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After Clarence Norman: Is Reform Possible?


Clarence Norman, a notorious political powerhouse in Brooklyn, was recently convicted of three felony counts and one misdemeanor for soliciting and receiving illegal campaign contributions. The unanimous verdict is just the latest installment in a larger investigation into the claim that judgeships are for sale in Brooklyn. District Attorney Charles Hynes, who himself once had the support of Norman and the Brooklyn Democratic organization, has been pursuing this case since 2003.

Although Norman, who has now given up his seat in the State Assembly and his leadership of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, was not charged directly with selling judgeships, the case has brought needed attention to the process by which judges are nominated and elected, and to the political potency of the Brooklyn Democratic organization. The growing scandal prompted Mayor Michael Bloomberg to call for a reform of the judicial selection process and the political patronage that surrounds the process. “It’s high time to clean out the smoky backrooms of the judicial selection process,” the mayor said at a recent event for Citizens Union (the good government group affiliated with Citizens Union Foundation, which publishes Gotham Gazette.)

Hynes’ prosecution of Norman and the inquiry into the workings of the Brooklyn Democratic organization have also illuminated the undemocratic process of filling vacancies in elected office.

FILLING NORMAN'S SHOES

The Norman verdict created a political vacuum, opening up two leadership positions in the Brooklyn Democratic Party and creating a vacant seat in the State Assembly. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, the worst kind of party politics has guided the selection of all three posts, even the elected office.

In a closed selection process at the St. Mark’s School in Crown Heights, 127 members of the party county committee chose Reverend Karim Camara, a colleague of Reverend Clarence Norman Sr., as the Democratic nominee to replace Norman Jr. in the 43rd Assembly District.

Geoffrey Davis, the candidate of the Independence Party, in an interview with the New York Sun likened the process to a “Mafia style” selection when “the Godfather goes to jail and picks his successor.” Also running is Kenneth Cook, a previous candidate for Brooklyn Borough President. He has the support of the Republican, Libertarian and Conservative party.

The Democratic nomination not only virtually ensures Camara’s victory in the special election in the overwhelmingly Democratic district but, with the power of incumbency and the lack of term limits in the state house, he has, in effect, a lifetime appointment to a supposedly democratically elected office. Norman represented the district for 23 years and probably could have kept it for another 23 had he not been convicted and subsequently removed from office.

Additionally, current legislative measures actually perpetuate the status quo of keeping the voter out of the political process. According to the Public Officers Law, the governor has the authority to call a special election for vacancies that occur in the middle of an official term. The process requires that party nominations, filing of petitions, certification, and election must occur within 30 to 45 days. This truncated calendar eliminates the primary and allows for the closed-door nomination process instead. This fuels the notion that voters do not have a say in the selection of public officials and gives even the emasculated political machines a way to wield power.

Rank and file Democratic Party members also had no voice in the selection of the two leadership positions vacated by Norman. In a closed procession, the county organization picked Assemblymember Vito Lopez as the new county leader for the Brooklyn Democratic Party and party loyalist Moses Moore for Norman’s district leader post.

REFORMING THE JUDICIAL PROCESS

Although reform of party practices by the parties themselves seemss implausible, Mayor Bloomberg apparently believes judicial selection can be removed from political influences. In his speech at Citizens Union, he declared, “It’s time to take the back-room deals and politics out of our judicial system and move toward a merit-based system for the appointment of judges.” He called for the creation of a blue-ribbon panel to review all candidates for judge before they go before the voters. This would be similar to the appointment process for criminal and family courts. Such a change requires approval by the state legislature.

His reform proposal comes in response to a number of recent controversies, including the creation of a second Surrogate Court position for Brooklyn. As reported by Gotham Gazette, “In the middle of the night, both houses of the legislature passed a bill to create 21 new judgeships throughout the state.” Governor George Pataki signed the bill into law. Because the law passed after August 1 –- after the filing deadline for the September primary -- Brooklyn’s political leaders were able to appoint yet another crony to an elected position. For that plum position, the political machine chose longtime Norman supporter Assemblymember Frank Seddio.

In the case of the other Surrogate's Court seat in Brooklyn, both the Democratic machine and reform activists have taken their gloves off. The seat was left vacant after Judge Michael Feinberg was ousted because of misconduct. Despite efforts by the party backed candidate Diana Johnson to challenge the victory of reform candidate Margarita Lopez Torres in the Democratic primary, Torres won. A recount of questionable affidavit ballots ordered by the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court doubled Torres' lead from 109 votes to 205 votes in the final count.

Amy Ngai is program associate of Citizens Union Foundation (publishers of Gotham Gazette).

 

 

City Council Stated Meeting - October 27, 2005


Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. Gotham Gazette covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"There is no real estate in the free world that is more developable than the West Side of Manhattan. To dedicate $1.3 billion of tax money in this city to this project is outrageous." – City Councilmember Lewis Fidler on a measure to invest in the Hudson Yards development project.

MEETING SUMMARY:
The New York City Council approved $1.3 billion in spending over the next 40 years to help develop the West Side of Manhattan.

The measure was part of an agreement reached between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council earlier this year. Under the rezoning of the area, the council was able ensure that 28 percent of the new housing built will be affordable, a significant increase from previous proposals. In exchange, the council agreed to pay for a greater percentage of the plan upfront, using financing known as "payment in lieu of taxes" or PILOTs.

PILOTs are money from developers who build properties on city-owned land, but do not pay property taxes on it. Instead, they pay money into a specific fund. The PILOT payments for the West Side will go to pay for parks and transportation improvements associated with the extension of the number 7-subway line.

Speaker Gifford Miller said that the plan would save New York taxpayers $1 billion over the next four decades.

But several council members objected to the measure, arguing that plans to build the West Side Stadium for the Olympic bid forced the council into a rushed decision. Now, they want to revisit the idea of using public subsidies to encourage development in the area.

"There is no real estate in the free world that is more developable than the West Side of Manhattan," said Councilmember Lewis Fidler, who called on private developers to pay for needed improvements. "To dedicate $1.3 billion of tax money in this city to this project is outrageous."

"This is very substantial investment of taxpayer dollars without a convincing case of the necessity of it," said Councilmember David Yassky.

Proponents of the financing plan said that the council had already made a deal with the mayor and could not break it now.

City Councilmember Christine Quinn, who represents the area, said that the investment will pay off for the entire city.

"We are not taking money out of the budget," said Quinn, "but creating a scenario where more money comes into our budget that can be used for the many projects we care deeply about, like schools, health clinics, and roads."

The council approved the measure by a vote of 45 to 4. Charles Barron, Lew Fidler, Letitia James, and David Yassky voted "no."

PAY RAISES FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS
The council also quietly approved $31,896 pay increases for public administrators, five court appointed officials who handle estates if the deceased person has no will or others to claim a share of the inheritance.

Public administrators currently make $91,134 and under the measure (Intro 719) their pay would increase to $123,030.

Public administrators, who are appointed by the Surrogate’s Court judge in each borough, have also been involved in recent scandals in the judicial system.

Councilmember David Weprin said that the public administrators haven't received a raise in "more than seven years" while their workloads have increased.

But Councilmember David Yassky suggested that before they get raises the duties and positions should be overhauled.

The measure passed by a vote of 46 to 3. David Yassky, Charles Barron, and Allan Jennings voted against the pay increases.

SENIOR CITIZEN HOUSING
The City Council passed two measures to expand the number of more low-income senior citizens and the disabled who can take advantage of rent increase exemptions and tax breaks.

Intro 722 applies to homeowners and Intro 726 applies to renters.

"These particular programs help people who are disabled and senior citizens to stay in their homes," said Speaker Miller.

The bills passed unanimously.

BENEFITS FOR DECEASED TRANSIT WORKERS
The council also passed a bill (Intro 730) to extend health insurance coverage for the surviving spouse, domestic partner, and children of certain transit workers who are killed on the job.

Police and firefighters routinely get such benefits, but this legislation allows the city to extend them to other municipal workers as well.

The bill was inspired by the death of Nick Antico, a 35 year-old Department of Transportation worker, who was working road repair in Staten Island when a speeding driver hit him, and then fled the scene. Antico left behind a wife and 8-year-old daughter.

The worker benefit bills passed unanimously.

The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for November 16, 2005.

 

City Council District 5 Candidate Debate


On October 18, 2005, two candidates for City Council district 5 debated issues of the city budget, noise, healthcare reform, and housing. The candidates are: Jessica Lappin (Democrat/Working Families Party) and Joel Zinberg (Republican/Independence/Liberal). The event was sponsored by Citizens Union in partnership with the Carnegie Hill Neighbors and Friends of the Upper East Side. It was moderated by Edward-Issac Dovere from Our Town newspaper.

The following is an edited transcript of the event.

OPENING STATEMENTS

Jessica Lappin: Good evening, my name is Jessica Lappin. I am the Democratic nominee for city council in the 5th district. I am a born and bred New Yorker. I grew up in Manhattan, went to Stuyvesant High School and then to Georgetown University for college, and then came back to New York City, the city that I love after a brief stint in the private sector chose to pursue a career in public service. I've been working in this community for the last seven years. I started out in 1998 doing constituent service for Gifford Miller and was most recently his district chief of staff.

I'm tackling the issues that I think are important to this community. Working with parents and teachers to improve our schools, to build additional classroom space at PS 290, which now has music and sciences classes. Working with transportation advocates on the East Side, saving bus stops on 55th street that are very important to our population. Working on housing issues with tenants on the East Side and particularly on Roosevelt Island, who have been in danger of losing their homes.

