The former mayor was not well. Mayor John V. Lindsay had cut the highest figure during his tenure, but after leaving office in 1973, his health declined dramatically, and his legal career faltered. Help has come from an unexpected source.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former prosecutor who led New York in the 1990s in a hard-line way that reprimanded Mr. Lindsay, now he was the mayor. He will make sure that Mr. Lindsay receives municipal health insurance in the last years of her life.
“We were all grateful for Rudy’s kindness,” said Steven L. Isenberg, Mr. Isenberg’s former chief of staff. Lindsay. “The need was real.”
This episode still resonates today as the life of Mr. Giuliani himself was deteriorating, which led him to seek medical care provided by the World Trade Center Health Program for victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Mr. Giuliani was in the final months of his mayoralty when the attack took place. He used to be at ground zero, the site of the fallen World Trade Center towers, where the air was filled with toxic dust and fumes that have been linked to respiratory problems.
After Mr. Giuliani was admitted to the hospital suffering from pneumonia this month, his spokesman said that Mr. Giuliani was diagnosed with restrictive airway disease, and that this condition was caused by the attack.
Some 30 years earlier, Mr. Giuliani had helped Mr. Lindsay.
Mr. Lindsay was mayor from 1966 to 1973. In his post-City Hall years, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and heart problems. In 1994, Mr. Lindsay was hospitalized after collapsing while waiting for a train at Grand Central Terminal.
“He was unlucky,” said Vincent J. Cannato, author of “The Ungovernable City,” a political history of Mr. Lindsay.
Although the health problems of Mr. Lindsay was well known, his dire financial situation was not, said Randy M. Mastro, Mr. Giuliani. After hearing about Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Giuliani pledged to help him. “It wasn’t like Rudy Giuliani and John Lindsay had any kind of special relationship,” Mr. Mastro. In fact, Mr. Lindsay had endorsed David N. Dinkins, Mr. Giuliani in the 1989 and 1993 mayoral elections.
But for a while, political tensions changed before serious concerns. Mr. Mastro said Mr. Giuliani urged his advisers to find a way to help Mr. Lindsay because of her community service. “I was very proud of him for doing that,” said Mr. Mastro, who had to find out how to help Mr. Lindsay.
The answer was to bring him back to the government, if only in a ceremonial way. In 1995, Mr. Giuliani appointed Mr. Lindsay as president of the Sister City program and as special advisor to the New York City Commission on the United Nations, Consular Corps and International Business. The first position was unpaid, and the second paid $25,000 a year.
The appointment will allow Mr. Lindsay to enroll in the same health care plan as active city employees — benefits she would have received at retirement if her city employment had been more than eight years.
When Mr. Once Lindsay became a municipal employee, she could choose from many suburban health care plans.
Some city leaders agree with Mr. Giuliani, according to a May 1996 article in the New York Times. “I don’t think that the people of our city really want to see the former mayor without resources in a situation where a person can find himself,” said Mr. Dinkins, who was mayor from 1990 to 1993, then.
New Yorkers may be surprised to hear that a Yale student who served in the US House of Representatives and City Hall will need this help. “His two law firms went under, so he didn’t make as much money as one might think,” said Dr. Cannato. Despite the background of Mr. Lindsay, Dr. Cannato said, “his family’s money was very little.”
Mr. Lindsay died in 2000 at the age of 79 due to complications from pneumonia and Parkinson’s disease. Mr. Giuliani continued to be hailed as “America’s Mayor” after the September 11 attacks and was already the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2008 presidential election before his campaign collapsed.
Later, Mr. Giuliani divided many New Yorkers with his strong support for Donald J. Trump and his desire to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Giuliani is now facing his own financial problems.
The spokesperson of Mr. Giuliani, Ted Goodman, in his post on X Wednesday said that Mr. Giuliani has left intensive care but remains hospitalized. In a press conference last week, the current mayor of the city, Zohran Mamdani, called Mr. Giuliani for “making amends” and wished him continued recovery.
