thank you, and please welcome jonathan soffer and ed koch. [applause] >> thank you, sam. that was a beautiful introtux. introduction. i wanted to start the discussion tonight by just reading a few photographs from my introduction and -- paragraphs from my i introduction and, hopefully, this will tempt you to read more. by the end of his first term, koch was able to balance the city's budget, a feat that vastly exceeded expectations when he started in 1977. and by the end of his second term, he could launch a locally-financed $5.1 billion ten-year program to rebuild huge rares of the city including the south bronx and make them economically viable for the long term. the restoration of credit and the renewed economic growth enabled the city to borrow again and restore it to elected officials, the power to choose key projects rather than leaving the decision to unelected power brokers like felix -- [inaudible] the partner who headed the municipal assistance corporation. by the time koch left office in 1990, the 307lation of the -- population of the city had increased more th

let me first introduce jonathan soffer. he grew up in albany, had the wisdom to move to manhattan to attend columbia. [laughter] he joined the broadway democrats in 1977. certain things may be forgiven. he got his doctorate from columbia and now teaches history at nyu polytechnic institute. i realized not long ago if we