They shared laughs about supermodels, Big Bird and the governor. They competed to out-do each other in lavishing praise on Bette Midler. And they planted a tree.
Mayor de Blasio and his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, made a rare joint public appearance on Friday, ostensibly to plant the 1 millionth tree of the Million Trees NYC program, a quality-of-life initiative started by Bloomberg and continued by his successor.
The photo op, which drew intense media coverage, was also the latest move in a carefully considered effort by de Blasio's team to improve relations with Bloomberg, whom the mayor fiercely criticized during his 2013 campaign yet is still quite popular among many New Yorkers and could prove to be a powerful, if somewhat unlikely, future political ally.
The mood at the tree-planting ceremony in a Bronx park matched the sunny weather, as de Blasio repeatedly praised his predecessor for starting the program.
"The visionary was Michael Bloomberg and we're here to give him a lot of credit for what he saw," de Blasio said. "He has a lot to be proud of today.
"And, you know, Michael Bloomberg had an extraordinarily successful career in business and did a lot of great things for the city as mayor," de Blasio continued, before pivoting to praise Bloomberg's speech earlier this month at the annual black-tie Al Smith dinner, in which the former mayor roasted several politicians including his successor.
Bloomberg then good-naturedly cut him off.
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"I'm not sure the governor thought that but ...," Bloomberg said, chuckling.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in some way, actually helped bring the two mayors together.
De Blasio has waged a public fight with the governor, a fellow Democrat, over much of his agenda and has found a sympathetic ear in Bloomberg, who also struggled at times with Cuomo. While de Blasio's conflict with Albany shows no sign of abating, aides to the mayor believe it made sense to declare a truce with Bloomberg instead of trying to fight wars on two fronts.
That is a sharp break from the rhetoric de Blasio used during his campaign and during the early months of his administration, in which he frequently criticized the billionaire for presiding over a city pockmarked with racial and economic injustice. Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent who served three terms, has largely avoided publicly criticizing his successor but a number of his allies have taken swipes at de Blasio.
De Blasio has noticeably softened his rhetoric in recent months, and the two men have been spotted chatting at the groundbreaking of a tech campus, at the annual Sept. 11th memorial service and during Pope Francis' visit to New York. Aides to the mayor have suggested that they hope Bloomberg, who remains popular with Senate Republicans who largely dislike de Blasio, may help them make their case to Albany next year that mayoral control of the school system should be extended.
Bloomberg, who has returned to running his media company, seemed to enjoy the trip down memory lane during the tree-planting ceremony, which was supposed to be held last month but was postponed after the killing of a NYPD officer (the millionth tree was actually planted then; on Friday, the two mayors planted number 1,017,634).
He noted the difference in height of the mayoral podium — Bloomberg is about 5 feet 8 inches tall while de Blasio is 6 feet 5 inches — recalled that, at various times, both Big Bird and a supermodel helped plant trees as part of the project and repeatedly praised Midler's nonprofit for helping with the effort.
"(Midler's) always been very shy," Bloomberg joked as he concluded his remarks. "I'm going to kiss her, though, for all of you."
