Our favorite moment in Mayor Bloomberg’s inaugural interview with The New York Sun was when hizzoner was asked about the possibility of letting a private company build, operate, and own the Second Avenue subway line the city needs. “In this day and age, you would not . . .” he started to say. Then he changed his thought and asserted that it was all up to Albany, in that the decision on the future of the subways that carry New Yorkers to and fro “has nothing to do with the city.” Then he said, “There’s not a chance in hell that Albany and the MTA would. . .” But then he stopped again and simply demanded to know what the man from The New York Sun was smoking.

Well, let us just say it’s not the first time we’ve been asked this question since we set out to launch a new daily newspaper in the city. The notion seems to have taken hold that the structures that have dominated New York are ossified and unchangeable, whether they be the subways, say, or the stadium setup or the welfare laws or the public school system or the marginal tax rates or — we don’t mind pointing out — the number of daily newspapers that can be supported in the biggest and most newsworthy city in the country. The idea in some quarters seems to be that advocates of change, or of radical ideas, have taken leave of their senses.

This is not the view that is going to obtain here at The New York Sun. The city, in our view, is at an extraordinary moment, full of both danger and promise. The crisis it faces did not come upon it with the attack that brought down the World Trade Center on September 11. It has been a long time building. Great strides were made during the Giuliani years, including the conquest of crime, the demonstration that the city was manageable, and the popular referendum that, with the broom of term limits, swept out en masse the members of the old City Council once it was clear they were an impediment to reform.

But the battle for the future of New York has only now begun. Much is up for debate — and for grabs — and the issues are not merely matters of city planning, important though the task downtown may be. It is hard to imagine another venue where the battle of ideas is so fully in play as it is in New York today. We have chosen to pick up the flag of the Sun because it reminds us more than that of any other newspaper of the importance of guiding principle. For more than a century, the Sun stood for constitutional government, equality under the law, free enterprise, and the American idea. We pick up the flag with a sense of humility but also of optimism and will strive to live up to the standards set by an earlier generation.