New Yorkers have never been shy about voicing their opinions. So, with Michael R. Bloomberg making preparations for a presidential run, we asked readers who lived through the Bloomberg administration to tell us how that experience shaped their view of him as a potential president. More than 800 responded. We asked our politics reporter Stephanie Saul to reflect on Mr. Bloomberg’s legacy as we shared a selection of our readers’ comments, which have been lightly edited.
When Michael R. Bloomberg’s three-term mayoralty ended in 2013, he left behind a city that had been remarkably transformed during his 12 years in office. He had taken over in 2002, when New York was on its knees economically and spiritually, reeling from the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks. He set about rebuilding the city.
By the time he had left office, New York’s population was greater than it had ever been, but there were fewer murders than ever. His personal wealth and Wall Street résumé predisposed him to economic development, and his administration created an atmosphere for the redevelopment of large swaths of the city. New York seemed newer, cleaner and more efficient.
I loved how Bloomberg lowered crime, banned smoking, eliminated trans fats and built green parks. I like his reputation for delegation. And I loved how it wasn’t legal to pee in public.
— Amy Giroux, Manhattan
New Yorkers also became more health conscious. He required calorie counts on fast food, banned smoking in bars and restaurants, and installed bike lanes and a bike-sharing system.
I remember when the calorie count was first posted on foods during Bloomberg’s term. Standing in Starbucks on the Upper West Side, I listened to a father tell his young son it was best to split the pastry because it was too many calories for one person in the morning. Like it or not, Bloomberg’s policies like this one created awareness, while not forcing you to make one choice over another.
— Abby Dix now lives in Telluride, Colo.
He brought a C.E.O.’s touch to the school system, abolishing the old Board of Education, bringing in outsiders to run things and providing city space to charter schools.
As a former New York City teacher during the Bloomberg mayoralty, I was aware of his attempts to have public education run like a business, with the emphasis on efficiency, as if teachers were factory workers and the students their market produce. His choices of school chancellors, Joel Klein and Cathie Black, were poor and revealed an anti-union bias.
— Alan Shaw, Oakland Gardens, Queens
Wall Street crashed during his second term in office, clearing the way for him to secure a third term. Mr. Bloomberg liked his job so much he did not want to leave, and he was viewed by many as the only person who could clean up the mess. Others saw his extension of New York City’s term limits as a step too far.
His machinations to have a third term showed he felt that he was above the law. It was his third term that changed my opinion of him.
— Jonathan Wasserman, Brooklyn
It all came with a cost. Dating back to the Gilded Age, New York had been characterized by gaps between the rich and poor. These gaps widened undeniably during Mr. Bloomberg’s tenure. When he left office, nearly half of New Yorkers were living at or near the poverty line, and many of them felt pushed to the margins, searching for affordable places to live in a city where rent was growing more and more expensive. New York had become a place that seemed Disneyfied with its high-rise condos and shopping centers.
He smothered the bohemian creative heartbeat of New York City, trading it for luxury housing by giving luxury developers huge tax incentives.
— Sasha Zena, once lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan
Many believed that Mr. Bloomberg, with his vast personal wealth, seemed imperious and tone deaf to their plight, and they pointed to his decision in 2011 to evict protesters at an Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan.
For some, particularly black and Latino men, the city’s emphasis on crime-fighting came with a down side, as well. The Bloomberg administration not only increased surveillance — an effort to combat terrorism — it employed a so-called stop-and-frisk strategy that critics said discriminated against hundreds of thousands of innocent people simply walking down the street.
As a Puerto Rican teen raised in the city, here’s what serves as his legacy to me: an N.Y.P.D. officer shoving me against a fence searching me for drugs that I didn’t possess because it was suspicious for me to be out late on New Year’s Eve. The spirit of the city receded as I grew older, and I blame Bloomberg’s reign.
— Stephen Michael Straub, Lower East Side, Manhattan
By the end of his administration, the city also was bitterly divided over schools. And some bristled at his health initiatives, calling Mr. Bloomberg’s New York a Nanny State.