I've been working day in and day out on the ground tackling these issues. My experience in the community and down at City Hall will enable me to be an independent voice for progress and for reform within this community. And from my work in City Council, I think I have a good sense of what works well and what could work better. And then I have some reform proposals I hope we'll get to discuss tonight: to streamline the budget and the bill drafting process, to make the legislative process in general more transparent to the voters and to the public and to the membership of the City Council. I'm working to make the culture of the institution one of more transparency and accountability.

So I believe my experience will enable me to be an effective advocate, to hit the ground running, and I hope that I can earn your support tonight and your vote on November 8th. Thank you.

Joel Zinberg: Good evening. My name is Dr. Joel Zinberg. Like my opponent, I am a life-long New Yorker, also a Stuyvesant High School graduate. I went to Swarthmore College, where I graduated Phi Beta Kappa, high honors. I came back to New York for medical school at Columbia, also attended Yale Law school where I was a law journal editor, and I've been in New York ever since.

I am running because I am concerned that the progress we've made in the last few years, the last 12 years to be exact, under the Giuliani and the Bloomberg administrations is in danger. It's in danger if we don't elect council people who have real world experience, who share the experience and perspective of their constituents. I think we have a council that unfortunately is full of politicians and people who have been aides to politicians. They've never worked in the private sector; they don't share the experience and values and perspective of their constituents.

What I want to do is utilize my real-world experience so that we can bring some innovative ideas like reforming Medicaid, using city resources to save $500 million a year, a proposal that was praised by the mayor, praised by the New York Post, and praised by the New York Sun as an innovative, original idea, something you don't see from career politicians. I want to utilize my background to restore quality in the city hospital system.

I want to utilize my background to know that we have alternatives to the Second Avenue Subway by improving the Lexington Avenue line. I've also been a volunteer in the community both in the 19th precinct community council giving free breast cancer screenings and on organizations the preserve the rights and protect the rights at human research centers.

I think it's important to hit the ground running. But I think when you hit the ground you have to know which direction you're going. The only way you know that is by working in the community and having the real world experience.

THE BUDGET DEFICIT

Question: How do you propose the city address the projected deficit in the city's 2007-2008 budgets? Are there new revenue streams that you would propose? Are there specific inefficiencies or wasteful programs you would seek to eliminate?

Joel Zinberg: I think you were talking about the impending budget deficit, which was coming in the out year. Now we have a surplus but there's going to be a budget deficit in the future. You have to start thinking out of the box. You have to think about some innovative ideas. It's not simply a bunch of sound bites saying we're going to cut this; we're going to do that. We need some innovative ideas.

For example, like my Medicaid plan. Those of you who saw the New York Times article, know that we lose billions of dollars every year. New York City spends $5 billion a year on Medicaid. We could be saving by applying city resources to cut back Medicaid fraud and abuse $500 million a year.

I think we can do a lot of things like reform in education; we've already established standards and accountability under the Bloomberg administration, but let's expand that to the whole system. Let's look at those lengthy, complex, ridiculous contracts that create crazy work rules that cost the city money and are completely inefficient – things like the custodians' union. Let's consider the possibility of outsourcing some of the non-educational functions and possibly save that money, and get a more efficient performance.

Let's hold the line on taxing and spending. Let's look very carefully at not increasing, not simply saying that we're going to throw money at every problem. And finally let's look carefully, as the Citizens Budget Commission did, at the possibility of reforming the pension programs and the health benefits for city retirees. Not for the people who've been there already – we have a bond with them – but go forward making it much more like the private sector.

Jessica Lappin: When Gifford Miller was elected speaker during the first budget when we were facing a similar budget deficit, and we cut $3 billion dollars out of the city's budget over the last few years. We are facing this huge budget deficit next year, and I think Joel has some good ideas about Medicaid fraud and we are going to have to find a way to deal with our escalating pension costs and our debt service, which are eating up a large portion of our city's budget.

But I will say if Governor Pataki stopped appealing the Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision, we would be able to bridge our budget gap in one year. And if he would stop saying that our kids were only entitled to an 8th grade education – the state's highest court has mandated that the inequality in education funding be addressed, and the state has refused to do it. The governor has fought every step of the way to address this inequality, which has a huge impact upon our city's budget.

And I'll say that that when you balance the budget you have to do it in a way that's mindful of prioritizing and protecting our core city services. I don't think we should go back to being a city with only 20,000 cops on the streets. I think we have to make sure that we are still picking up our trash, keeping our city safe, and making sure our kids are able to go to their schools and be taught in our classrooms.

CITY COUNCIL REFORM

Q: Do you feel the operation of the city council is in need of reform? If so, how would you help create a more open, transparent, and effective city council?

Jessica Lappin: Having worked sort of within the City Council and at City Hall, I think there are things that the City Council should be doing better, and there are a few specific reform proposals I want to lay out briefly.

One, I think the process for the public to track legislation as it moves through City Council should be more transparent: as bills are amended, as bills are voted upon, it's very difficult for the public to follow the process, and I don't think it should be that way. I think there should be a sort of streamlining of the bill drafting process so that members know when their bill will be drafted so that their ideas can become laws. I think there should be e-mail notification to the public about the agenda about what's happening in the body and to the membership of the City Council as well. These are some things that would help to change the culture of the City Council and make it into a more transparent body and make the membership more accountable to the people they represent.

Joel Zinberg: I think the first thing you have to seriously consider when you talk about reforming the city council is to change it from being a one-party system. In the council, 48 of the 51 members are Democrats. Most of you know and you can remember from history when you have one-party rule you usually get no debate, you get poor results, and I think the current council speaks for itself. That's one thing we have to do, we have to elect me, we have to elect my fellow candidate from the other district, Patrick Murphy, to get some new fresh voices, new fresh perspectives. I think are some more procedural matters you could pick. You could allow committees a greater role in the budget process, so that there particular area of expertise should be allowed to be heard in the budget process, something that's now allowed now. You should allow those council committees to function more independently of the speaker so that they can exercise that expertise. You should strengthen the process of allowing council members to propose amendments to bills. It's not a matter of merely transparency; it's a matter of there being dictatorial policies by the speaker. Finally, I think you have to loosen restrictions on the discharge petitions so more things are actually voted upon. But it's not a simple question. But it's a question that easily can be undertaken if you have a two-party system and people willing to do it.

Jessica Lappin: I just wanted to say that I think it's more important to have a member of the majority party stand up and be an independent voice for progress and reform within the institution, and I have always been and will continue to be an independent voice, to stand up to the speaker, whomever that person is, if appropriate, and to make my voice and my views known on behalf of my constituents.

PRESERVATION OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE

Q: The next question comes from Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District. We have been working for many years to landmark important examples of modern architecture on the Upper East Side. This is a threshold issue throughout the city. What are your thoughts on the preservation of modern architecture?

Jessica Lappin: Well, I've worked with Friends of the Upper East Side and Municipal Art Society, and we fought Trump because we didn't think it was a good example of modern architecture and worked with them to try to landmark pieces in this district that are. I think that part of what makes New York City dynamic is that it is a city where there is change and progress and development. But that said, you have to protect the important parts of our history so that as you look back over time we have a record of how the city evolved and became what it is today – such a special place. So I think it's important to work with our historic preservation groups to do that.

Joel Zinberg: I couldn't concur more. It's very important I don't think there's a pat answer to the question. I think each case is individual, obviously. There's no way to say that a Guggenheim Museum isn't a classic simply because it isn't old enough, or that an old building is a classic simply because it is old. It's something that has to be undertaken on a case-by-case basis. I think we have to leave this to the people who are very expert on this, people in the landmark commission. So, we can't make the city a museum, but on the other hand you can't turn it over to developers. It's a mixture, and it's a delicate balance, and it's an ongoing process.

Q: The second question from the Friends of the Upper East Side Historic District. How do you plan on working with the community boards?

Joel Zinberg: The community boards perform a very important function in our community. They are the sounding board for people in the community to be able to express their opinions, to let people in positions of power know and in government know what's on their minds, and to have a voice that can ratify those opinions, or publicize those opinions. I think it's imperative that anyone whose going to be on the City Council express their willingness to work with the community boards, whether it's on landmark-type issues or any other issues. I can tell you in my district things like the waste station on 91st street or the water shafts down in the 50s have been called to public attention because of the community boards. They have been calling the politicians to account and without their voice and without people willing to listen to their voice you have a much more political process.

Jessica Lappin: The community boards are the most basic, classic form of local government, and I've really enjoyed working with community board 6 and community board 8 over the last seven years, whether it's through on the environment and education committee of board 8, we've had meetings once a month for years about the 91st street garbage station, or having meetings about bus stops on 55th street. They are public servants who come and meet and they discuss the issues that really impact our quality of life. I have worked with them I want to continue to work with them.

The City Council member appoints members of the community board. I think it's important that our council members appoint people who are thoughtful, substantive, progressive, involved in the community, educated on the local issues. The meetings go on late, into the night, if you go to community board, they usually go until midnight sometimes. That we have people who are willing and are dedicated to do the work that needs to be done is fantastic. I look forward to continuing to work with them.

Joel Zinberg: I wanted to add that I, too, have attended community board meetings at the land use committee and the sanitation and environment committee as recently as about a week and a half ago. I also attend the 19th precinct community council, a very similar kind of community organization, which performs and important function. And I did it because I'm interested, I did it not because it was my job, but just because it's an important role for any citizen to do. Everyone in this room should be attending those meetings as well.

