"We are really ready to get started," Mr. de Blasio said during a news conference in Manhattan.
The two people he named to run his transition team have a long history in city government, an indication perhaps of how Mr. de Blasio will staff his administration.
Mr. de Blasio, who has pledged to replace Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, reiterated his intent to reform the Police Department, including the stop-and-frisk tactic. But he declined to give a timeline for when he would announce key appointments, adding that he would "take a very hands-on approach" to the process.
He said he was looking for people with a "keen understanding of the practicalities of government" and vowed to place an emphasis on diversity.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio met for over an hour with the man he will replace, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, at City Hall.
Mr. de Blasio said his meeting with Mr. Bloomberg was "cordial" and "collegial."
"It is obvious that this is going to be a very smooth and productive transition," he said.
Mr. de Blasio made it clear that the city was going to move in a very different direction, saying that it was "not just enough to have a statistically strong economy."
Mr. de Blasio is headed to Puerto Rico on Thursday to attend the Somos conference, a gathering of Hispanic legislators, before taking a brief vacation with his wife, Chirlane McCray.
Mr. Bloomberg was not on the ballot in Tuesday's election, but his legacy after 12 years in power cast a wide shadow over the campaign.
Mr. de Blasio often framed the contest as a referendum on the Bloomberg era.
Even the setting of their meeting on Wednesday was a reminder of how much things stood to change when Mr. de Blasio takes office in January.
The two sat at a wooden table overlooking the "bullpen," an open floor plan created by Mr. Bloomberg that Mr. de Blasio has indicated he may get rid of in favor of a more traditional office space.
On the desk, placed between the two men, was a clock tracking down to the second the amount of time that elapsed during the meeting, a reminder of just how much faith the current mayor placed on data in helping him run this sprawling city.
Mr. de Blasio, on the other hand, offered a glimpse into a style that might offer more oratorical flourishes than Mr. Bloomberg, who was not known for his soaring rhetoric.
"We as New Yorkers, people whose stories wouldn't be possible anywhere else on earth, we know that we are not defined by the cold steel of our skyscrapers, but by the strength and compassion and boldness of our collective spirit," Mr. de Blasio said in his victory speech at the Park Slope Armory in Brooklyn on Tuesday night.
During his speech and in his first appearance since being elected, he continued to press the central theme of his campaign.
"I've spoken often about a tale of two cities," he said late Tuesday night. "That inequality – that feeling of a few doing very well, while so many slip further behind – that is the defining challenge of our time."
For his part, Mr. Bloomberg has criticized the campaign of the man who will now succeed him, describing it as "class warfare and racist," in an interview in New York magazine before the election.
While not interjecting himself in the race, Mr. Bloomberg has taken time in recent months to note, repeatedly, that he is handing the next mayor a city that is in far better shape than the one many of his predecessors inherited.
"The day that we believe that our progress is inevitable, the day we take our safety and security for granted, the day that we believe that the past cannot repeat itself is the day those questions will return," Mr. Bloomberg warned in a September speech.
While Mr. de Blasio defeated his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota, by a huge margin, he remains unknown to many in the city.
And, like those who came before him, the legacy of his predecessor is likely to cast a shadow over his tenure until he can establish an identity of his own.
Mr. Bloomberg faced a similar challenge when he took office from Rudolph W. Giuliani. The city was still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks and Mr. Bloomberg had never held public office. People knew he was rich but little else.
While Mr. Giuliani had endorsed him, when the two met the day after Mr. Bloomberg's election, Mr. Bloomberg made it immediately clear that he would chart his own course.
"He will be very helpful, as much as we want," Mr. Bloomberg said at the time. But he quickly also said that he was sure that Mr. Giuliani was "not going to impose himself," and that while transitions were difficult, "you have to give up and pass on the reins."
When Mr. Giuliani came into office after defeating the incumbent, David N. Dinkins, the city's first black mayor, the transition was far different.
The two had waged a bitter campaign against each another, not once but twice.
Mr. Giuliani won in his second bid in 1993, becoming the first Republican mayor in two decades. When the two stood shoulder to shoulder the day after the election, Mr. Giuliani had to get to work to ease the divisions caused by a polarized race in which Mr. Dinkins won 95 percent of the black vote and he captured 77 percent of the white vote.
Mr. Dinkins was gracious.
"Yesterday our city's votes may have been divided," he said. "But today our city will be reunited. I expect nothing less and hope for even more."
At the time, Mr. de Blasio was a young Dinkins aide. Today he is mayor-elect.
