NYPD under Rudy went from one of the worst in the country to about the best at accomplishing this. The people of NYC are proportionately safer. This was accomplished in defiance of almost unanimous opposition by the liberal elite of the city. You may consider Rudy's accomplishment in this regard inadequate reason to elect him President, but please don't try to downplay the significance of this huge change, created essentially by the determination of a single man. I think considering how far-Left NYC is, it needs someone like Giuliani. I don't think he'll work well for America though.
As for NYC's crime rate, it doesn't help that they've had gun control laws there; they're just 4 years shy of the 100th anniversary of the Sullivan Act.
But if New York has had strict gun control since 1911, it means that the gun control laws did not keep the crime rate from soaring 1960-91, nor did they keep it from falling very sharply (and more than most, though not all, other cities), 1993-2005.
In other words, you can blame gun control laws for the LEVEL of crime, but not for the changes that occured at times that the gun control laws did not change.