(Photo: Jimi Celeste/Patrick McMullan)

Dan Doctoroff has always made it clear that he might not last two full terms with Mayor Bloomberg as his deputy mayor for economic development. The former investment banker, who makes $1 a year at City Hall, “said that six years was a long time,” one associate says. The new year will mark his sixth anniversary in City Hall, and so Doctoroff has been exploring his options. “He wants to run his own show,” says another well-placed source, who reports that in addition to having expressed interest in replacing Paul Tagliabue as NFL commissioner last year, Doctoroff claimed to have been “talking to” people from the Ford Foundation for a possible gig as the philanthropy’s president. (Former McKinsey director Luis Ubiñas was named to the job in August.) Doctoroff, long frustrated by the slow-moving process of government, has watched as several of his big projects—most notably the Olympics and the West Side stadium deal—have collapsed. Within City Hall, the view is that Doctoroff is waiting to wrap up Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing plan before making any decisions. A spokesman says the deputy mayor “currently has no plans to leave the administration.”

Have good intel? Send tips to intel@nymag.com.

Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Geoffrey Gray
• Table of Contents: November 19, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!