Before 9/11, New York Was Done With Rudy Giuliani

The phrase 'America's Mayor' has followed Rudy Giuliani for over two decades, framing him as a steady hand in crisis and a beloved civic leader. But that image was manufactured in a single catastrophic morning. By the summer of 2001, Giuliani was one of the most unpopular mayors New York City had seen in years—and the reasons why matter now more than ever.

The Collapse That Preceded the Crown

By early 2001, Giuliani's final months in office were defined not by leadership but by personal and political chaos:

• His marriage to Donna Hanover was dissolving in public and ugly fashion. He announced their separation at a press conference before telling her directly. The spectacle consumed weeks of local news.
• His affair with Judith Nathan was an open secret that alienated even longtime supporters.
• He was battling prostate cancer, which he cited in withdrawing from the 2000 U.S. Senate race against Hillary Clinton—a race he had been expected to win.
• Police brutality scandals had deeply fractured his relationship with Black and Latino New Yorkers. The cases of Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond—both unarmed Black men killed by NYPD officers—drew massive protests. Giuliani's response to both cases, defending officers and attacking the victims' characters, enraged communities citywide.

His approval ratings had cratered. Term limits meant he was leaving office regardless. He was not going out on a high note.

What 9/11 Actually Did

When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, Giuliani was visibly present, calm in front of cameras, and articulate in a moment of national paralysis. That visibility was real. His composure was real. And credit for showing up belongs to him.

But the media—national media, not New York local press—transformed that single month of conduct into a complete rewrite of his eight-year record. Time magazine named him Person of the Year. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. The 'America's Mayor' branding was everywhere.

New Yorkers who had lived through his tenure were more complicated in their assessments. The communities he had alienated didn't forget. The firefighters' union, whose members died in the towers, later actively campaigned against him when he ran for president in 2008, citing his decision to cut radio communications upgrades before the attack and his push to relocate the city's emergency command center to the World Trade Center—against expert advice.

Why the Myth Stuck, and Why It's Cracking Now

The 'America's Mayor' narrative survived for two decades largely because:

• National audiences had no prior context for his actual record
• The emotional weight of 9/11 made criticism feel indecent in the immediate aftermath
• Giuliani himself leveraged the image relentlessly, building a consulting empire and a presidential run on it

But the myth has been eroding steadily. His role in Donald Trump's 2020 election denial, his defamation lawsuit loss to Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss—resulting in a $148 million judgment—and his disbarment in New York in 2024 have all stripped the image down to its foundations.

What's left underneath is a more honest accounting: a mayor who cracked down on crime using tactics that courts and communities later condemned, who humiliated his family in public, who was heading toward a forgettable exit—and who was then handed, by the worst day in American history, a mythology he spent the rest of his life cashing in on.

The moment was real. The legend was not.