A year ago, Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Korean-American entrepreneurs in Queens to declare that a proposed industrial project symbolized "the strength of the city's diversity" and would create hundreds of new jobs.

Eight months after the Feb. 3, 2004, announcement of the College Point Wholesale Development initiative, the mayor abandoned the project. Both then and now, some Korean-American entrepreneurs employed words such as "unfair" and "disappointed" to describe their response to Bloomberg's about-face.

"A lot of members are frustrated and they don't want to trust the city anymore," said Jay Chung, who heads a consortium that bid for the site.

Bloomberg had taken heat on the privately funded $175-million project. Local residents instantly criticized it, raising the specter of huge vehicles lumbering through the neighborhood and traffic-snarled streets. Some elected officials complained they had been left out of the planning. Several protest rallies drew crowds.

The decision to back out, made public in October by Queens officials and confirmed by the mayor's office, was pegged by the city Economic Development Corp. on the need to upgrade the land there, which included part of the old Flushing Airport. But it remains a cause of disapprobation for some in the Asian community when it comes to evaluations of Bloomberg, even though the city and Korean leaders still are working to find an alternative site.

"By spinning the project into a pro-Asian-American project, the mayor's office created an environment where racist comments focused over and over again in the community protests that followed the mayor's announcement of the project," said City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing).

Liu added: "Without addressing any of those concerns, and without commenting on any of the racist sentiments that had surfaced, the mayor's office abruptly abandoned the project."

By backing out, critics say, Bloomberg took the politically safe route and dodged a potential election-year bullet. They contend it indicated that sensitive issues about race and diversity are not at the top of the mayor's agenda.

Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, however, strongly rebutted criticism of the mayor's record on diversity and race. He said the College Point project shouldn't be singled out as representative of the mayor's philosophy on diversity.

"The issue of race really hasn't been a point of conversation in the last three years. To me, that's something to be extremely proud of," said Walcott, a former head of the New York Urban League. "I think the mayor has sent out signals to people of various races and ethnicities that we're one city and he's the mayor of one people."

Even the mayor's strongest critics automatically say he's lowered the temperature when it comes to race relations in the city, as compared with the fractious eight years of his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani. They acknowledge Bloomberg is willing to engage in discussions about race that include his critics.

"Coming from the era of Giuliani, he's a breath of fresh air when it comes to civility," said Councilman Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat.

Fernando Mateo, head of the NYS Federation of Taxi Drivers, said the mayor's record with Latinos is positive.

"I think overall the mayor receives a very good rating from my perspective and I'm very critical when I have to be," Mateo said.

At the same time, Bloomberg's "softer" approach to issues of race and racism, has led some critics to accuse him of not doing enough to hire and promote minorities in the Fire Department, the Police Department and a dozen other city agencies. Joining Perkins in that opinion is Lt. Eric Adams of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.

Perkins pointed to a recent survey of city agencies by the nonprofit group Blacks in Government that showed whites hold 76 percent of senior/executive job titles, while nonwhites hold 62 percent of clerical and lower-paying jobs.

"Discrimination, unfortunately, is screaming at us in a variety of ways -- in terms of what's going on in the Fire Department, we see it in terms of contracting opportunities, and we see it in terms of managerial employment opportunities in city government," he said.

Perkins, the deputy majority leader who chairs the Governmental Operations Committee, recalled that whites make up 91.6 percent of the Fire Department's 11,000 firefighters and officers.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta maintains the department has made significant changes and encouraging progress.

"It really is two things that we have to focus on: It is recruitment and it's also helping applicants improve performance on the test," Scoppetta said. He explained that many minorities are not familiar with the department's attractive benefits or how they can familiarize themselves with the exams before taking them.

He said the mayor is committed to diversity, explaining he recently added $1.3 million to create seven new permanent posts in the recruitment unit. He also pointed to several programs to boost recruitment, including opening of the FDNY High School for Fire and Life Safety at Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly dismissed Adams' claims that minorities are left out of top NYPD command jobs and explained that many advancements are based on performance on civil service exams.

He said there are 26 civil-service black captains in the department, and 15 hold a rank higher than captain. At the end of 2001, just before Bloomberg took office, the force was 64 percent white, Kelly said; as of last month, that number stands at 59 percent.

"I have more blacks as chief than any other commissioner in the history of the department," Kelly said Thursday. "If you look at what we have, by far we have the most diverse agency in the city."

Robert Walsh, commissioner of the Department of Small Business Services, said Bloomberg made history by opening the agency when he took office and rebutted critics' contention that women and minorities don't get a fair shake when it comes to contracts.

"We have the only program in the entire country that has a public and private effort in building the capacity of minority- and women-owned businesses," Walsh said.

Another issue Bloomberg frequently raises is his goal to add 65,000 new affordable housing units.

Tino Hernandez, the chairman of the city's Housing Authority, said $2 billion from a bond deal and federal funds will be used to improve 420,000 public housing units in coming years.

Among immigrant groups, the mayor enjoys a reputation as the mayor with an open mind. But some leaders in the Asian-American community have reservations on a specific issue that surfaced post-Sept. 11.

Park Row, a street adjacent to One Police Plaza which has been closed since the attacks, have lead to widespread animosity toward the Police Department within Chinatown.

The city has appealed a state Supreme Court ruling that had ordered a broader environmental impact study of the street closing, said Margaret Fung, executive director of the Manhattan-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

"Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD have demonstrated a total disregard for Chinatown residents and small businesses, as they try to rebuild their lives after Sept. 11," Fung said. "The mayor's failure to have a full and open public process about this major street closing shows that he is out of touch with the Chinatown community."

The controversy sparked the City Council to approve a bill that require a review process to close a street in the future. The mayor is likely to sign it into law today, a spokesman said.

Another post-Sept. 11 issue that won the mayor accolades, however, is the view by some Muslims that he listens to their concerns.

Wissam Nasr, executive director of the New York chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, a nonprofit advocacy group, was supportive.

"I would say Bloomberg would enjoy generous support from the Muslim community as long as Bloomberg keeps the door open for Muslims to engage the government," Nasr said.