Sometimes, the leader you become depends on the times you live in.

Ruben Diaz, Jr., is learning that firsthand.

The new borough president was propelled into office in April on a wave of political change that began in September 2008 with the toppling of the Bronx Democratic Party chair, Jose Rivera, and crested with the departure of Adolfo Carrion, Jr. for a new post in the Obama White House.

His arrival coincided precisely with the final innings of a community battle over the Kingsbridge Armory. Diaz took his time deciding whether he would vote in favor of the city’s plan to turn the landmarked Armory over to a developer which planned to transform it into a shopping mall. The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance were heavily lobbying him to reject any plan that did not include a requirement that retail employees be paid a living wage.

But when he finally decided to vote against the plan, he jumped in with both feet and presided over the drafting of a community benefits agreement that demanded the Related Companies require their tenants to pay employees a living wage ($10 an hour with benefits).

At the end of October, when Related still was not budging on the living wage or anything else, he told 1,400 cheering Coalition members that the push for a living wage at the Armory was part of “our new Civil Rights Movement.”

Diaz framed the battle as one that only began at the Armory.

“I do want to see new jobs created in my borough,” he said. “But these jobs must be created in the right way. The old model, that any job is better than no job, is no longer acceptable.”

Those words and others like them were widely cheered in the Bronx, but following the City Council’s near-unanimous affirmation of Diaz’s position, the city’s tabloid editorial pages and corporate titans hit back hard.

“Now the questions for Diaz,” brayed the Daily News editorial page, “as well as for his 48 job-killing Council colleagues, are: Where are you going to find employment opportunities at the level of pay you desire? And how will you put the Armory to productive use? They don’t have a clue.”

Diaz and KARA will indeed have to regroup to figure out what Plan B is for a facility that no one, regardless of what side they’re on, wants to see remain empty for very long.

Meanwhile, the city’s unions and local officials are using the Armory as a launching pad for a living wage law that will apply to all companies that receive public subsidies for development projects. The retail workers’ union has already pivoted from its Bronx victory to a similar wage battle at the Queens Center Mall.

While certainly not a total victory for even those who welcome the Council’s rejection of the plan (that would have only been achieved by a deal that included the living wage), the Armory was a political victory for Diaz, who managed to corral the entire Bronx City Council delegation into his corner on a highly contentious issue. The collaboration could bode well for Diaz’s other political priorities.

And it was a victory for the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition which more than a decade ago began etching its vision for the Armory onto blueprints for a mixed-use facility including retail but dominated by community uses.

Now they have a chance to put some of their old designs back up on the drawing board.

But this time their work won’t just be of local interest.  The whole city – its activists, politicians and power-brokers – will be watching and weighing in.

And, as usual, the Norwood News will follow it all every step of the way.