Politician broke barriers as 1st Black mayor of NYC

NEW YORK — David Dinkins, who broke barriers as New York City’s first African American mayor but was doomed to a single term by a soaring murder rate, stubborn unemployment and his mishandling of a riot in Brooklyn, diedMonday. Hewas 93.

Dinkins’ deathwas confirmed by his assistant at Columbia University, where he taught after leaving office, and by Mayor Bill de Blasio, his onetime staffer. The former mayor’s death came weeks after the death of his wife, Joyce, who died in October at 89.

Dinkins, a calm and courtly figure with a penchant for tennis and formal wear, was a dramatic shift from both his predecessor, Ed Koch, and his successor, Rudy Giuliani — two combative and often abrasive politicians in a city with aworld-class reputation for impatience and rudeness.

In his inaugural address, he spoke lovingly of New York as a “gorgeous mosaic of race and religious faith, of national origin and sexual orientation, of individuals whose families arrived yesterday and generations ago, coming through Ellis Island or Kennedy Airport or on buses bound for the Port Authority.”

But the city he inherited had an ugly side too.

AIDS, guns and crack cocaine killed thousands of people each year. Unemployment soared. Homelessness was rampant. The city faced a $1.5 billion budget deficit.

Dinkins’ low-key, considered approach quickly came to be perceived as a flaw.

“Dave, Do Something!” screamed one New York Post headline in 1990, Dinkins’ first year in office. Dinkins did a lot at CityHall. He raised taxes to hire thousands of police officers. He spent billions of dollars revitalizing neglected housing. His administration got the Walt Disney Corp. to invest in the cleanup of then-seedy Times Square.