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RUDY’S
RAMPART
Published on June 24, 1998
By Buck Wolf
Buck Wolf is
a producer at ABCNEWS.com. The
Wolf Files is a weekly feature of ABCNEWS.com’s
U.S. section.
If Armageddon—or
Godzilla—comes, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be ready. He’s
building a bomb-proof, $16 million bunker in the sky.
The crime-busting mayor is one of the fastest-rising stars in the Republican
party, and he plans on staying in command—even in the event of a nuclear
holocaust.
His 46,000-foot, state-of-the-art command center is being designed
to provide refuge from biological warfare, 150-mile-an-hour hurricane
winds—and all variety of terrorist attack. But can it withstand
political fallout?
‘’The mayor’s actions are increasingly bizarre,’’ says Council
Speaker Peter Vallone, the mayor’s most vocal critic. “Maybe he saw Deep
Impact, Independence Day, or one of these other disaster movies
where New York gets demolished, and it’s gone to his head.”
The center is to be located on the 26th floor of a building just across the
street from the World Trade Center’s twin towers, where a 1993 terrorist
attack killed six and injured more than 100. The mayor, his family, and 30
officials would be able to live there for about a week before having to come
out for air.
“We face different kinds of threats now. We should be ready for these
threats,” he said. “One day the city will thank me.”
Vallone quipped that if the bunker is to be designed to include everyone
Giuliani trusts, “all he needs is a phone booth.”
P.S. The city council only found out
about the bunker when it was reported recently in The New York Times. In
typical fashion, Giuliani said his opponents had themselves to blame for not
reading the budget more closely. After all, it was right there on page 995.
Published
on June 24, 1998
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“One day
the city will thank me.” - Rudolph Giuliani
Gimme Shelter: New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will hunker in a bunker
at the first sign of trouble.
(Photo::ABCNEWS.com/Photo
Credit:AP Photo) |
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