CONSTRUCTION NOISE IS RESIDENTIAL AREAS

Q: This is from Carnegie Hill Neighbors. The question is about noise. How would you work with the City Council and the mayor to reduce noise for construction in residential areas?

Jessica Lappin:Noise is the number one complaint to 311. It is a critical quality of life issue in our community. And I have worked with neighborhood residents to organize anti-horn-honking rallies, to get the 19th precinct to come out and issue summonses to motorists who are illegally honking their horns. I've worked with neighborhood groups to address the problem of noisy bars. I think the City Council has an opportunity to pass a revised noise code and to tackle construction noise, bars, and horn honking. These are real issues that the City Council can address by re-writing the noise code. And I think that we should in the next session be doing that.

Joel Zinberg: Noise is the number one complaint and I can tell you from my years at the 19th Precinct Community Council and discussions with Inspector Rogers and the community affairs officers that they try very hard to enforce the laws. It's a very difficult task. The fact of the matter is, you hear a loud radio, you hear a loud neighbor, you call 311, you call 911, the police office comes over, by the time they're there, the noise is off. It's not a simple matter, but there are certain things that can be done and certain organizations that can be held responsible. It's very clear we have to limit construction hours and not have construction in the middle of the night. You also have to be clear that you cannot necessarily have commercial waste trucks loading at all hours of the night – you've all probably been awakened by a truck slamming that container at three in the morning and people screaming. So it requires changing the code, it requires common sense, it requires a little bit of thinking out of the box and the continued participation of our police and our citizenry.

Moderator: Candidates will now have a chance to ask questions of their opponents.

PROPERTY TAX REBATE

Jessica Lappin: My question ties into the question about the budget gap for next year, because we are facing a considerable budget deficit – do you support the mayor's plan to give a $400 tax rebate next year?

Joel Zinberg: The interesting thing is that most people don't realize that the only tax that the city controls obliquely is the property tax. So we have a city council that refuses to reign in spending, refuses to act responsibly, refuses to look at new ideas that could potentially save money – it forces us to raise taxes. And what's the tax we can raise? The property tax. Now, if you act fiscally responsible, then you have the opportunity to cut back taxes. So I think if indeed the budget warrants it – at the moment it appears that it does – I am in favor of continuing that. If circumstances should change then I think then we'd have to re-think that question.

MILLER'S MAILINGS

Joel Zinberg: In the September 7th Democratic primary debate, one of your opponents, Eric Cesnick, asked if you would call on Gifford Miller to return the $1.6 million in taxpayer money that he used to pay for what were clearly campaign mailings. Your answer was evasive and not responsive and you refused a request by Mr. Cesnick and the moderator, Dominick Carter, to answer yes or no. Mr. Carter finally concluded, quote, "that's a no answer." My question is, why won't you publicly urge your mentor, Mr. Miller, to return this taxpayer money that was obtained by circumventing normal council bidding rules and used to benefit Mr. Miller's campaign?

Jessica Lappin: I have answered this question publicly at forums before the NY1 debate, and again on NY1, and I want to do it again. I was not working for Gifford Miller in April when… I left his office in April, when he sent out those mailings. I think it was a mistake. He didn't ask my advice. If he had asked my advice, I would have told him that I thought it was a mistake. And beyond that, you know I'm here to discuss my campaign, my race, my issues, and my ideas. For him to give back the money, that's a decision that he has to make on his own. I've answered this question many times, and I'd like to move on and discuss some issues that impact this community.

Joel Zinberg: Interestingly, that's almost verbatim the answer that was given at that September 7th debate and I think anyone who reads that transcript or heard the answer tonight can conclusively say it's a non-responsive answer. It's not an answer to, yes or no, will you urge him to give back the money. It's a simple question.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Q: What is your plan to preserve affordable housing in New York City?

Jessica Lappin: I have been actively working with tenants on the East Side and on Roosevelt Island to tackle this issue. When the rent laws were set to expire a couple years ago, I traveled to Albany with East Side tenants. We lobbied together, side-by-side, at the state's capital, and rallied, talked to our legislators, and convinced them to renew the rent laws.

I've worked with the tenants out on Roosevelt Island, one of the poorest, probably the poorest residents in the district. They're Section 8 tenants, and they now have a deal they have brokered with their landlords, they're going to be able to stay in their homes. And I'm working with the middle-income tenants who live across the street so that they can do the same. And I think a lot of what you're City Council member can do and should do is work one-on-one with tenants in this community.

On the broader scale, I favor inclusionary zoning as a way, if developers are coming to City Council and asking for something, they should give something back. They should give affordable housing to the community. And then I think that's a tool that our City Council members should use to promote the building of new affordable units. I like the idea of creating a vehicle for people - whether it's developers or tenants - to purchase their homes with low-interest loans. That's something that would greatly benefit the middle-income tenants on Roosevelt Island. And I think encouraging some of the tax credits for green building and for the building of middle-income that already exists are also ways that we can continue to address this crisis in our city.

Joel Zinberg: The key issue here is how to increase the stock of affordable housing. And you increase it by utilizing government programs in partnership with private programs. And I think what Mayor Bloomberg has been doing the last few years is a fantastic example of that. He's managed to get $130 million from the Battery City fund downtown for building affordable housing, he promoted inclusionary zoning, and he recently announced a partnership between private foundations, banks, and the government to build affordable housing.

It's not something you do by fiat; it's not something that the government can or should order. It just doesn't work that way; it can't be mandatory.

I think that what Mayor Bloomberg is showing is that if you put your mind to it, when you're flexible, when you're willing to negotiate, and take into account the interests both of the tenants and of the people who are seeking to build the housing, you can accomplish great things. In addition, he has also been right there negotiating to extend Section 8 housing for people, in their negotiating to convince landlords to stay in the Mitchell-Lama program. You can't put people in who have taken a deal twenty years ago and simply change the rules. He knows that. But he's been in there, offering incentives, trying to get them to do it, and I think he's been very successful and I think that's what we need to be doing.

Jessica Lappin: I think it does matter not just the affordable housing we create, but working in this war of attrition to save what we can. And I think that is an important component that the city should be looking at moving forward. For example, if the city offered low-interest loans to families on Roosevelt Island and enabled them to purchase those apartments, we would be saving a thousand units. We should keep people in this city and we should stop this hemorrhage. To lose a thousand units of affordable housing, that means we have to build a thousand more just to stand still. I think that's important.

THE MTA

Q: And our next question is about the MTA. For those of you don't know, the MTA is currently run by a board, which has several members appointed by the mayor and the majority of members appointed by the governor, so it is controlled by Albany. The question is, are you in favor of the city taking over the MTA?

Joel Zinberg: The MTA was formed several years back by merging several different transit authorities. And I'm not sure that the city taking over is necessarily a solution. I do know about one thing that very easily can be done to improve the MTA. What the MTA has done is maintain separate structures back from the old days when it was four different agencies. You have four duplicates on many different aspects of their administrative staff. You just don't need it, it's wasteful, and you could save tremendous amounts of money by eliminating that. I just don't know that having the city run it. It covers a much broader area that just New York City is necessarily a solution. Aside from which, it's a state agency and it may be out of our hands under in any event.

Jessica Lappin: I imagine this question has grown out of frustration from some people in this room who are feeling that the MTA is one of the most unresponsive agencies known to man. And it's really unbelievable.

When people protest simple things they're completely unwilling to take any input from the public. And I don't know I haven't really thought much about the city taking over the MTA. There are some things that trouble me – keeping more than one set of books, raising fares, cutting service, not really giving the people who live here a say in how the agency is run. I want to note that there's going to be a Transportation Bond Act on the ballot that impacts MTA and their future projects, particularly the Second Avenue subway, but other projects across the city and the state as well. And if you are in favor of the Second Avenue subway and other infrastructure enhancements to MTA then I would urge you to vote yes on the Transportation Bond Act in November.

HEALTHCARE

Q: How would you manage health care in New York City?

Jessica Lappin: Well, I'm not a provider, and we have one here I'm sure he's going to talk about his ideas. But I have tried to find ways to bridge the gap. I think there should be universal health care in this country. I think that there should be universal health care in this country. Until that happens, until the Constitution mandates that we provide our citizens with care, for me, that's part of what being a Democrat means, is taking care of people who should have access to health care and not leaving our poor and our seniors to lie ill and die in their homes and on the street.

I have tried to find creative ways working with the community to bridge the gap. The city is somewhat limited in what they can do, by offering free mammograms to those without health insurance. Working with neighborhood health last year when we were getting panicked calls from seniors during the flu vaccine shortage with people who were afraid that they wouldn't make it through the winter, finding a way to get almost all of our seniors their shots. I've tried to find creative solutions to a really difficult problem.

Joel Zinberg: The problem of health care in New York is kind of a microcosm of the country. I think a good example of misguided attempts by the current City Council is the Health Reform Act they recently passed by overriding the mayor's veto. And this was termed by an editorial in the New York Times as such chop a block solution for local governments of what is indeed a national problem.

The council decided they were going to require... they start off with a very broad idea then they finally narrowed it down to large grocery stores and... they were going to require them to provide health care. I submit, and I think the Times agrees, that, number one, it's probably pre-empted by federal legislation. Number two, it's just a bad idea. A single locality cannot mandate something, then it puts itself at a tremendous disadvantage.

