime.
An earlier racially charged controversy had already put Dinkins’ City Hall on hits heels — a black activists boycott of a Korean-owned grocery store in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section. The protests were spurred by a dispute between a black customer and the grocer .
Dinkjns worked behind the scenes to try to end the boycott, which dragged on for eight months.
“The Crown Heights riot and the Korean deli boycott Dinkins handled with less than skill. The state report on the Crown Heights controversy did him in,” said Baruch College professor Doug Muzzio.
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