The wealthiest man in New York City has a tip for those dating on the cheap: Head for the Staten Island Ferry.
The world-famous ferry is free these days but, in his pre-billionaire days during the early ’60s, Mayor Bloomberg discovered how far he could get on a nickel and a dream — not to mention a six-pack of beer.
“When I first came to New York, my recollection is it was a nickel. And I think if you stayed on the same boat, it would take you back,” the mayor said yesterday on his WOR radio show.
“And it’s a true story. I used to buy a pizza and a six-pack and have a date.” “Big spender,” interjected radio host John Gambling.
“I didn’t have money then. And you’d go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island — really spectacular,” the mayor recalled.
Bloomberg got to reminiscing when a caller to his weekly radio show suggested restoring fares on the ferry, a notion he immediately rejected as impractical.
The mayor may have been on a budget decades ago, but he still had good taste.
In another tale of times gone by, Bloomberg recently recalled how in 1966 he bought what came to be his most treasured painting.
At the time he was working at Salomon Brothers on Wall Street, making $9,000 a year.
Walking past a gallery near his Upper East Side home, artwork depicting a wintertime scene of Boston’s Copley Square caught his eye.
As a Boston-area native, Bloomberg was hooked — until he spotted the $2,500 price tag.
The kindly dealer allowed him to buy it on an installment plan of $25 a week.
The painting remains in the mayor’s townhouse, not far from other art works worth millions.