This week’s Village Voice cover story asks, “After two full terms and change, what do you call Bloomberg’s New York? In many ways, the mayor has been merely a caretaker.” Mayor Mike’s third term — which he made possible by changing the rules — will be over in a few years. “Soon, he’ll be just another billionaire,” writes our own Harry Siegel. And he’ll need somewhere to live! (Besides the places he already has.) So he’s recently signed a contract — “discreetly,” the New York Post reports — for a $20 million Georgian mansion in the Hamptons, sitting on 35-acres. Annual real estate taxes for the 11-bedroom palace fall around $42,110, or a little more than a yearly salary for one of the low-wage NYC jobs created under Bloomberg.
Here’s another nugget from “Citizen Bloomberg,” our cover story: “As Bloomberg memorably put it while floating his candidacy in early 2001: ‘What’s a billionaire got to do with it? I mean, would you rather elect a poor person who didn’t succeed? Look, I’m a great American dream.'”
And he has a point: Americans dream of a brick home near an exclusive golf course — the National Golf Links of America in this case — along with horse-riding trails (perfect for his daughter) and a “half-mile, tree-covered approach,” which is usually called a driveway if you’re poorer.
Bloomberg’s other crashpads are on the Upper East Side, in Vail, Colorado and in Bermuda, where his neighbors include fellow billionaires-turned-politicians Silvio Berlusconi and Ross Perot.
[NYP]
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