Politicians, consultants, and Manhattan residents gathered yesterday at Lincoln Center to hear the Manhattan borough president address the state of the borough.

After proclaiming the state of the borough “strong” in paragraph 13 of her speech, C. Virginia Fields spent much of the remainder of her address talking about citywide problems and her plans to fix them.

“I am ready and excited to tackle the work that remains undone and to lead us forward into the future of our city,” Ms. Fields, a candidate for this year’s Democratic nomination for mayor, proclaimed. “It is time to force the dawn throughout our five boroughs, where too many New Yorkers yearn for sunlight but live in shade.”

Ms. Fields lambasted one of Mayor Bloomberg’s pet projects, the sports and convention center planned for the far West Side of Manhattan, saying: “Instead of building thousands of stadium seats, which will remain empty 90% of the time, let’s build thousands of units of affordable housing, which will be occupied by families 100% of the time.”

She also recommended creating new job opportunities, particularly for women and members of minority groups, improving access to health care, boosting cultural and diversity awareness among health-care workers, and encouraging more city students to enter the medical profession.

Ms. Fields criticized Governor Pataki for pulling needed financing from the Second Avenue subway project, calling Mr. Pataki’s decision “shortsighted,” and she vowed to create a public finance commission to look at ways to pay for the new East Side subway line.

She also said that although she supported Mr. Bloomberg’s takeover of the public schools, she thinks the current administration has not sufficiently involved parents, teachers, students, and community officials in decision-making.

“The answer is to truly put children first,” she said, alluding to the Bloomberg administration’s “Children First” program. She said putting children first would mean extending after school programs, creating more preschool options, and convincing Albany to contribute the money required as a result of the lawsuit filed by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

She also suggested helping senior citizens in New York with tax credits and extended day care.

After the speech, which drew hearty applause from the audience, politicians said the speech sounded more like the beginning of a mayoral campaign than the end of a borough presidency.

“She clearly sounded like a mayor to me,” a Manhattan member of the City Council, Robert Jackson, said. “She was not only talking about the 1.5 million people in Manhattan. She was talking about all New Yorkers.”

The 2001 Democratic nominee for mayor, Mark Green, said: “She had a large, adoring, and captive audience, and the points she made, I presume, will be her talking points as she begins running for mayor.” Mr. Green said her point about the stadium was “on the money.”

Ms. Fields, who hasn’t officially announced her candidacy, said issues including affordable housing, inclusion, and health care are important to her and will be campaign issues, but she said her goal yesterday was to “put in focus the good, the not so good, where we need to go” – not to start campaigning.