What we need to do in health care is we need to be innovative, we need to, for example, my idea for reforming Medicaid utilizing our resources so that we can save that $500 million and then actually use the $500 million for things like hiring more teachers, for firefighters or police, or, heaven forbid, letting people actually get health care with that $500 million rather than throwing it out the window. I think you also have to look seriously in involving the community in breast cancer screenings. I have done— I didn't just arrange for breast cancer screenings, I was there, I performed it as a public service, and I've done it for ten years. I ran the breast clinic at the city hospital. I was trauma surgeon at a city hospital. I know about disaster planning. This is something you need someone with real-world experience to approach.

MARINE TRANSFER STATION AT 91ST

Q: Next questions is very much a neighborhood issue. What are your positions on the 91st Street marine transfer station?

Joel Zinberg: I have publicly and repeatedly said that I am against reopening the 91st Street marine transfer station in any form. I am very concerned that we have heavily residential community, we are talking about retrofitting and doing construction on a station which sits immediately adjacent to the Asphalt Green Recreation Center, where thousands of children go every week for recreational purposes. We are talking about a road that bisects that center. I am against opening it in any form.

Now, I think here is an area where I am clearly different from my opponent. She has said on several occasions including the September 7 debate, on her Web site, and in her answers to Citizens Union as reflected in their primary voter guide, that is OK with her if they open that station as a recycling center.

I think that gives you no advantage and gives you all of the disadvantage. Because you still have to do construction. You still have an active road; you still have trucks on the street; you still have snarled traffic; you still have pollution; and you still have a station that endangers our kids. So I am against it. And I can't not figure out why she is not.

Jessica Lappin: I am happy to have an opportunity to clarify my position, which maybe you have misunderstood, which has been consistent with that of the community. The city has been overburdening communities throughout the city unfairly through this current plan, which is in place. And I think the next solid waste management plan has to address that. The answer is not putting a garbage station in the heart of a densely populated residential neighborhood and a public park.

The mayor, for some reason, is dead set on opening a garbage station on 91st Street. Working with the community, I testified at City Hall, I helped organized rallies and letter writing campaigns, and we convinced the chairman of the sanitation committee and the majority of the City Council that we were right.

Unfortunately, when the land use application came up for a vote and the City Council turned it down, which would have ended this project, the mayor vetoed the bill and said we have to have a garbage station there. And in that time frame, the Gracie Point Community Council executive committee, Asphalt Green, and the speaker of the City Council all worked together to come up with a potential compromise to help negotiate with the mayor a plan that would be less devastating and that involved recycling.

That hasn't worked. We are back to square one. Community council is no longer supporting that position. They are currently filing papers to litigate this matter. When this comes up next term, if I am in the City Council I am going to do whatever I can to defeat the mayor because we can not, should not, have a 24 hour a day, six day a week commercial and residential facility in the heart of our residential community.

PAST EXPERIENCE

Q: How will your past experience define your work in the City Council and give you an advantage as a member?

Jessica Lappin: I have worked in this community over the last seven years as a volunteer, as a senior level staff person at the City Council, as Gifford Miller's district chief of staff working on the ground with tenants, neighbors, seniors, community activists, and transportation advocates to improve our quality of life and to tackle the issues that are important.

When it comes to education, I am in the schools, I visit them twice a year, I meet with the principal, I go to the PTA meetings so that I can hear what the issues are and help to address them.

When it comes to working on transportation issues, I meet with transportation advocates, whether its discussing the Second Avenue subway and discussing how that is going to impact the community and how we move it forward or pushing for bus rapid transit on First and Second Avenues. I have been the community, on the ground, and will be an effective advocate, and hit the ground running from day one.

Joel Zinberg: As I said before, when you hit the ground you have to know which direction you are running in. And if your only perspective is that you've worked for a politician for seven years and you have never been in the real world, I would argue that that is not the appropriate perspective, it's not the perspective of your constituents. When I say real world experience, it is not simply an abstraction. It is not simply a slogan. It is a prerequisite for knowing what is important and what is not important.

So when I talk about health care, it is because I worked in a city hospital for ten years, I ran a breast clinic there.

When I talk about a disaster plan, it is because I was a trauma surgeon for 10 years at a City Hall.

I know what it is to deal with emergencies and those kinds of situations. When I talk about Medicaid, it is because I had that experience.

When I talk about the Second Avenue subway, it is because I ride the Lexington Avenue line and I know that the Second Avenue line probably won't be built in any of our lifetimes whether the Bond Act is approved or not. And we need to improve the Lexington Avenue line now.

When I talk about education, it is because I have been a professor at Columbia Law School and a professor at Mt. Sinai and Columbia Medical School, and I have four-year-old daughter who will be attending public school next year. Because you see some candidates have actually thought about where their daughters are going next year and they have spoken with their wives about it.

CLOSING STATEMENTS

Joel Zinberg: This November 8th, New Yorkers who living on the Upper East Side in District 5 have a choice. I think it's a crystal clear choice. They can continue the progress that New York has made under the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations. They can do it by reelecting Michael Bloomberg. They can do it by electing council members who will work with him. And not toe the party line and work reflexively against him.

They can elect someone who has real world experience. Or they can elect someone whose sole experience and sole qualification is that they worked as a political aide. They can elect someone who has innovative ideas, thinking outside of the box. Someone who wants to save $500 million in Medicaid fraud and abuse. Someone who would like to improve the Lexington Avenue signaliing line so you have greater capacity now while we wait for the Second Avenue Subway line to be built. Or you can elect someone who repeats the same old tired nostrums that we have heard for years and years, the same sound bites. They can elect someone who is independent, who is not afraid to say what he believes regardless of which party is involved. Or they can elect somebody who is the product of a political machine. They can restore integrity and two-party balance to the council. Or they can continue business as usual.

I offer a fresh alternative to the council, which is dominated by poliiticans who have little private sector experience. They live in a hermetically sealed world, which I think destroys their perspective. They are more concerned with debating national and international issues, than addressing local problems. They are more concerned about their own political advancement than with the interests of their constituents.

I think Michael Bloomberg said it best when he endorsed me, and I will quote him; "I know that district 5 needs someone like Dr. Zinberg who has years of real world experience to offer. His many years as a surgeon, lawyer, and professor and volunteer in the community make him exceptionally well qualified for the City Council. He continues to impress me with original and innovative ideas. This November 8, please vote for Dr. Joel Zinberg who will be my partner in continuing to move this city forward."

This November 8, please vote for a fresh perspective. Vote for someone with real world experience. Vote for a change. Thank you.

Jessica Lappin: It's been a pleasure to be here, talking about my record in the community, tackling the issues that I think are important. And there a couple we can get to.

I want to discuss briefly part of what makes this city special, is that it is the cultural capital of the world. The City Council has historically been a defender against the mayor's repeated attempt to cut funding for our parks, our libraries, for our cultural institutions, not just the Met and the MOMA, but smaller institutions like the York Theater and the Turtle Bay Music School, that make this city special. I think it is important for the next council to continue to stand up to the mayor and to do that.

On public safety: we are the safest large city in America and we have to keep it that way. I am very proud to have been endorsed by the police union, the detective, and the firefighters because I have proved that I am dedicated to public safety.

And I am proud to have received the endorsement of our Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, or State Senator Liz Kruger, of Assemblymember Bing and Granis, the League of Conservation Voters, National Organization for Women in New York City, because I have shown that I am an independent voice for progress and reform, willing to tackle the issues, to stand up, to speak out when its important and necessary. The New York Times said that "steely resolve, dedication and energy" that would serve the residents of this district well. And I hope that on November 8 that I can count on your vote and your support.

 

2005 City Council Races to Watch


City Councilmember Vincent Gentile knows his political world differs from that of most of his colleagues. "Everyone else's race is in September," Gentile said. "Mine is in November."

He has a point. The majority of the 51 City Council races in this overwhelmingly Democratic city were in effect decided in the September primaries. Some were decided more than just "in effect": In 12 districts, the Democratic candidate faces no opponent at all in the general election, not even from a so-called minor party candidate. These lucky politicians are mostly incumbent council members, but even Melissa Mark-Viverito is unopposed in her bid to fill an open seat in East Harlem – a big change from the primary, which she won against five opponents by fewer than 100 votes.

Leroy Comrie is not only unopposed; residents of his Queens district will be able to vote for him on the Democratic, Republican, Independence and Working Families lines. Three other Democratic incumbents similarly will also appear on the Republican line on the ballot.

But this year, some Republicans hope Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg's popularity can help them increase their representation in the City Council; currently only three of 51 council members are Republicans.

Four districts feature particularly hard-fought fall campaigns leading up to the November general election. According to the Daily News, these races come in the districts "where Republicans are not DOA – Defeated on Arrival."

Vincent Gentile, whose Brooklyn district includes all or part of Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bath Beach, is the only incumbent facing such a tough challenge. The other hotly contested races involve open seats, two on the East Side of Manhattan and the other in the northeast Bronx.

A total of 26 Republican challengers will appear on ballots in the city on Election Day. This includes the four - Patrick Murphy and Joel Zinberg in Manhattan, Phil Foglia in the Bronx and Pat Russo in Brooklyn - who have mounted formidable races, with money, backing and staffs, in districts with histories of support for both Democrats and Republicans.

Besides this, all three current incumbent Republican members of the council are also running for re-election, though one, Dennis Gallagher, has no opponent and the other two, Staten Islanders James Oddo and Andrew Lanza, do face Democratic challengers but in districts that have traditionally voted for Republicans. The Republican incumbents this year have raised at least seven times as much money as their challengers.

