NYC Mayor: Biden's LaGuardia Remark “Inappropriate”

Mayor de Blasio said Friday that Vice President Joe Biden's remark about LaGuardia Airport seeming like it's in a "third world country" was "inappropriate."

Biden said during a speech in Philadelphia Thursday that "if I took you and blindfolded you and took you to LaGuardia Airport in New York you must think, 'I must be in some third world country.'"

"No, I'm not joking!" he added. "Why did we lead the world economically for so long? We had the most modern infrastructure in the world."

He was speaking about Amtrak and overall investments in U.S. infrastructure.

De Blasio said at City Hall Friday that it wasn't Biden's finest moment.

"I respect the vice president, but I think his comments were inappropriate," de Blasio said. "LaGuardia obviously needs an upgrade. But that being said, the airport manages an extraordinary amount of traffic and the people who work there make it work under very difficult circumstances."

"As a proud New Yorker," he went on, "I didn’t like that comment. And I think it was not the right way to talk about it."

LaGuardia was turned into a private flying field in 1929 after it was transformed from an amusement park. It became New York Municipal Airport-LaGuardia Field in 1937, and was leased to the Port Authority 10 years later.

It has four terminals, the newest of which was built in 1992.

It's among the busiest airports in the world, with more than 25 million travelers passing through in 2012.

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