HARVARD AT HOME - DANIEL DOCTOROFF '80 and the FUTURE OF NEW YORK CITY
THIS VIRTUAL EVENT has been arranged by the Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Hudson Valley.
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2023
Time: 7:00PM Eastern
Place: THIS IS A ZOOM LIVESTREAM - FREE - REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED
Mayor Michael Bloomberg:
“Dan Doctoroff has done more to change the face of this City than anyone since Robert Moses …. His impact will be felt for decades to come …. At $1 per year, for six years, the $6 we have paid Dan makes his service to New York perhaps one of the greatest bargains for the City since the purchase of Manhattan for $24."
In conversation with Thomas Dyja:
Dan will speak with Thomas Dyja, author of an acclaimed recent history of NYC (through the Bloomberg years). Tom’s book is “a tour de force, a work of astonishing breadth and depth … outstanding … so vividly illuminating the past” (review, in The New York Times Book Review, of New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation).
The accomplishments of Daniel L. Doctoroff ’80 as New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding are prodigious – Mayor Michael Bloomberg was not exaggerating. How did he do it? How did an outsider to City government get so much done?
Fifteen years after he left City Hall, Dan Doctoroff will speak to us by Zoom about the City transformation that he spearheaded – the successes and failures; the lessons learned; and the insights gained about the City’s complexities. And he will discuss where the City is now; the trends for the future; and what he thinks should be done. Please join us for this extraordinary event.
The conversation with Dan will be lead by esteemed author Thomas Dyja, an expert on New York City. Tom’s widely-praised book about the City took seven years to research and write. You can learn more about Tom on his website (where he also narrates a two-minute video about the City), here.
Dan Doctoroff grew up in Michigan; graduated from Harvard College and the University of Chicago Law School; and worked in finance for Lehman Brothers and for private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. He says he was first inspired towards public service by attending an electrifying World Cup soccer game at Giants Stadium. Mayor-elect Bloomberg admired Dan’s energetic and sophisticated campaign to lure the Summer Olympics to New York City, and appointed him Deputy Mayor. The challenges were immediate for the outsider team of Bloomberg and Doctoroff. The 9/11 tragedy occurred only three and a half months before they took office.
Below are highlights from Dan Doctoroff’s tenure as Deputy Mayor.
For a more complete summary, see Mayor Bloomberg’s press release upon Dan’s departure from City Hall, here.
❖ served as the City’s point person for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan after the devastation of 9/11;
❖ was the chief architect of the City’s five-borough economic development plan, making possible the creation of 130 million square feet of new commercial and residential space; 2,400 acres of parks; and the revival of more than 60 miles of waterfront, all while displacing only 400 residents;
❖ was instrumental in bringing three new sports arenas to the city – Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, and the Barclays Center in Brooklyn;
❖ played a leading role in making possible Columbia University’s new Manhattanville campus;
After Dan Doctoroff stepped down as Deputy Mayor, he became President of Bloomberg L.P., and ran it from 2008 to 2014. The next year, with Google’s parent company, he founded the innovative New York-based start-up called Sidewalk Labs, which used technology to improve urban life. In December 2021, he resigned as CEO as a result of developing symptoms of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), from which his father and uncle had died.
In 2013 – prior to his own ALS diagnosis – Dan, along with Bloomberg Philanthropies, and David Rubenstein of The Carlyle Group, started the medical research foundation Target ALS. Dan donated $10 million of his personal wealth to the foundation and said he would dedicate his life to battling the disease, beginning with a $250 million fundraising effort.
Dan’s focus on collaboration has helped inspire Target ALS and spur it on. The foundation has achieved important breakthroughs by bringing together academia and the pharmaceutical-biotech industry. In just seven years, its approach has led to some of the first potentially viable treatments for ALS since the disease was identified in 1869. For more information, see the Target ALS website here.
Organizer: The Harvard-Radcliffe Club of Hudson Valley
Cost: Free
Registration: Register by CLICKING HERE