But many of the other Republican candidates have little name recognition or money. Some have not registered with the campaign finance system – and unlike the man at the top of the ticket, Michael Bloomberg, they don't have a personal fortune to fund their campaigns. A few, such as Steve Bradian in the northwest Bronxand Stephen Lynch in Queens are real stealth candidates: no Web site, no listed phone number, no results from a Google search and not registered with the Campaign Finance Board.

The paucity of Republicans in City Council has become a rallying point for some of this year's candidates. When asked at a debate (click here for a transcript of the debate) how the council could be reformed, District 5 candidate Joel Zinberg said voters should elect more Republicans – like him. "When you have one party, you usually get no debates and poor results," he said.

Some think the mayor – who has been described as a "rino" (Republican in name only) could help build the party in New York. In a column in the New York Sun, John Avlon hailed "the beginning of a hopeful evolution in New York City politics -- the development of a local Republican Party" where "fiscal conservative, socially moderate urban reformers can come together." The ultimate success of that endeavor, Avlon continued, could depend on Bloomberg, who "has the means and the reason to leave this legacy to New Yorkers."

But while Bloomberg supports the four Republicans in competitive races, he has not given them money, according to the Campaign Finance Board database. In fact, the one Republican who has received a campaign contribution from Bloomberg – other than the mayor himself – is James Molinaro, a Conservative Party member running for re-election as Staten Island borough president.

And although Bloomberg may be a boon to local Republicans, the party's national leadership can present a drawback. District 4 candidate Patrick Murphy said he gave money to George W. Bush's campaign only to get the opportunity to confront Karl Rove over gay marriage, not because he supported the president.

Here is a an update on four City Council races to watch on Election Day:

District 4: Declarations of Independence on the East Side

Residents of this area on Manhattan's East Side have elected many Republicans over the years. Patrick Murphy, a marketing consultant who has been involved in local and national issues, hopes they will again.

But today its council member, state legislators and member of Congress are all Democrats. Democrat Daniel Garodnick hopes the next council member will be too. (One of his opponents may agree – Libertarian Party candidate Jak Jacob Karako first ran in the Democratic primary and recently indicated his support for Garodnick.)

Patrick Murphy, who is also the Liberal Party candidate, and Daniel Garodnick, who also has the endorsement of the Working Families Party, have each raised about $190,000, with Murphy holding a slight edge. Both men point to a list of prominent supporters. And both vow to be independent, a characteristic they say is prized in the district. After all, the current councilmember Eva Moskowitz, who did not run so she could try - unsuccessfully - for Manhattan borough president, has broken with her party on occasion, endorsing Mayor Michael Bloomberg's re-election this year and harshly criticizing the teachers union.

Both Daniel Garodnick and Patrick Murphy hasten to declare their support for much of what Bloomberg has done, although they said they opposed the now defunct plans for a West Side football stadium. They are less enthusiastic about the city council.

"I think this mayor's done a great job," Patrick Murphy said. "But the council has its head stuck in the sand." (Click here for a transcript of a candidate debate)

Daniel Garodnick said he would seek to reform the Democratic bastion through such steps as putting limits on mailing privileges and reducing the number of committees; there are now 32 for 51 members. (Jak Karako would go even further, reducing the number of council members to 10 or so.)

Patrick Murphy and Daniel Garodnick both portray themselves as fiscally responsible. Murphy wants changes in benefits for city workers. "All of the things that have happened in the private sector in the last 20 year haven't happened in the city sector," he said, calling for the city to change its pension system and have municipal workers contribute to their health insurance. Calling himself a "fiscally responsible Democrat," Garodnick thinks the city must get its debt under control, partly by using some of the budget surplus to reduce it.

Patrick Murphy emphasizes his independence. As a member of the board of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, he fought the Bush administration on its efforts to ban gay marriage and joined the organization in its refusal to back the president's re-election last year. For his part, Daniel Garodnick distances himself from the New York Democratic Party, refusing, for example, to say whether he backed Fernando Ferrer or Michael Bloomberg in the mayor's race.

For more about district 4 and this year's campaign, go to Campaign 2005.

District 5: An Insider Versus an Outsider on the Upper East Side

The race on the Upper East Side to succeed Gifford Miller, the council speaker who has to step down because of term limits, seems to hinge more on the candidates' resumes than on their stands on the issues.

After graduating from college, Democrat Jessica Lappin, who also appears on the Working Families Party line, had a brief stint in the private sector and then went to work as an aide to Gifford Miller, serving on his staff until she left to run for the council last spring. Her experience as a staff member, as well as her extensive knowledge of the district, would enable her to operate effectively in the council and "be an independent voice for progress and reform in the community," she said at a recent candidate's debate (click here for a transcript of the debate)

But Republican Joel Zinberg, who is also the Liberal and the Independence Party candidate, sees Jessica Lappin's background as a liability. He faults her for being "part of a political machine" and living in "a hermetically sealed world." In contrast, Zinberg, who has both a medical and a law degree, points repeatedly to his own "real world experience" as a doctor. Not only did he sponsor breast-cancer screenings, he said at the recent debate, he did breast cancer screenings. His background, he said, prompted him to offer a proposal to reform Medicaid, the health insurance plan for low-income people, and will help him contribute to emergency planning for the city. "It's important to hit the ground running but when you hit the ground," he said, "you have to know which direction you're going in."

So far, Jessica Lappin has raised about $145,000 – more than twice as much as Zinberg.

Bloomberg has endorsed Joel Zinberg. Zinberg, in turn, said one reason he wants to be on the council is so the city "can continue the progress New York has made under the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations."

Jessica Lappin, on the other hand, worked for a man who sought unsuccessfully to unseat the mayor. So she points to what the City Council has done for the city, for example restoring the mayor's cuts in the arts budget. She also emphasizes that she is a Democrat, such as in a discussion of health care: While she believes the United States should provide universal health care, until then, the state and city must help those who cannot otherwise afford it. "That's part of what being a Democrat means," she said, "taking care of people who need health care."

The two also differ over the mayor's planned reopening of a marine waste transfer station on 91st Street, where trucks would unload garbage to be put onto barges. Joel Zinberg opposes its reopening in any form, saying such a facility is inappropriate in a residential community near a park. Jessica Lappin said that she previously supported reopening the facility for recycling as part of an overall solid waste plan. But, she said, when the council reconsiders such a plan next year, she would oppose the waste transfer station. Lappin acknowledged, however, "the city has overburdened communities throughout the city unfairly," and the next solid waste plan "must adjust this."

For more about the district 5 and this year's campaign, go to Campaign 2005.

District 13: Protecting the Northeast Bronx from Too Much Development

Democrat James Vacca and Republican Phil Foglia agree on at least one thing: Development –- or overdevelopment as some would have it –- is the biggest issue facing this swath of the northeast Bronx, which includes Pelham Bay, Throggs Neck, and City Island.

James Vacca, the Democrat, thinks his 25 years as district manager of the local community board give him the experience to deal with the problem. "I'm the one that reined it in," he said of development, pointing to the "downzoning" of City Island and Throggs Neck.

Now James Vacca said, he is taking the fight to the next level, making sure that developers do not evade the new restrictions. He said he recently noticed someone building a three-family house, something not allowed under the new rules. He complained to the buildings department about it, and about subsequent adjustments, until the builder agreed to construct a one family house with two parking spaces instead.

But Phil Foglia, a former prosecutor who now serves as executive vice president of a non-profit housing company, thinks Vacca's experience is part of the problem. Calling the recent "downzoning" of the area to limit development "too little too late," Foglia pointed to Vacca's 25 years at the community board. "Downsizing could have happened anytime since 1989." Now, he said, "some areas are so dense people can't park their car on their own block."

Both men also said that education remains a big concern in the community. Phil Foglia said that, despite the city's push for new small schools, not a single freestanding small public school has opened in the area. He would particularly like to see a school for special education students and one for the gifted and talented in the Bronx.

James Vacca says the high schools in the area, Christopher Columbus and Herman Lehman, are simply too large and that the intermediate schools in the area need restructuring as well.

In a district that in many places resembles a suburb, both men point to concerns that may seem alien to most New Yorker. Phil Foglia would like to see a change in the tax code to help people who improve their homes. And James Vacca said that, as district manager, he received many complaints from people who need trees pruned, leading him to conclude the Bronx needs more money to tend to its trees.

Although Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than three to one here, Phil Foglia thinks the district would profit from having a Republican represent it. "It's important for the Bronx that there be a different point of view," he said, noting that the Bronx currently has no Republican elected officials.

Despite the Democratic edge in registration, both Phil Foglia and James Vacca expect Bloomberg to do well in the district. James Vacca said this does not worry him: "My district has a history of voting back and forth."

So apparently do some of its politicians. The area's current councilmember, Madeline Provenzano, who must leave because of term limits, is a Democrat but she has endorsed Bloomberg and is supporting Phil Foglia for council.

Phil Foglia has some celebrities backing him as well. Actors Robert de Niro and Chazz Palminteri each gave $2,000 to his campaign. Overall, though, James Vacca has raised almost $144,000, more than twice as much as Foglia.

For more about the district 13 and this year's campaign, go to Campaign 2005.

