"Every day over the past 12 years, I've awakened thinking about how to make our city stronger and safer, healthier and greener, freer and fairer, more just and compassionate, more innovative and forward-looking, with more opportunity for all," said outgoing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his final radio address.
"On Wednesday morning I will wake up and smile, knowing that we did everything we could to achieve those goals," he added.
Bloomberg also thanked New Yorkers for their support of "a relative unknown, an entrepreneur with no government experience who asked for your trust."
Bloomberg will be succeeded by Democrat Bill de Blasio who defeated Joe Lhota in a landslide victory in November. De Blasio's offifical swearing-in ceremony will take place at City Hall on Wednesday .
Bloomberg said that "he fulfilled 89 percent of the 611 promises he made during the election campaigns he won in 2001, 2005 and 2009," as reported by Agence France Presse.
Above all else, Mayor Bloomberg help make New York the safest of the major cities in the U.S. "with the lowest homicide rate in 50 years, dropping from 649 in 2001 to 332 in 2013, according to figures running up to December 27," also reported by AFP.
Tourism also rose "to a record 54.3 million visitors in 2013, life expectancy has risen by two and a half years since 2002 and hundred of acres of land have been recovered and turned into green areas for people to enjoy," reported The AFP.
In one of his last measures, "the city approved a bill to ban tobacco-free electronic cigarettes in public places like bars, restaurants, parks and beaches."
Some chided the mayor as "Nanny Bloomberg" for his insistence on trying to ban the 32oz cups used for soft drinks.
Some in New York also roundly criticized Bloomberg for his advocacy of the New York Police Department's stop-and-frisk program, labeled by some as discriminatory toward Hispanics and blacks.
The gap between rich and poor also widened during Bloomberg's year's in office, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. The group points to the statistic that "the number of people without a place to call home had risen as of June this year to a record 52,400, including 22,100 children," The AFP reported.
Bloomberg, however, has also been credited for the nearly four million jobs the city boasted by the end of 2013.
"New York is in spectacularly better shape than when he took over. I never felt more confident in my 48 years here that things would be handled right. The streets feel safe, the subways are immeasurably better, to name two things that touch us all, every day," wrote Heidi Fisk in a letter to The New York Times on Monday.
"He is surely one of the two or three greatest mayors this city has ever had," added Fiske.
"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has delivered an extraordinary return on investment for New York City taxpayers. The city has benefited from a long list of significant accomplishments, and, as just reported, more than $650 million in personal largess, all for a total of $12 in salary (at $1 a year). This clearly has been the best bargain in New York since the Dutch purchased Manhattan for $24," added Lloyd Truffleman, another New Yorker.
