![]() First, he got in trouble for doing a racist Hispanic “character” on a NY1 debate show. This was the decade in which Sliwa’s tabloid fame-which (aside from the hoaxes) had always been mostly for good-natured things, like eating hot dogs competitively or surviving assassination attempts-deteriorated precipitously. What was Curtis Sliwa’s deal in the 2010s? While many of Sliwa’s other exploits occurred under suspicious circumstances, or were later proved to be hoaxes, the shooting that nearly took his life was very real and his escape was some serious Spider-Man shit. Oh, he also used his radio platform to relentlessly scrutinize notorious mob boss John Gotti, and subsequently survived an assassination attempt-allegedly ordered by Gotti’s son-when he was kidnapped in the back of a taxi, shot five times in the thigh and lower abdomen, and miraculously escaped by catapulting himself out of the passenger side window. Even as the Guardian Angels’ relevance and numbers declined with the decrease of the city’s crime problem, Sliwa continued to cement his status as a New York tabloid institution under Giuliani’s reign, doing things like promoting the city’s stickball championship as “ stickball commissioner” and competing in the Nathan’s Fourth of July hot dog–eating contest. He then used his platform to endorse Rudy Giuliani’s run for mayor, campaigning for Giuliani in 1993 and even claiming that David Dinkins-the city’s first Black mayor-had won their previous mayoral contest because of “voter fraud.” After Giuliani won the election and Sliwa lost his radio job, the mayor controversially gave Sliwa a new hosting gig at the city-owned WNYC radio. ![]() Sliwa parlayed his fame into a gig as a radio shock jock. What was Curtis Sliwa’s deal in the 1990s? While the Guardian Angels grew in the 1980s, Sliwa seemed to spend a lot of time being famous for being famous, with the Washington Post’s Joyce Wadler calling him “the only gang leader in the country with a publicist.” As Wadler wrote in 1981, “he’s a celebrity these days, appearing on Tom Snyder’s television show, strolling through Greenwich Village with Abbie Hoffman, traveling to Philadelphia for a radio show.” He also feuded with Mayor Ed Koch, calling the mayor a “ bonehead.” Their relationship got better after the mayor’s criminal justice coordinator investigated the Angels and issued a glowing report, with Koch praising the Angels by the end of the decade. Sliwa himself came under investigation from the Bronx district attorney after concocting a story that four Transit Authority police officers had kidnapped him for four hours (they hadn’t, and he was let off with a warning). Sliwa’s Guardian Angels kept patrolling the subway in their uniforms of goofy T-shirts and red berets, and he kept making up stories, sometimes to the dismay of public officials and police officers. What was Curtis Sliwa’s deal in the 1980s?
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