Bloomberg Explains Why He Caved on Zuccotti Park Cleanup: 'If You Don’t Stop This, We’ll Make Your Life More Difficult'

Who are these "elected officals" who threatened Michael Bloomberg?

Mayor Bloomberg made his weekly radio show appearance Friday morning, saying Brookfield Properties informed him the company “got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, ‘If you don’t stop this [the planned cleanup], we’ll make your life more difficult’.”

The mayor said he was not told who called Brookfield. Bloomberg’s girlfriend, Diana Taylor, serves on Brookfield’s board of directors.

Bloomberg told the radio show Brookfield Properties made the decision to call of the cleanup around midnight on Thursday night and is hoping to broker some kind of agreement with protesters in the next few days.

“Brookfield said they want to take a couple of days to try and negotiate something,” he said. “If you get through a couple of days, the question is what would be possible, and is it more complex to do two days from now what they wanted to do today?”

Just imagine if NYC had Rudy Giuliani back. This mess would have been cleaned up weeks ago.

Brookfield reversed its decision to clear the park because it was intimidated by elected officials who are siding with the protestors, an angry Mayor Bloomberg said today.

"My understanding is Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials, threatening them and saying if you don't stop this we'll make your life more difficult," the mayor said on his weekly radio show.

"If those elected officials had spent half as much time trying to promote the city to get jobs to come here we would a lot more ways towards answering the concerns of the protestors.

"I'm told they were inundated by lots of elected officials..."

The mayor said he didn't know which elected officials applied the pressure.

On Thursday, numerous officials -- including Rep. Jerry Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer -- stepped forward to demand that Brookfield and the city try to work out a voluntary resolution of the month-long sleep-in.

Update: The idiots are empowered.

"The longer this goes on, the worse it is for our economy. You just go down and talk to the stores in the neighborhood - there's one or two selling more pizzas, but most of them say this is hurting," Bloomberg added.

News of the postponement set off a wild celebration among the hundreds massed at the park, which they have occupied for the last four weeks. They hugged, sang, danced and beat on drums - all the while proclaiming victory.

"We are the 99%," the motley band of demonstrators chanted repeatedly.

"The powers that be can't touch us and this proves it. It's a big victory for the occupation," said Josh Long, 30, of Kensington, Brooklyn. "It's infused us with more passion and energy. No one can stop us now."