They’ll Take Manhattan

Celebrating New York and securing its future were at the top of the agenda at the Manhattan Institute’s Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner Tuesday.

Award recipient Mayor Koch sang some of the sweetest lines ever in his love song to the Big Apple. “What’s wonderful about New York is its people. It makes us unique, it makes us exciting,” Mr. Koch said, speaking with a passion that reminded many attendees of when he first ran for mayor.

In fact, he seemed back in that 1977 moment — suggesting that at the age of 82 he yet has important ground to cover as a New York booster.

Describing how he became “not simply a liberal,” but “a liberal with sanity,” Mr. Koch won roars of applause from the audience.

The Manhattan Institute wisely kept the song going by also presenting an Alexander Hamilton Award to the chairman and chief executive of the News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, who was instrumental in Mr. Koch winning the mayoralty.

“I could not have been elected mayor if Rupert hadn’t designated me as the candidate of the Post, and I’ll be eternally grateful,” Mr. Koch said.

The intertwining themes of both men’s acceptance speeches demonstrated how lucky New Yorkers are to have men with such an energetic commitment to New York.

Mr. Murdoch expressed his gratitude for Mr. Koch’s service to New York as mayor from 1978 to 1989, lifting it from a fiscal crisis into soaring dynamism.

“Ed Koch gave New York its morale back,” he said.

The Australian press mogul recalled in vivid detail — with a touch of humor — just how low New York had sunk before Mayor Koch took office.

“I moved here in 1974. Friends thought I was crazy. New York seemed to be in irreversible decline, the infrastructure was crumbling. Graffiti was everywhere —the elite decided to call it public art.

“My family took an apartment in the East 60s, near the park. Our neighbors warned us not to go out after dark. Women clutched their purses tightly,” he said.

He pointed out the popularity of self-defense classes for women during that time.

“I’m not sure what it did to the crime rate, but the marriage rate sure went down,” he said.

With conditions so bleak, why did Mr. Murdoch stay?

“There are people who think this happened because I came to New York,” he joked, before turning serious: “I had a certain faith that New York was still the greatest place on earth. New York City is too important to ever give up on … New York has within its borders the spirit, the means, and the people to renew itself,” Mr. Murdoch said.

Those are qualities that Mr. Murdoch feels we need today. “New York’s nadir is well behind us today, but I think storm clouds threaten again,” he said. He went on to list some issues that concern him: New York’s high tax burden, “wildly out of line” health care spending, and high education spending that doesn’t produce appreciably better-educated students than in other states.

One effect of all this taxing and spending is that more people have moved out of New York since 2000 than any other state other than Louisiana, he said. “It’s high time to save the state from its foolishness.”

Mr. Murdoch was preaching to the converted; his audience of 540 men and women consisted of the scholars, editors, and patrons of the Manhattan Institute, whose research and advocacy has time and again pointed the way to a healthy, vibrant New York.

Mr. Koch said he had no conflict being a liberal accepting an award from the conservative Manhattan Institute because its views are “moderate, practical, and full of common sense.”

The dinner’s chairman, public relations maestro Howard Rubenstein, who counts Mr. Murdoch as a client, agreed. “I can’t overstate my respect for the Manhattan Institute,” he said. “Its work has been a boon for New Yorkers.”

From a little bit of schmoozing with Mr. Rubenstein and Mr. Murdoch’s wife, Wendi, I learned that both enjoy walking around the reservoir in Central Park. “I go three times around,” Mrs. Murdoch said. “It takes me an hour and a half starting from my apartment.”

The president of the Fox News Channel, Roger Ailes, provided some further insight into his boss, Mr. Murdoch, whom he introduced at the dinner.

“I was fascinated he never had any paper on his desk. I once said, ‘Where’s the paper?’ He said, ‘I give you the paper,'” Mr. Ailes said.

Later, the two executives flew to California on the company plane. When Mr. Ailes saw Mr. Murdoch carrying his briefcase, he thought he’d finally get to see what kind of paper he carries around. “He opened up the case and inside was an apple, a banana, and a copy of People magazine.”

But in the end, it was New York’s greatness, not that of Messrs. Koch, or Murdoch, or the Manhattan Institute, that was the prevailing message of the dinner:

“People come from all over, from every single state, to be here. We who are here are so lucky,” Mr. Koch said.

agordon@nysun.com