Second of two parts

Mayor Bloomberg has a system for dealing with the hundreds of people who approach him with ideas. He takes the person's business card, scribbles a name on it, and if he thinks he should call back, he bends the card in half and slips it into his pocket.

"That means I have to get back to them," he said the other day. "At one time I had a system of, you know, one corner down or two corners down, but that's too complex."

This revelation almost certainly will lead to a number of prebent business cards being thrust into his hand, but the amused Bloomberg almost certainly will find another system. In certain ways, his adult career is about finding better systems. That's what he did as a bond trader at Salomon Brothers in the 1970s; it was what he did with his own company, building it through the next two decades into the communications giant that made him a billionaire.

"You have to keep thinking of ways to make everything better," he said. "More efficient, smarter, quicker. That's true of business, and it's true of government."

What about the enormous challenge of rebuilding downtown Manhattan? Some observers think the process has been too slow, with no sense that anyone is clearly in charge.

"Well, it's only been seven months since the disaster," he said. "We're still recovering bodies. They found two more today, a firefighter and a civilian. So it's fascinating to me that everybody keeps saying, 'When do we get started?' The real world is not like that."

He was sitting at his desk in the center of the bullpen on the second floor of City Hall. Staff members were working computers, talking, sipping coffee from the open nosh bar.

"The real world is, you want a deliberate process," the mayor said. "And you want a participatory process. You can't have it both ways. You can't say you want democracy, and then not spend the time to listen, no matter how crazy the ideas are. If you look at the history of other rebuilding projects, it takes time. The Vietnam memorial in Washington took, I think, five years. If they'd gone and built the first monstrosity right away, we wouldn't have that beautiful memorial by Maya Lin."

'You're Doing What?'

On the morning of our talk, Bloomberg had been at a meeting about rebuilding, along with John Whitehead, chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. He announced his own four appointees to the board.

"The families of some of the people who were lost went crazy," Bloomberg recalled. "You know, 'What do you mean you're rebuilding?' And Whitehead said, basically, 'We don't have to decide on a memorial until we get to ground level, but we're working on the subways and the PATH tubes and the concourse stores, the people that live in Battery Park City'...and they said, 'You're doing what? You're building on our graves?'"

Bloomberg sighed.

"You've got to have a lot of sympathy for the families," he said. "On the other hand, in the end, you go forward. That's what's great about humanity. That's what's great about New York, and I understand that some of those who are still mourning find that concept difficult to live with. The Irish have a great tradition of the wake, and even in some places — so I'm told — can hire professional mourners, so people can get on with their lives. I think the Jews do funerals the right way: buried that afternoon or the next morning. Then a week where you do all your mourning. The spouse serves food, there's a tradition of doing things, keeping busy, having lots of people over ... and yet, getting over it."

Bloomberg paused, as if wary of giving anyone offense, but then went forward in a cautious way.

"We have to go and build," he said, "for the children and spouses and parents left behind. And for the other people, who, just by the luck of the draw or the grace of God, didn't die. You talk to people in Battery Park City. They don't think they're unsympathetic to those who died. They just want their own lives to go on. They don't want to live in a memorial.... In the end, it's my responsibility to build for the future."

'We'll Pick a Day'

Bloomberg plans to choose a day, probably in May, that he hopes will bring one stage of the Sept. 11 calamity to an end and begin the next.

"Obviously, the point at which you stop recovery and start rebuilding is not one clear, defining moment: There will be some overlap. But we'll pick a day. And even that will be contentious. The construction workers will think it's their day, the families will think it's their day, the politicians think it's their day. You know, everybody will have a piece of it. But on that day we'll have to say: 'The recovery effort is over.'"

He acknowledges that for months, there still might be discoveries of body parts that must be matched with DNA samples. There will continue to be funerals. But rebuilding must begin. In addition to that date in May, there obviously will be a memorial service next Sept. 11 to mark the one-year anniversary.

"And that will be the end," he said. "The families don't ever want to hear that. For good human reasons. But most people are rational and they understand those emotions, but they want to get on with their lives."

He mentioned as an example the many memorial services (most of them Catholic) he has attended for police officers, firefighters and others who died doing their jobs on Sept.11. The grief is real. "But every priest will give a homily," he said, "looking towards the future. And while we're crying, a little kid cries, or runs around the church. They're symbols of the future."

'Look at That'

Bloomberg is very careful about discussing this difficult subject. Like every politician, he is sensitive to what the press says about him. In general, he has been given good grades for reducing the level of City Hall vehemence, and for defusing some of the explosiveness of race (just by having decent manners). But he knows that a consistently bad press will make it difficult for him to govern this enormously complicated city.

"Some of the criticism is my fault," he admitted. "For saying the wrong thing and not being sensitive or smart. But I think I learn with time. My attitude is, 'Go do it. Don't worry about what they say. Every day you will do it better — every time you do it — and eventually you'll be a pro.' And if you're worried about them making fun of you, you'll never do anything."

He does admit, with a laugh, that he is learning to edit himself. But there is still some irritation. As an example, he started talking about a Daily News investigation (during the election campaign) of his draft board record during the Vietnam War. He whipped off a loafer and lay a stockinged foot on the floor.

"Look at that!" he said. "I have perfectly flat feet. You see?"

The mayoral foot did appear to be absolutely flat against the floor. "I wanted to go into the Army," he said. "I was so young and dumb, I thought I'd be safer as a second lieutenant than an infantryman. But when I got to the physical, the doctor looked at my feet, said, 'Sorry, buddy' and they declared me 1-Y." He wiggles Exhibit A — the flat stockinged foot — and then slides it into his shoe.

"Last year, The News' reporters catch up to me and say, 'Yeah, we found the 1-Y classification, but we can't find the physical.' And then say, 'How do we know you didn't get your 1-Y through influence?' Let me tell you: In my family we couldn't spell 'influence.'" He laughed. "The only people we ever knew whose name was vaguely familiar were people in the obits, or every once in a while, in the crime section, and not on the side of law enforcement."

He speaks with a mixture of irritation and bafflement about other continuing points of press inquiry, such as his location on weekends and his tax returns.

"In the end, it's a matter of principle," he said. "If you are going to encourage people to go into public service, you can't take away their personal lives."

'Basically Works'

In the job itself, Bloomberg said he was surprised to see how well the city government itself actually functions, no matter who happens to be the mayor. The municipal budget is larger than that of some countries, and the bureaucracy is immense, but in some weird way, it does its job.

"Every part of city government basically works reasonably well," Bloomberg said, "Some slightly better than others. And you can improve everything. Rudy Giuliani never got his hands around the school system, and that's gotten worse in the last eight years, not better. Now, as mayor, can you get better control? I think you could."

There are some people who say that Bloomberg remains an enigma, that he is essentially unknowable. This brings a smile to his face and a shake of the head.

"That's psychobabble," he said. "If you ask people that have worked with me for 20 years, they will tell you that they know me.

"Part of this is about comparing me to Rudy Giuliani. My predecessor was much more security-conscious. I'm much more open. He's a more structured guy, I'm a less-structured guy. I don't think there's anything wrong with his style or anything right with mine. They're just different." A pause. "So I'm always surprised when they keep saying, 'Well, we don't know anything about him.' No. 1, they didn't ask. No. 2, read my book or talk to my friends.

"And most important" — another smile as he fumbled in his jacket pocket and came up with a few business cards, some of them bent — "watch me."