District 43: Another Close Contest in Southwest Brooklyn

Probably no neighborhood of the city has seen more political squeakers in recent years than this part of Brooklyn, and most of them involve incumbent Democratic council member, Vincent Gentile. It began in 2002 when Gentile, then a state senator, narrowly lost his seat to Republican Martin Golden. Gentile then ran for the council seat that Golden had vacated and attracted city-wide attention when his campaign flyer featured a picture of Mayor Bloomberg's townhouse, thereby enraging mayoral aides jittery about security. Gentile won by a mere 31 votes. In November 2003, he held on to his seat by capturing 55 percent of the vote against Republican Pat Russo. That is a big margin by Gentile's standards, but it's relatively close compared to other incumbent New York City Council members.

This year, Pat Russo has a rematch against Vincent Gentile, who is also on the Working Families Party line.

Although Democrats outnumber Republicans by about two to one in this largely white district with a growing Asian population, they do not automatically pull the Democratic lever. And in this election, Russo thinks being a Democrat may be a liability because of Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg's popularity in the district. Noting that two other Democratic councilmembers in the area, Simcha Felder and Dominic Recchia, have endorsed Bloomberg, Russo faults Gentile for not doing the same.

But Gentile said he will stick with Democratic nominee Fernando Ferrer because of his stand on issues that "affect everyday New Yorkers," such as opposition to the mayor's idea of giving frozen meals (instead of fresh ones) to homebound seniors.

The two men paint a different picture of services in the district today. "In the two and a half years I've been in council, I've made things much better for people who live in the district," Vincent Gentile said. He said he has brought money into the district for libraries, schools, parks.

But Pat Russo said the district has gotten far less money from the city since Martin Golden left for Albany. "We need to make sure that we get a fair share of services back from the city," he said. Russo thinks that, as a Republican he will be able to do that. "At the federal, state and local level, I have partners I can work with to get things done," he said.

Both men see overdevelopment as a key concern in an area, where as Vincent Gentile said, eight- and 12-unit condominiums are replacing single-family homes. They fear that as Bay Ridge and other neighborhoods restrict rampant construction, Bensonhurst will become the prime target for development. Gentile said he would like to see "downzoning" extended throughout the area. "So far, it's been our most effective tool, " he said, though he added, "I'm not sure it's the whole issue." On development, Pat Russo said, he and Gentile "are moving in the same direction. I just want to move there now."

Both men, who have raised about equal amounts of money, see themselves winning what promises to be another close contest again this year. Vincent Gentile said he is well known in the district after his more than eight years in office and that people appreciate what he has done for the community.

A former aide to Vincent Gentile accused the councilmember of sexual harassment earlier this year. But as he campaigns, Gentile said, voters do not mention the charges. (He has not been found guilty of anything). "It's just not an issue," he said.

Pat Russo said he thinks he will reverse the results of the 2003 contest. He cites the signs bearing his name he sees on lawns in the area and his endorsement from New Era Democrats, as well as from the Republican, Conservative and Independence parties. He said he has mounted a vigorous campaign, quitting his job to run.

Ironically, he does see one potential problem -– the Republican mayor's popularity. "I just hope that people don't take it for granted he's the winner," he said. "There's plenty of reason for people to come out and vote."

For more about the district 43 and this year's campaign, go to Campaign 2005.

 

 

Is New York The Cultural Capital Of The World?


Though the fall arts season is already overwhelming in its choices ( the fall arts preview issues are always especially thick and intimidating), every year seems to bring yet more extravagant “cultural experiences” to New York City:
CultureFest
Broadway on Broadway
Open House New York
Floating Island (touted as this season’s answer to The Gates Project), etc. etc.

Some are one-time events. Many are annual, and grow ever and ever larger: The 43rd annual New York Film Festival, the 25th annual CMJ Music Marathon, and the 32nd annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade have all become self-conscious displays of New York City’s status as cultural capital of the world.

But some people no longer believe that New York is the capital of culture -- an implicit message in several recent books. Others fear it soon won’t be, which is surely a reason why the City Council’s committee on cultural affairs has begun a series of hearings geared toward developing a blueprint for culture in New York.

An argument can even be made that the extravaganzas are themselves a sign of the city’s slipping, or at least of anxiety about that possibility. This is not just because some of the spectacles, as fun as they are, are more about mass marketing than culture, more about consuming than creating. It is also because such humongous crowd-pleasing events are not special to New York. Joel Kotkin, author of "The City," a new book that succinctly surveys 7,000 years of urban history, writes: “The economics of some of the fastest-growing cities, such as Las Vegas or Orlando, rely largely on the staging of 'experiences,' complete with uniquely eye-catching architecture and round-the-clock live entertainment.” Is New York, in other words, taking its cultural cues from Disney World?

Heyday

For a couple of centuries, New York has been a draw for artists of all kinds, as a place for them to live, learn, and work -- and sell their work. New York has also served as a subject of their art, something I wrote about in an article in the Arts and Leisure section of the Times five years ago, when there were an unprecedented number of movies, TV shows, big books, and art exhibitions depicting the city. ''Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825-1861”, for example, a massive exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, offered hundreds of scenes of New York in architectural drawings, watercolors, prints, maps, oil paintings, the oldest surviving daguerreotypes, even vases and bowls and wallpaper.

But there was only a relatively brief time when New York City, no longer overshadowed by Europe, was universally considered the art capital of the world, a place where the most sought-after new art was created. This occurred during the two decades after World War II, as chronicled in a new book by New Republic art critic Jed Perl, “New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century,” about the rise of the Abstract Expressionists and their successors.

At least since the Renaissance, Perl writes, “many of the turning points in the visual arts have occurred not in royal courts or through religious commissions but in urban centers running at full throttle. And this has never been truer than it was in New York in the change-everything years between the late 1940s and the early 1960s.”

To John Updike, reviewing New Art City on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, there is a reason why Perl ended his book in the 1960s. Updike quotes from a 1947 magazine article by English critic Cyril Connolly describing how New York at that time presented "an unforgettable picture of what a city ought to be: that is, continuously insolent and alive, a place where one can buy a book or meet a friend at any hour of the day or night," a place offering the feeling that "something important is about to happen."

But then Updike concludes with his own terse stinger: “Who feels that now?”

Ranking Lower On Creativity

Richard Florida seems more ambivalent than John Updike about New York City's current cultural status. An economics professor and bestselling author, Florida has followed up his 2002 “The Rise of the Creative Class” –- a class of people he defines as “those who use their minds and creativity in their daily working lives” (not exclusively those specifically in the arts) -- with a sequel, “The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent.”

In a recent essay in the New York Times, Florida focuses on New York, pointing out that there are nearly three million members of this creative class in the New York metropolitan region, which is a third of the local workforce and the largest number of such workers anywhere in the world. They help give the city “an even greater competitive advantage in fields like fashion design, art and music than it [has] in financial services and banking.” As he said at a subsequent interview on WNYC, New York’s strength long has been in its attraction to people on “the creative cutting-edge” and its ability to turn “street-level creativity” into economic value.

On the other hand, he says, New York is not what it used to be, and may not remain what it is. Florida ranks cities on their “creativity” according to a series of complicated indexes of his own devising (he has a Creativity Index, an Innovation Index, a Bohemian Index, etc.). His overall ranking for New York City? Tenth -- and that’s just cities in the United States.

He believes that New York (like other American cities) is being hampered by, among other things, national anti-immigrant policies, a lack of affordable housing, and cutbacks in federal funding not just directly for arts and culture but for low-income housing and workforce training. On a local level, Florida argues, “Mayor Michael Bloomberg does little to help things, having spent considerable energy and political capital on big-ticket items like the failed West Side stadium plan and efforts to attract the 2012 Olympics. The city would be better served with smaller scale neighborhood and community-level efforts to ensure affordable housing and work space for artists, immigrants and entrepreneurs, to upgrade the city's open space in combination with more public art and to improve transportation."

Competing For Cultural Salvation

However New Yorkers may scoff or argue with Florida’s rankings -- or disagree with his assessment of the Bloomberg administration's efforts on behalf of the arts -- the point is not that Austin or Amsterdam or Sydney, Australia have superior opera houses or better theater or more original painters. In fact, in his new book, Florida singles out New York as one of only four “great megacities” (the others are London, Paris, and Tokyo) that have the size, diversity and resources to withstand the current challenges. Rather, it is clear that the arts and culture have risen in importance for cities all over the world, which increases the competition for talent.

Cities everywhere are focusing on culture as an economic strategy. Atlanta is looking to create a new $300 million home for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra designed by architect Santiago Calatrava (who designed the new World Trade Center transportation hub) , arguing that it will excite visitors to shower cash for years to come. Philadelphia has figured out that the arts generate a billion dollars a year there. The governor of Michigan has launched a "cool cities" campaign to help revive such depressed metropolises as Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo by promoting their cultural assets.

The problem Joel Kotkin, author of "The City," has with this trend –- and, implicitly, with Richard Florida’s theory that the economic strength of a city depends on its ability to attract creative people –- is that these modern cities are trying to reverse the way things have worked for centuries. It is true that cities from their inception have been the places that generated most of the world’s art and culture; indeed Kotkin considers cities themselves to be works of art, “humankind’s greatest creation." But the great cultural capitals of the past, whether ancient Athens, Alexandria, Venice, Amsterdam, or London, were first mercantile (and sometimes military) powerhouses. Commercial success led to conditions that attracted and stimulated the best artists. It was the cities' great affluence that produced their great art, not the other way around. This was true of New York as well.

Is Hipness Enough?

