Yesterday Forbes magazine, in their annual ranking of the rich, declared New York City is no longer the billionaire capital of the world. Where have all the dollar signs gone? To Moscow, of course, who beat us out by 3 billionaires (they have 74 to our 71). Most of the big buck city dwellers are familiar names: Mayor Michael Bloomberg ($11.5 billion), publishing powerhouses Samuel Newhouse Jr. and Rupert Murdoch ($8.5 billion and $8.3 billion),......

Ending months of speculation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg confirmed he will not run for president in the 2008 election. And he did it with an op-ed in the NY Times, titled, "I'm Not Running for President, but..." The op-ed starts out with Bloomberg calling all the current candidates "smart" but believes "the candidates seem afraid to level with" the American public, because the candidates aren't offering "innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership" on issues like......

Photograph of Mayor Bloomberg speaking, with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Governor Ed Rendell (not pictured), under Los Angeles freeways by Ann Johansson/AP It's Mike and Arnie, together again! The Time magazine co-cover pols, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, made a Los Angeles appearance with Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to announce the creation of a "nonpartisan organization that will advocate for more, and smarter, federal spending on infrastructure." The Mayor and maybe......

Mayor MIchael Bloomberg's largess makes him the country's seventh biggest charitable donor. The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Top 50 Donor List (less sexy than the Forbes list, but possibly more worthy) notes he committed $205 million to various institutions last year. Bloomberg's giving has been generous ever since becoming mayor, prompting the Sun to note that "the largest jump in his contributions [occurred] last year, amid mounting speculation he will run for president." And as if......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent yesterday in Oklahoma, discussing the state of politics today at a bipartisan political forum at the University of Oklahoma. Bloomberg lamented the way things are going these days:Government is dysfunctional. There is no collaboration and congeniality. There is no working together. No 'let's do what's right for this country.' I think there is no accountability today. Nobody is holding themselves accountable and to the standards of what they promised when they......

The most famous undeclared presidential candidate, our very own Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has weighed in about the Iowa caucus results. Okay, so Mayor Bloomberg claims he's not running for president, but when you swipe at the actual candidates, have a staff that's investigating the possibility of running a campaign, and have a billion dollars to spare... The Mayor discussed the results(he didn't mention candidates by name) during radio show on WABC (MP3). Well, sort of......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn't totally eschewed the Republican party. According to the NY Sun, the Democrat-turned- Republican-turned- independent will be "entertaining" Nancy Reagan "as well as hosting a fund-raiser for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library." Like the former First Lady, Bloomberg has progressive views on health and science issues (like stem cells). And Bloomberg has been known to host many fund-raisers for various people and causes. But some suspect that Bloomberg might be looking for......

It's finally come to this. The lights of the Great White Way have gone dark in a dispute between the theater stagehands of Local One and producers and theater owners. The labor dispute which has been simmering for months and left the stagehands without a contract for an equal time, resulted in a shutdown of Broadway shows on the verge of the theater district's most profitable season. The stalemate came to to a head after......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Seattle yesterday to give a keynote at the United States Conference of Mayors. The Mayor, aka Mr. "I'm not running for president in 2008" Bloomberg, discussed NYC's efforts to be more sustainable and how governments need to invest and innovate to encourage energy efficiency. And one of the innovations would be to introduce pollution pricing. He said: we have to stop ignoring the laws of economics. As long as......

Fridays are bustling on 34th Street, but yesterday was a little different. Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg was spotted with billionaire developer Donald J. Trump and his three adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric. What were they doing? Walking, talking, and eating hot dogs. Or at least Mayor Bloomberg was eating a hot dog - he loves hot dogs and they love him! And why? Because NBC is filming the celebrity edition of The......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's civilian life got a jolt: His company, Bloomberg L.P., was sued by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission for "a pattern or practice of demoting and reducing the pay of female employees after they announced their pregnancies and after they took maternity leave." Mayor Bloomberg had previously settled a lawsuit with a former Bloomberg L.P. employee, Sekiko Garrison. From a 2001 Village Voice story by Wayne Barrett:Garrison alleged that Bloomberg told her twice......

Dan Rather may have retired from the CBS Evening News, but he's still breaking stories while at HDNet. On his upcoming Thursday night Dan Rather Reports, he will air an "rare sit-down interview" with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where Bloomberg makes it "categorically clear that he will not run for President of the United States, nor will he seek a Vice Presidential bid nor any cabinet position for that matter, something he's never done before." Wow,......

Possibly on a Brooklyn-bound F train: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Mayor's "bullpen-style" offices need some new paint, a new carpet and a few other fixes, so Bloomberg and his staffers are temporarily relocating to work out of the Office of Emergency Management headquarters in Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza East. The Mayor explained, “Somebody’s going to kill themselves with all of the rips in the carpet." Nice to know that he's concerned with personal injury lawsuits......

We've had half a day to absorb the news, but it's still kind of crazy that Mayor Michael Bloomberg decided to drop his 6-years-old Republican coat for an unaffiliated one. Here's his official statement:“I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation......

Our lovable, pragmatic mayor is now officially an independent-- many feel that this is a first step to a third-party run for president. CBS reports: Mayor Michael Bloomberg has left the Republican party and registered as unaffiliated with any political party, a move certain to heighten presidential speculation to a fever pitch, despite his denials that he's running. The billionaire former CEO, who was a lifelong Democrat before he switched to the Republican party......

