It's quiet here in Room 9 at City Hall. Outside, they're clearing away the last debris from today's Yankees celebration.

The World Series is over. Election 2009 is over.

And so, our friends, is the Brawl for the Hall blog.

We've done our best to bring you all the latest on this year's races, from the down-to-the-wire brawl between Mayor Bloomberg and Bill Thompson to the bruising scrambles for controller, public advocate, Manhattan district attorney and the City Council.

Your Brawl team has brought you more than 500 posts and more than 700 tweets since our debut, hitting countless campaign events, shooting and editing hours of video and trying to bring you a fresh take on the news with heavy research and a light writing touch.

We were all pretty new to this back in August. We appreciate your page views and your patience.

And we hope you enjoyed it. We certainly did.

Look for our occasional contributions to the Daily Politics in the future.

Until then...

...Thank you, Brawlers, and good night.

- Adam, Celeste, Erin, Frank and Michael

Here at the Brawl, the hits -- much like in the World Series -- just keep on coming!

We have put together this snappy, can't-see-this-footage-anywhere-else reel of today's Yankees ceremony here at City Hall for you, Brawlers.

Watch -- and enjoy:

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, (very) arguably the city’s No. 1 Yankees fan, was ecstatic at being back at City Hall Friday to celebrate another World Series victory, even if it didn’t happen when he was mayor.

Giuliani called it a belated No. 5 celebration that should have happened in his last year in office, in tragic-marred 2001. The Yankees lost a heart-breaker series in the aftermath of 9/11 when "The Great" Mariano Rivera uncharacteristically pitched a disastrous ninth inning that included giving up a game-losing blooper with two outs and bases loaded.

Stopping to chat with City Hall reporters on the way to the temporary stage erected over the steps of City Hall, Giuliani recalled that if the Yankees had won the series the ticker-tape parade would have been held uptown, probably ending in Times Square. "The Canyon of Heroes" downtown was still a blocked-off traffic zone from the terror attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and left ruins that smoldered for weeks afterward.

Giuliani left office a few weeks later on Dec. 31, after having helped his successor, Michael Bloomberg, get elected. It took another nine years before the World Series trophy got to make another drop-in at City Hall. Giuliani helped celebrate the occasion, at one point poignantly sitting on the stage with former Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins (as the above photo taken by Brawler Celeste Katz shows.)

Giuliani was asked who he was most excited about seeing at the private reception that was held in the Council Chamber before the ceremony began and quickly said Derek Jeter. But he also remarked that series hero Hideki Matsui deserves a lot of attention. “I’ve been to Japan seven or eight times, “ Giuliani noted. “In Japan right now there’s nothing in the newspapers but him.”

Giuliani, who got crushed in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination and is mulling a gubernatorial bid, made clear he wanted to talk baseball, not politics. At least, for now.
(New Photo added below courtesy of photographer William Alatriste of City Council, showing, left to right, Mayor Bloomberg, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson and Speaker Christine Quinn.)

We at the Brawl are proud to bring you YET ANOTHER behind-the-scenes video of the hullaballoo here over your New York Yankees.

Watch:

We also bring you this report from Guest Brawler Myles Nickolas Miller, who spoke with Gov. Paterson about baseball and... oh, yeah: Politics.

MM: "How long have you been a Yankee Fan?"

Paterson: "About a week."

MM: "It’s the first week the campaigning is starting, I saw the ad today, what does this mean to you to be running for governor for another 4 years?"

Paterson: "It means that through the difficult times I’ve been able to manage the state. We haven’t had a devalued credit rating. We haven’t missed any payments to our schools and local governments. I think if I get to tell my story I think the people will give me the chance to come back for another 4 years, and lead this state back into prosperity."

MM: "Governors from other states tried to tell their stories and were thrown out. Do you think that will happen with Cuomo, Lazio and Rudy expected to run?"

Paterson: "A lot of people can say they’re running, but they haven’t had to answer the questions that people like yourself ask me everyday. That’s why we’re starting today."

Newly-elected Manhattan Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez of Washington Heights will get bragging rights over the 12 other newbies elected to the City Council.

Unlike his freshman colleagues, who will be officially sworn into office in January, Rodriguez (shown in photo speaking to media during campaign) will be sworn in within a few weeks because his seat has been vacant ever since his predecessor, Miguel Martinez, resigned in disgrace in July to plead guilty to stealing $106,000 in his capacity as councilman from the 10th District (Washington Heights, Inwood, Marble Hill).

It won’t give Rodriguez much seniority benefits, but he can vote in the few remaining sessions before the end of the year and he can say he was a member of the “Old” Council when his fellow new members join him. And unless the incoming Council rearranges the seating order in the Chamber, Rodriguez, 44, a public high school bilingual teacher, will take over the prime front-row seat previously occupied by Martinez, whom Rodriguez had tried to defeat in both 2001 and 2003.

Rodriguez was not immediately available for comment, but in case you’re wondering he’s not among the missing city and state elected officials basking in the sun in Puerto Rico, where they are attending the Somos 2009 Winter Conference sponsored by Albany’s Latino legislators. (Here's what they are up to today.) But with a name like Rodriguez, you would think that Councilman-elect Ydanis would be attending the Yankees World Series celebration at 1 p.m. in the plaza in front of City Hall, where several thousand seats for ticket holders are beginning to fill up. Each incumbent councilmember received six tickets for the festivities, and some tickets were also available for the newly-elected members. So far, Rodriguez—the councilman-elect and not Kate Hudson’s baseball-playing boyfriend—hasn't shown up.