In 2014, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg doused Dan Doctoroff, his former deputy mayor, with an ice bucket as part of the viral challenge that raised money for ALS research.

Doctoroff spoke at the time about how both his father and uncle died of ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease. Doctoroff himself was diagnosed with the disease in 2021.

In the time he has left, he said he’s doing as much as he can, as fast as he can, to help the next generation. 

“I won't stop until I can't anymore,” he told NY1.

He believes ALS is solvable, and he’s leveraging decades of relationships from his work in New York City and beyond to try to get it done. 

Doctoroff’s public profile in New York goes back decades. He was at his most visible as deputy mayor to Bloomberg.

Doctoroff told NY1 he got results in government by setting ambitious goals and deadlines to get things done. He said he believes most problems are solved through perseverance. 

This year, his friends documented the big New York ideas he championed in a book called “The Urbanist.”

The biggest of those ideas was the bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. 

New York eventually lost the bid to London. Doctoroff and Bloomberg were at the International Olympic Committee meetings in Singapore in 2005 when they got the bad news.

“I don’t think there’s anything else we could have done,” Bloomberg, standing next to Doctoroff, said at the time. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

And then, so many of those New York Olympic ideas still became reality.

“It was a catalyst for real change,” Doctoroff said. Citi Field was part of that Olympic bid.

“This new stadium is about optimism. It’s about optimism for the future of New York City,” Doctoroff said at the time.

The new Yankee Stadium was also tied to the Olympic bid. So was much of the development on the East River, and Hudson Yards, and the 7 Train extension. 

“I was pretty fanatical about getting things done,” he said.

Doctoroff went all in on his favorite projects, and he expected the same of those who worked with him — though he says when his team was on the receiving end of an outburst, they knew why he was pushing so hard.

“They knew I loved them, and I was committed to them,” he said.

Looking at New York now, he says the city has unmatched energy, and he says energy produces ideas. But then, you need leadership. Asked if the city has that leadership now, Doctoroff said, “in parts.”

In his words, there’s a stench of corruption at City Hall. And with a revolving door of deputies, Doctoroff said Mayor Eric Adams lacks the continuity to “get stuff done.”

As NY1 and Doctoroff looked through his book, he reminisced about Bloomberg’s early days in City Hall. Bloomberg famously pulled top aides out of their private offices and put them all together in one big room called “the bullpen.” 

“It was a team that got things done,” Doctoroff recalled.

As Doctoroff looks at present-day New York, he regrets not pushing even more for housing development. Housing affordability, he says, may be the city’s biggest obstacle to growth and prosperity. 

And he’s happy to talk about that, but his energy now is on ALS research.

“There is no greater purpose for me,” he said at an event.

And he’s focused on his family. 

“I said to my kids when I was diagnosed, I want five grandchildren in five years, and they're on track,” he said with a laugh.

Doctoroff says there’s nothing that matters more in life than relationships and purpose.