Bloomberg Plays Different Role in Strike
Broadway was only four days into a strike in 2003 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg pressured both sides to come together and warned of the looming "severe economic impact" that could result from the dispute. This time, theaters have been dark for more than a week and the mayor is not only refraining from wagging his finger in public, he's downplaying the potential damage the stagehands strike could cause the city and shrugging off some of the concerns he voiced four years ago. The losses, he said Monday, are mostly contained to the theater industry, and theatergoers counting on Broadway shows may be disappointed. Otherwise, it's hard to quantify any sort of economic setback, and life goes on, he said.
See "Bloomberg Plays Different Role in Strike", Sara Kugler, San Francisco Chronicle, November 19, 2007