If the report released yesterday by the city's Independent Budget Office is true, it could get a lot more expensive to ride the MTA subways and buses in the future. The IBO believes that the MTA has to increase its revenues by 20% by 2010. That means subway and bus fares could go up at least 20% by 2010, making a single ride $2.40. The worst case scenario - where rates for other revenue......

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg traveled back to his Massachusetts roots and gave the commencement speech at Tufts University. Bloomberg, who grew up in Medford, name checked various haunts in the hood, tried to seem with it by mentioning Busta Rhymes, Ali G, and Salma Hayek, and reminded kids to call their mother. He also discussed free speech, in what the Sun called a nod to the Minutemen incident at Columbia: The fourth lesson is, in......

Time announced its second Time 100 list of influential people. (For whatever reason, Time doesn't provide a full list with separate links to all the influentials, so here's a list from FishbowlNY.) Based on our reading, the New Yorkers (and we're including some people who live in Westchester, but work in the city) who made the list include 30 Rock's Tina Fey, subway superhero Wesley Autrey, Senator Hillary Clinton, banker Stephen Schwartzman, director Martin Scorsese,......

What'll it take to make Mayor Michael Bloomberg run for President next year? According to a former adviser, candidates who are either very conservative (like Mitt Romey) or very liberal (like John Edwards) will make the infamous Democrat-turned-Republican consider putting his billions behind a presidential campaign. Esther Fuchs, who served during Bloomberg's first term, said Mayor Mike is "80% probable" to run. So, that's like all of him, except his head? While some doubt either......

Today, there's a fascinating Op-Ed by Robert Sullivan about the state of NYC streets. Titled, "The City That Never Walks," Sullivan describes how NYC has "lost [its] golden pedestrian touch." ...yet, here in New York, we even have the debate over bicycle traffic backwards. We focus on drivers’ complaints about the bicycle commuter who races through red lights, rather than on the concerns of the mother biking her child around organic-food delivery trucks that......

Here is part two of our semi-chronological look back at the top stories this past year (here is part one): Queens Blackout The Blackout of 2003, as irritating as it was, happened to the whole city, could be blamed on other states and didn't last too long. When parts of Queens lost power in July, Con Ed wrote it off as an isolated event affecting only a few thousands customers. But as Queens spent days......

On this day when many are reveling in gifts, there are others who need the most basic of things. This morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn helped deliver Christmas Day meals with Citymeals on Wheels - the Mayor delivered the estimated 34 millionth meal. The 25 year old program was started by New York magazine restaurant critic Gael Greene, who also got James Beard involved, and Citymeals on Wheels supports agencies......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with California Governor Arnold Schwarzengger in the Golden State yesterday, and it was a total love fest. The Governator told reporters:[Republicans and Democrats in Congress] are frozen. They can’t get anything done in Washington because it’s Democrats against Republicans and Republicans against Democrats, rather than, ‘Let us solve the problems of this country.’ And so this is why I admire him — I admire Mayor Bloomberg. He’s my soul mate. He’s......

After months of negotiating and rumors and worries, it's official: The federal and NY State government will lease 1 million square feet in Freeom Tower. The NY Times reports Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NY Governor George Pataki and NJ Governor Jon Corzine will announce the "tentative" agreement for an anchor tenant to occupy 38% of the space today. Some interesting facts:- The agreement has agencies paying $59/square foot - Though the Port Authority is happy with......

Thousands of people (WNBC says 500,000!) lined Fifth Avenue and Greenwich Village streets to enjoy this year's Gay Pride Parade, in spite of a bit of rain. In fact, one performer on the "Carnival in Rio" float told the NY Times, "Today is our day. The rain won't stop us. Mother Nature is a drag queen." One of the stars of the parade was Kevin Aviance, the drag queen who was brutally beaten by......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he spoke to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Thursday night and told him "for sure" that he disagreed with the urban area funding. On his radio show, the Mayor said, "I just think the ways they went about it was wrong. I think some factual things were wrong -- forget about the fact that they didn't have the right number of financial institutions or didn't know there were any significant targets......

If you think Mayor Michael Bloomberg is an enigma wrapped in a riddle cloaked in a mystery that happens to have a billion or so dollars, here's another thing to keep you guessing. Our mayor donated $44,600, the maximum allowed, to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election bid. And Bloomberg explained it by saying, "I think that Schwarzenegger - while I probably don't agree with him on a lot of things - he's trying new things.......

After the LMDC announced it would go ahead with plans for the World Trade Center Memorial, a sister of a September 11 victim will be protesting at Ground Zero by sleeping on a sidewalk across the street. Rosaleen Tallon, whose firefighter brother Sean died, says that the memorial's subterranean design is disrepectful, used her brother's cold-weather gear (he was a marine) last night when she camped out last night. 1010 WINS says that Reverend......

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was sworn in for another four years as the Mayor of New York City yesterday, amid the crisp air, Liza with a Z!, and some protesters across Broadway. While his speech was vague in that rousing "feel good about yourself, NYC!" way, he did promise to do go after illegal guns, continue to improve the city's public school system, and start pursuing the "most ambitious" affordable housing program. It also takes advantage......

Forbes has a fun nauseating feature on the homes of billionaires, and three of them are in New York (okay, one is in the Hamptons, but to a Billionaire With a Helicopter, that's practically one of the five-boroughs):When billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected, he declined to live in Gracie Mansion, preferring his own luxury digs nearby. Built in 1889, Bloomberg's townhouse has five floors and totals 7,500 square feet--including the chunk of the building......