NEW YORK — Billionaire Republican Michael Bloomberg, with at least $50 million of his fortune and the backing of popular incumbent Rudolph Giuliani, has landed the job of mayor and the task of steering New York through one of its biggest recoveries in history.

        In a dramatic victory Tuesday, Bloomberg defeated Democrat Mark Green as voters followed Giuliani's choice to lead the city out of the chaos left by the Sept. 11 attack that brought down the World Trade Center.

        “New York is alive and well and open for business,” Bloomberg told cheering supporters early Wednesday.

        Bloomberg inherits a city government in crisis since the attack. Nearly 100,000 jobs have been lost due to the resulting downturn in the economy, and the next mayor faces a multibillion-dollar budget gap.

        “We are clearly going to have enormous problems,” Bloomberg said.

        Green, a veteran politician, squandered a double-digit lead to the Democrat-turned-Republican political novice.

        Bloomberg rebounded after Giuliani endorsed Bloomberg, cut television commercials for him and by election eve was campaigning enthusiastically by his side. Heading into the election, polls showed the race dead even in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-1.

        The surge continued into Election Day.

        With all precincts reporting in the nine-candidate race, Bloomberg had 719,819 votes, or 50 percent, while Green had 676,560 or 47 percent.

        While Giuliani's popularity and Bloomberg's money were boosting the Republican cause, Democrats bickered away what had appeared to be an easy victory.

        Green took the blame.

        “The mistakes we made were mine,” he told supporters as he conceded to Bloomberg just after midnight.

        Bloomberg's election means Republicans will control City Hall for another four years. Giuliani held the job for eight years and will step down Dec. 31 only because of a term-limits law he briefly considered trying to circumvent.

        Bloomberg, a 59-year-old divorced father of two, is the founder of a financial services company that carries his name. Before this year, he was perhaps best-known to readers of the city's tabloids as the wealthy escort for some of New York's most glamorous women and readers of financial pages for his business news service.

        But the Boston-area native used his fortune — estimated at $4 billion — to secure the help of political veterans. Media guru David Garth, who helped make Edward Koch mayor, was on the team as was William Cunningham, a one-time chief of staff to former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and political aide to former Gov. Hugh Carey.

        As the campaign wound down, both Koch and Carey gave their blessings to Bloomberg. Common Cause, the citizen lobbying group, said it was the most expensive mayor's race in U.S. history.

        Green, the city's elected public advocate and a former aide to consumer advocate Ralph Nader, has been seeking a major electoral victory for years. He failed in a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1986 and again in 1998. He spent $12 million on the mayor's race, limited in part by his participation in the city's public campaign financing system.

        As the campaign drew to a close, Green found himself in an unexpected battle for black and Hispanic voters, a traditional Democratic resource.

        In a party runoff, Green narrowly defeated Fernando Ferrer, the Bronx borough president who was seeking to become the first Hispanic elected mayor. Resentment from that campaign lingered; exit polling found Green and Bloomberg running almost even among Hispanic voters while about seven in 10 black voters supported the Democrat.

        Bloomberg has portrayed himself as the natural successor to Giuliani, citing his success in the private sector as good experience for running the cash-strapped city. He has already said he won't raise taxes, but will freeze hiring and seek to trim expenses.

        “The economy is very important now and a business background is really what's needed here,” said Ruth Levine, a retired secretary from Manhattan who voted for Bloomberg, even though she is a Democrat.

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