Rudolph Giuliani has been sworn in for a second term as Mayor of New York and in taking office, he outlined plans to crack down on drug sales, hire more police and cut taxes.

"Four years from now, when the next Mayor of New York City stands here, I want the newspapers and the magazines around the nation to be writing about how New York City led America to a drug-free America, the way they are writing about our crime reduction and welfare reform today," Giuliani said during a 27-minute inaugural address before 5,000 guests on the steps of City Hall.

Giuliani has been credited with reducing crime in New York

The Mayor also said that in the first 120 days of his new term, he planned to hire 1,600 police officers and cut taxes for small-business owners.

"Over the last four years ... we have reduced or eliminated 16 separate taxes and returned over $1.1 billion to the private economy," he said.

He got his biggest applause when he said he would push to eliminate the tax on clothing and shoes.

Harlem, one of the areas the Mayor is said to have helped make attractive

The Mayor, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, took a 59-word oath administered by his longtime friend U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey, who presided over the bomb conspiracy trial of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others convicted in the case.

Giuliani's wife, Donna Hanover, and their two children, Andrew and Carolyn, stood at his side.

It was the third time since Tuesday that Giuliani had placed his hand on a Bible and promised to "faithfully discharge the duties of the City of New York."

On Tuesday he was formally sworn in by the city clerk and made to pay a fee of 15 cents.

Brooklyn is one of the boroughs celebrating a centenary

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the organisation of New York into five boroughs - the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island - Giuliani plans to tour and party in all of them.

A Republican in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-to-1, Giuliani was re-elected in November in a landslide victory over Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger.

He has been credited with turning around a city that once seemed ungovernable, particularly in regard to crime, which has dropped to its lowest rates in more than a generation.

With a record half-million revelers gathered in Times Square to ring in the New Year, police reported on Thursday there had been 30 arrests in the area for assault, robbery, criminal possession of a weapon and grand larceny.

A 21-year-old man, shot four times in the chest and stomach by an unknown assailant, became the city's first murder victim of the new year, police said.

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