This was strange, even for a mayor who once declared — seven years after his administration — that New York needed to save while under a blue whale model.
On the one hand, Bill de Blasio’s eighth and final speech on the state of the city was not even a speech.
Not a bit of the presentation was live.
And never once during the entire pre-recorded 28-minute online affair did Hizzoner ever head to the camera to address the audience directly.
Instead, New Yorkers (if beyond the journalists who were paid to tune in) were treated to often generic images of the entire city, sometimes pre-pandemic life scenes mixed with those that were shot. clearly after the coronavirus blow, as interpreted by narrator De Blasio.
Generic music played in the background. The text occasionally appeared on the screen while de Blasio presented his agenda for 2021 under the banner of “A Recovery for All of Us.”
“The future begins here in New York City. It’s the place where people need to come, it’s the place where people have to invest, ”Hizzoner sang towards the end of the 30-minute commercial. “We will show the world day by day.”
An hour after the video was posted online, it had only been viewed 423 times.