While in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution, the function of art, culture and entertainment became (according to one observer that Kotkin quotes) “to make urban suffering bearable,” and in the 20th century, “industrialized mass entertainment...occupied an ever larger hold” on the life of individual urban residents and on the economy of the cities as a whole, in the 21st century, Kotkin says, culture has become many cities' central economic strategy. There is an “increased focus on such ephemeral concepts as fashionability, ‘hipness,’ trend, and style as the keys to their survival.”

The reason for this, Kotkin implies both in his book and in an article earlier this year in Metropolis Magazine, is largely due to a sense of desperation. Cities are losing their most productive (tax-paying) population to the suburbs, and seeing their formerly core industries (such as manufacturing) evaporate and reappear overseas.

“Having lost the economic and demographic initiative to the hinterlands, cities have two alternatives,” he writes. “They can work to become more competitive in terms of jobs, attracting skilled workers and middle-class families, or they can refocus their efforts on providing playpens for the idle rich, the restless young, and tourists. All too often the latter strategy is what many municipalities appear to be adopting. A number of cities now regard tourism, culture, and entertainment as ‘core’ assets...

“A great city is more about clean and workable neighborhoods, thriving business districts, and functioning schools than massive cultural buildings or hipster lofts.”

It is hard to understand, though, why a great city cannot be about both.

What Can New York Do?

If any city can lay authentic claim to tourism, culture and entertainment as core assets, it is New York -- a fact asserted repeatedly during the parade of boosters testifying in City Hall last month in search of a blueprint for a cultural community, this first hearing largely focusing on the performing arts.

Randall Bourscheidt of the Alliance for the Arts testified that the total economic impact of all the arts in New York City is a whopping $11.1 billion a year. “Our city has a majority of the most recognized playwrights, composers and choreographers working in the country, many of them at the beginning of their careers,” Bourscheidt said. “Some of our greatest institutions, such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the New York City Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera and the Public Theater, have strong programs enjoyed by enthusiastic audiences.”

Donna Keren of NYC & Company, “the city’s official tourism marketing organization,” reported on the results of their latest survey: Almost 17.2 million people (43 percent of all tourists) visited New York City in 2004 primarily for its cultural attractions, up some nine percent from the year before. “Without doubt, attending a cultural organization while in New York City is the single most popular activity for visitors,” Keren testified. “The need to eat is the only thing that engages more visitors.”

“Broadway is a New York institution which contributes greatly to our city’s status as a cultural capital and tourist mecca,” testified Katherine Oliver, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting. “The Broadway community has also made New York City a gathering ground for the world’s finest talent pool, which draws filmmakers and television producers from around the globe to the city, supporting our $5 billion local production industry.”

A representative from Carnegie Hall testified about the ways in which the arts “contribute to New York not only economically but also to the vitality and spirit of the city...It is well-established that cultural institutions are a vital component of urban life, having an enormously positive effect on neighborhood development...We are particularly blessed in this regard, given the city’s massive and amazing wealth of arts and culture organizations”

On the other hand, it was also clear that those testifying see the arts in New York as under threat – “suffering severe economic stress,” in the words of Randall Bourscheidt; “the city’s tourism industry and attractions are still in a vulnerable position..” is how Donna Keren put it -- and if the number of cultural visitors is up from 2003, it is still down from its peak prior to 2001. “City support for the general operating costs of the [Cultural Institutions Group]-- a historic relationship spanning more than a century -– has declined by nearly 30 percent since 2001,” the Carnegie Hall representative testified, “while institutional earned and unearned income from endowments, ticket and shop sales, etc. also has been challenged by a changed economic climate.”

“In order for the performing arts to continue to flourish in New York City, it is important that the needs of performing artists are supported,” testified Maria Somma from Actors’ Equity. “We face grueling 15 hour days that include rehearsals, auditions, classes, and – if we are lucky – performing. We are plagued with episodic employment, low wages and increases in taxes, public transportation, rents and other costs.”

What can be done? What should be done? It was just the first hearing.

"Before I wrap up my testimony," Keren of NYC & Company announced, "I want to invite all of you and your staff, families and friends to the premier cultural showcase in the city -- CULTUREFEST 2005...This year, 107 non-profit cultural organizations and performers based in all five boroughs will be able to showcase their programs, events and activities...CultureFest is a valuable marketing tool for arts organizations. CultureFest provides needed exposure to new and old audiences...And all these people spread the word that NYC is truly the Cultural Capital of the World!"  

 

Universal Internet Access -- Not Just A Campaign Theme


In one way -- a big way -- it would be difficult to call Andrew Rasiej’s campaign for public advocate a success: He got five percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in September. Nobody was surprised, since he had no experience as a public official or even a candidate, his opponents were far better-known, and he built his entire campaign based on a single issue that many said has nothing to do with the office for which he was running. He said that there should be “a universal low-cost wireless Internet system for all New Yorkers,” including free wireless service in public spaces.

On the other hand, the city recently announced plans to provide free wireless access in ten parks, including eight locations in Central Park. And New York City Councilmember Gale Brewer, head of the council’s Technology in Government Committee, is taking up where Rasiej left off, pushing for a task force to figure out how to provide affordable broadband Internet access to every city resident, business and non-profit organization.

Both Rasiej and Brewer argue that increasing Internet connectivity is essential to improving the lives of city residents and to enhancing the city’s economic competitiveness. A primary goal of Brewer’s efforts is to reduce the cost of in-home broadband Internet access, so that more New Yorkers will take advantage of these capabilities.

Only an estimated 38 percent of New Yorkers currently have broadband access, but an ever-higher percentage of Internet content (such as video) requires this capability. The “digital divide” between higher and lower income communities may never be closed completely, but municipal broadband and wireless initiatives represent a concerted attempt to narrow this gap.

The city’s broadband task force has not yet been formed. The Technology in Government Committee has held an initial hearing, and plans to hold a second hearing in November.

Many other US cities have charged similar task forces with providing direction for broadband/wireless development, including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

Indeed Rasiej held up the “Wireless Philadelphia” initiative as his model. Philadelphia has moved more aggressively than any other US city to develop a city-wide wireless network. Using Philadelphia’s business plan, Rasiej estimated that the cost of establishing a wireless network in New York is $80 million (PDF). In fact, though, Philadelphia did not even determine the vendor for its wireless network until early October, three weeks after Rasiej’s campaign came to an end with the primary.

Philadelphia now has chosen Earthlink to build its network, and the company has offered to build and manage it at no cost to city residents. The city and Earthlink will share any revenues that emerge from the project. Search engine titan Google recently offered to construct a wireless network for San Francisco at no cost to the city. Similarly, Rasiej argues that private companies should pay the cost for building a wireless network in New York. Although it is too early to know whether all of these funding approaches will materialize, the early trend in municipal wireless development is for intensive private investment.

If private companies did not expect to make a profit from wireless networks, they would not want to build them. The most obvious source of revenue is new forms of advertising, which could conceivably be tailored to specific individuals based upon their Internet browsing patterns. There is a definite potential for a loss of personal privacy unless municipal broadband/wireless projects are carefully developed. Municipalities that undertake these projects should plan to develop educational campaigns about how to protect confidential information online.

Although privacy concerns are legitimate, they are not severe enough to prevent further broadband/wireless development in New York City. There are too many potential benefits for the city:

1. More timely access to life-saving information for emergency responders, who could download this information over wireless networks en route to the scene of an accident

2. Greater involvement of residents in the work of city government

3. Better ability of children to study at home, and to communicate with their teachers about what they discover online

As New York City embarks on a more comprehensive approach to broadband and wireless development, important questions remain unanswered, but there is little doubt that, sooner or later, one way or another, it's going to happen.

Marcus Banks is a librarian at the New York University School of Medicine.

The Real Issues in the 2005 Mayoral Race


New Yorkers who struggle each day to juggle work and child care would probably have been interested to learn that as part of his campaign for reelection, Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently promised to double the number of pre-kindergarten and day care slots to serve more than 300,000 children.

Democratic challenger Fernando Ferrer has a similar proposal and promises to invest $550 million in pre-K programs for three- and four-year olds.

But voters never got a chance to compare the two plans.

The mayor’s child care announcement – which even included an appearance by Rosie O’Donnell to help draw reporters – occurred on the same day that Mayor Bloomberg decided to skip a debate at the Apollo Theater with Ferrer and Conservative Thomas Ognibene. It was also the day that the mayor announced that there was a “credible threat” that the subways could be bombed by terrorists, which turned out not to be true.

For the next week, the campaigns and the press focused on little else.

In the 2005 mayoral race, this kind of scenario seems to repeat itself over and over. Most often it is who is ahead in the latest poll or who endorsed whom that makes headlines, not what each candidate has proposed to do to make the city a better place to live.

“For many New Yorkers, it is not clear exactly how Fernando Ferrer and Michael Bloomberg differ on the issues,” said Jonathan Bowles of the Center for an Urban Future, a think-tank that issued a report outlining some of the most crucial issues that must be addressed by the next mayor, such as how to give workers skills for future jobs, how to reduce homelessness, and how to dispose of the city’s tons of garbage.

Of course, there is plenty of blame to go around for the lack of serious debate in this year’s campaign.

The press has focused mostly on the mayor’s money, the polls, and campaign gaffes.

Mayor Bloomberg has decided to attend only two debates scheduled for the week before the election, so there has been no direct exchange of ideas between the candidates.

And some political observers say that neither candidate has provided a distinct vision for the next four years.

