Mayor Bloomberg did something yesterday that his aides have been trying to get him to do for three years: take credit. His annual State of the City address was nearly 7,000 words, 21 pages, and 70 minutes of the campaign-style self-promotion that he has studiously avoided to now.

Mr. Bloomberg took credit for the city’s rise from the ashes of the World Trade Center attacks, for growth in the economy and jobs, for drops in crime and in fire-related deaths, for “affordable housing,” for better school test scores, and even for increasing the number of New Yorkers who can get a good night’s sleep, thanks to his efforts to muffle the city’s noise problems.

“Three years ago I was inaugurated as the 108th mayor of this great city. I remember looking out across the crowd that had gathered on the plaza at City Hall, and in the distance, above everyone’s heads, smoke was still rising from the World Trade Center site,” Mr. Bloomberg began his speech, given at Hostos Community College in the Bronx. “There were question marks hanging over our city’s future. Three years later, I can stand before you and tell you that we have answered those questions.”

The mayor took credit for moving the city from fiscal crisis to fiscal stability, erecting new buildings, helping people buy their first homes, opening the city’s waterfront properties, creating new jobs, ending homelessness, and improving the schools.

“Where once there was doubt,” he said, “New Yorkers believe again.

“And does anyone think we are finished? Does anyone think we can’t do more, go farther, be even better?” the mayor continued. “Let me tell you … we’re just getting started.”

The man who, if the polls are to be believed, is the most likely to unseat Mr. Bloomberg in November, Fernando Ferrer, saw the state of the city in a much different light.

“The city looks very different from a penthouse than it does from a two-family home in Bayside, or a walk-up in Flatbush,” the former Bronx borough president, who bests Mr. Bloomberg 51% to 39% in the latest Marist Institute poll, said. “We all want Wall Street to thrive, but we want our neighborhoods and the families who live there to flourish, too. The mayor offers a myopic vision and misplaced priorities.”

January is usually a month when the mayor gives two major addresses. The first is yesterday’s State of the City speech; the second, more difficult presentation is his preliminary budget. The State of the City is generally replete with grand plans and large visions. The budget brings the rhetoric down to earth – showing how the city plans to pay for it. That speech hasn’t been scheduled yet but could occur as early as this month, aides to Mr. Bloomberg said.

“The platitudes are nice, but how are we going to do this?” a Democratic member of the City Council from Brooklyn, Lewis Fidler, said after yesterday’s speech.

At Hostos, Mr. Bloomberg introduced only a handful of initiatives for 2005, including:

* An upgrade in crime-fighting technology to provide same-day information on emerging crime patterns that “lead to quicker arrests, so that spikes don’t become trends”;

* A major drive to stop graffiti, with a new, 80-member anti-graffiti task force in the New York Police Department;

* An effort to get money from state leaders to develop 12,000 units of supportive housing for the homeless and set up a new intake center for families seeking aid;

* Day-care licensing and inspection reform;

* A city Earned Income Tax Credit for the poor, as well as a renewal of the $400 property tax rebate for homeowners;

* More parks in the outer boroughs;

* A new program to help students having trouble graduating from high school with GED or vocational training.

“If he keeps discretionary spending level,” Mr. Fidler said, “what is going to go in order to do the other things? I’ve always felt the preliminary budget said a whole lot more than the State of the City speech did. When the budget comes out without the four-day-a-week library service, that’s when you find out what really is going on.”

The city’s comptroller, William Thompson Jr., echoed that sentiment. “This was the kickoff speech of his mayoral campaign,” Mr. Thompson, who had been a favorite to challenge the mayor until he said he wouldn’t run last month, said. “This State of the City address is the happy speech. The budget speech will be a little more realistic.”

Council Member Charles Barron, a prospective mayoral candidate who represents the East New York section of Brooklyn, agreed. “The devil is in the details,” he said.

Other candidates eager to challenge Mr. Bloomberg in November said New York is hardly the shining “city of opportunity” Mr. Bloomberg presented in his speech.

“There wasn’t much in this speech for working New Yorkers in the outer boroughs,” Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn and Queens, said. “This speech had all the trappings of a campaign speech. It had the visuals of a campaign speech, the visual props of a campaign speech, and it is an election-year makeover in the works. Mark my words, this will be the last State of the City speech that Mike Bloomberg gives.”

The Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields, who also is considering a mayoral bid, said the mayor hadn’t done enough during his time in office to be crowing about his accomplishments.

“We are looking at a record here, someone who has been in office and had an opportunity to address a lot of these same issues he’s talking about,” she said, adding that the address was just a “re-election speech.”

Mr. Bloomberg, for his part, was intent on driving one message home: When he took the reins of the city three years ago, New Yorkers were rattled. Now, after three years of his management, he said they were better off.

“I will never forget that freezing January day three years ago,” Mr. Bloomberg said, wrapping up the speech. “But I take great pride, as every single New Yorker should, in what we’ve done, in how far we’ve come. I remember one of the questions on every mind back then: Will New York ever again be the same? The answer, of course, is no. New York is going to be better.”