New York City during the last few decades of the 20^th century produced no shortage of household names, many of whom continue to dominate the headlines. But outside of criminal justice circles, Jack Maple (1952-2001) is unlikely to be a familiar figure to many contemporary city residents.

As the creator of the NYPD’s CompStat system of tracking crimes, Maple’s legacy nonetheless remains very much alive. In the new two episodes of the influential New York documentary that debuted on PBS on September 21, Maple, rather unexpectedly, is one of the two most celebrated figures of the past half-century. Less surprisingly, the other is a former mayor who shared Maple’s obsession with statistics. 

As in the first eight installments (1999-2003), producer Ric Burns and writer James Sanders match plenty of excellent archival material with observations from a wide range of analysts. Whereas the earlier episodes leaned heavily on leading city historians including the late Mike Wallace and Robert Caro, the new additions serve up an awful lot of commentary from Michael Bloomberg’s acolytes, which is often echoed in the narration. 

Now the 9^th installment in the series, Shadows of the Past thus tells us that Bloomberg’s creation of his eponymous financial media company in 1981 showed how the “stubborn, fact-driven, risk-tasking entrepreneur” proved the naysayers wrong, pioneering the use of computer terminals to deliver business information. Robert Steel, a future Bloomberg deputy mayor for economic development, then connects the move to the globalization of markets during the 80s.

While Bloomberg’s innovation was clearly a savvy business move, the documentary’s focus on it is conspicuous, given that many of the key figures and events of the 1980s—including Bernhard Goetz, Howard Beach, the Exonerated Five, and Yusuf Hawkins—receive no mention at all. Equally mystifying is the omission of the 1991 Crown Heights riots, the pivotal event that largely explained why Mayor David Dinkins did not win reelection. 

The episode covers Dinkins’ single term far more extensively than Ed Koch’s 12-year reign, examining the high crime rate of the early 1990s in granular detail. Popular explanations of the dramatic dropoff in crime later in the decade typically celebrate either Mayor Rudy Giuliani or NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. The Burns documentary instead champions deputy commissioner Jack Maple, whom NYU’s Mitchell Moss calls the “genie behind the wizard,” meaning Bratton. 

Shadows of the Past presents extensive footage of Maple grilling precinct commanders about the latest crime numbers. There is no mention in the lengthy segment about how the NYPD’s newfound obsession with statistics led to recurring allegations of quotas. Perhaps that is because neither of the pro-Maple commentators—Moss and Columbia’s Esther Fuchs—is a criminal justice expert. The episode’s credits list John Jay College’s Peter Moskos, a Maple devotee, as a consultant. 

Although other factors in the crime drop, including the improving national economy and the end of the crack epidemic, receive mention, Burns and company prefer to elevate Maple. Moss equates Bloomberg’s use of computers to deliver financial data with Maple’s invention of CompStat, thus connecting the heroes of the two new episodes. 

Jack Maple, an architect of the Giuliani administration’s crime control strategy.

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City from 2002, to 2013.

The Future of Cities begins on 9/11 and ends with brief mention of the ascent of Zohran Mamdani and the Knicks’ triumph. It presents Mayor Bloomberg as uniquely capable of helping the city recover from the economic crises it faced after 9/11 and after the financial crash of 2008. There is a passing mention of the NYPD’s surveillance of Muslim communities, and only a brief discussion of stop-and-frisk, which dominated Bloomberg’s controversial third term. 

“I think Michael Bloomberg is the greatest mayor in New York City history,” asserts Bloomberg biographer Chris McNickle. That mantle is usually claimed by Fiorello La Guardia, but McNickle argues that unlike LGA, Bloomberg did not have an endless flow of money coming in from the federal government. As the New York documentary’s own episode on the 1930s highlighted, La Guardia sought to build a city in which working-class residents could find stability. Bloomberg, however, envisioned a “luxury city.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio, according to the Burns team, sought to “implement one of the most progressive agendas since the Depression.” That de Blasio’s successful “Tale of Two Cities” campaign in 2013 directly critiqued Bloomberg’s elitist vision is not included here, however. Nor do we learn that the CEO mayor blocked even modest pro-worker measures like sick days legislation. 

There is little doubt that Bloomberg partisans will enjoy the new installments in the New York series. The rest of us should keep at least a few pinches of salt handy. 

Theodore Hamm’s Meet Mayor Mamdani is now available from OR Books.