“This has been a backward looking, retrospective race, as opposed to planning for the future,” said Douglas Muzzio of the Baruch School of Public Affairs.

Mayor Bloomberg has focused almost exclusively on what he has accomplished and has said very little about what he plans to do in the future. His television ads, which run nearly non-stop, tout his record and then instruct voters; “Now is not the time to go in a different direction; it's the time to continue with strong leadership."

“It’s politics,” said Andrew White of the New School Center for New York City Affairs. “He’s playing it safe and not venturing into areas that would be controversial.”

Ferrer has also struggled to outline how he would be different from Bloomberg, except to promise that he will focus more on the city’s poor and working class than the billionaire mayor.

“You’d think the Ferrer campaign would be floating all kinds of great ideas,” added White. “But I don’t see Ferrer getting across a message that makes it clear to voters what kind of mayor he would be.”

WHERE THE CANDIDATES AGREE

The Republican mayor and the Democratic challenger actually agree on many key issues.

Both Bloomberg and Ferrer agree that:

• The state must provide more funding for education.
• Students should not be promoted to the next grade if they can’t meet standards in reading and math.
• Subway stations need more security cameras to help prevent terrorist attacks.
• The city should transport garbage out of the city by boat and train rather by trucks.
• New subway lines must be built.
• Medicaid must be reformed.

Unlike national elections in which candidates may have strong philosophical differences, in local elections, what often separates one candidate from another is a matter of nuance, style, and approach – which are harder for voters to discern.

"There is a certain amount of agreement [among the candidates] on many of the issues, but the difference is on the margins," said Bowles. "Of course, those margins matter."

KEY ISSUES WHERE THE CANDIDATES DIFFER

EDUCATION
Education is arguably the number one issue of the campaign. In 2002, the mayor gained control of the public school system, with power to appoint the chancellor, allocate the education budget, and set school policies. When he took office, Bloomberg said voters should judge him on public education.

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg has put his emphasis on overhauling the structure of the education system, instituting a uniform curriculum, and holding back students in the third, fifth, and seventh grade if they do not score high enough on standardized tests. Bloomberg has also divided up larger schools to create 150 smaller ones.

Fernando Ferrer
Ferrer argues that test scores are not the best way to measure performance. He wants to significantly expand after-school and early childhood education programs to help increase graduation rates. Ferrer also argues he would abolish Bloomberg’s top-down approach of governing the schools.

Other Candidates
Seth Blum, a public school teacher running on the Education Party line, argues that both the front-runners are missing the real issues. He would let teachers develop the curriculum, reduce standardized tests, and hold weekly town hall meetings to address parents concerns.

Conservative candidate Thomas Ognibene says mayoral control of schools has just added more bureaucracy. He would put principals in charge of each school’s budget.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

During the Koch administration, when the city undertook a major effort to build 100,000 apartments in ten years, much of the new housing was constructed in buildings that the city took over from owners who had defaulted on their taxes. Today, much of the city’s “in rem” housing is gone, and vacant tracts of land are rare. At the same time, New York City is experiencing a real estate boom, with the cost of housing skyrocketing.

City officials are now working with private developers to build affordable housing. Some argue that the city should demand more from developers who want to build taller buildings or take advantage of tax breaks. Others argue that mandating affordable housing will drive up rents and actually hurt the city.

In addition, the city’s traditional ways of preserving affordable housing - rent regulations, Mitchell-Lama developments, and federal section 8 vouchers – are threatened.

Michael Bloomberg
In 2003, Michael Bloomberg proposed a plan to build 65,000 new homes over five years. So far, about 17,000 are completed and another 9,000 are currently planned. The mayor has rezoned neighborhoods across the city to allow more housing to be developed and offers developers tax incentives to build affordable housing.

Last week, the mayor added to his existing proposals by calling on banks and foundations to provide up to $200 million for affordable housing, which the city hopes will result in 30,000 new units of low- and moderate-income housing over ten years.

Bloomberg’s position on the Urstadt Law - which gives the state control of the rent regulations - has changed over time. In the past, he said he supported the repeal. However, he now says that the law should not be repealed because the city cannot afford to administer the rent regulation system that the state currently administers.

Fernando Ferrer
Fernando Ferrer argues that the mayor’s housing plan does not focus enough on low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Ferrer has proposed building 167,000 new homes over a ten-year period. He wants to mandate that 30 percent of new housing be set aside as affordable and use tax incentives to reserve an additional 20 percent.

Ferrer supports the repeal of the Urstadt Law and will fight in Albany to earn the city’s right to control its own rent regulations.

Other Candidates

Green Party candidate Anthony Gronowicz promises to freeze rent increases for rent-controlled apartments.

Jimmy McMillian, a little-known candidate who recently appeared on the Board of Election’s list for the general election, is making his views known by running on the "Rent Is Too Damn High” party line.

CRIME

Crime is down nearly 20 percent since 2001, and the murder rate is at a 40-year low. Experts disagree on exactly why this is the case, but no one wants to see the city’s crime rate go back to what it was in the 1970s and 1980s.

Terrorism also remains a crucial issue, as the recent threat of a subway bombing illustrated. The next mayor will have to make decisions on how best to keep the city safe from another attack.

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg has reduced the number of police officers by 2,800 since he took office. While crime is down, the police are being asked to do more counterterrorism work. A new contract for police also cut the starting salary to $25,1000.

Fernando Ferrer
Ferrer promises to hire 1,900 more officers and assign at least half of them to patrol the subway system. Ferrer also says he would renegotiate a better contract with the police union.

Other Candidates
Conservative candidate Thomas Ognibene says the Bloomberg administration has abandoned its enforcement of quality of life crimes and should return to the priorities of the Giuliani administration.

JOBS

The future of the city’s job market is uncertain. Manufacturing jobs – once the backbone of the economy – are dwindling. Wall Street is still the economic engine of the city, but many believe New York will need to rely less on it in the future. The future of the World Trade Center is still uncertain.

Some argue that city officials must lower taxes and offer incentives for companies to stay. Others argue that because most businesses in the city have fewer than 60 employees, the city must work to reduce costs for small businesses.

Michael Bloomberg
During his first term in office, Bloomberg has sought to create jobs by attracting large events like the Republican National Convention, giving tax credits to large corporations to encourage them to build new headquarters in Manhattan, and boosting tourism. He also sought to build a football stadium on the West Side of Manhattan, which he said would create thousands of new jobs.

Last week, the mayor vowed to shift his focus to create 250,000 new jobs by making the city more “business friendly.” He wants to establish a business hub at the Brooklyn Navy Yards, work to expand businesses in Queens and Harlem, and take a more active role in rebuilding the World Trade Center.

Fernando Ferrer
Ferrer has spent much of the campaign criticizing Bloomberg for his plan to build a $1.9 billion stadium. He wants to focus the city’s efforts on small business rather than giving large tax breaks to corporations. Ferrer proposes a temporary amnesty on fines, reducing regulations, and providing assistance to new business owners.

TAXES

No politician likes to raise taxes, but there are different philosophies about when they have to be raised and how they impact the economy. Some argue raising taxes should be a last resort. Others argue that sometimes taxes must be raised in order to maintain basic services like police, fire, and education. Some argue that dedicating a tax increase to a specific area of need is a good way to invest in the city’s future.

Michael Bloomberg
Although he promised not to raise taxes in his 2001 campaign, the mayor raised several taxes several times. He raised property taxes by 18.5 percent in 2002, but in the last two years returned some of that money with $400 rebates to homeowners. He also raised cigarette taxes and instituted a temporary sales tax on clothing.

Fernando Ferrer
Ferrer wants to institute a Wall Street stock transfer tax to fund $4 billion in education. He proposed raising taxes on vacant residential properties next to occupied homes, which he predicted would generate $900 million to help fund affordable housing projects.

Other Candidates
Conservative candidate Thomas Ognibene says he would repeal the property tax and the cigarette tax.

DEATH PENALTY, ABORTION, AND GAY MARRIAGE

The mayor has little power over these three social issues. However, he can advance his personal views by using his position as “bully pulpit,” and he can sign or veto legislation that pertains to how state or federal laws are implemented locally.

When it comes to these issues, what a candidate says he believes does not always translate into action.

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg is pro-choice and he has proposed spending $3 million for emergency contraception education and outreach. However, he vetoed a bill requiring hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception and a bill requiring pharmacies to post signs about emergency contraception, arguing that the regulations were too burdensome.

And although Bloomberg has said he personally supports gay marriage, he has refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Bloomberg also vetoed the City Council's Equal Benefits Law, which requires contractors that offer benefits to the spouses of their employees to extend the same package to the domestic partners of workers.

Bloomberg opposes the death penalty.

Fernando Ferrer
Ferrer’s change in position on the death penalty has been widely covered. In 1997, he went from opposing the death penalty to supporting it. Now he says he supports a moratorium until flaws in the law can be addressed.

Ferrer has also changed his stance on reproductive rights. In 1997, Ferrer described late-term abortion as "barbaric." He recently said abortions should be "safe, legal and rare."

Ferrer has said he would be an advocate for gay marriage in the city.

DEALING WITH ALBANY AND WASHINGTON

Whoever is elected must work with officials in Albany and Washington to get things done. The mayor needs the state’s approval to raise taxes, with the exception of the property tax. The state also controls much of the city’s education funding, Medicaid policies, and rent regulations.

Mayors must maintain a complicated balance between cooperating with state and federal officials and criticizing them when the city is being shortchanged. How effective the mayor is at getting funding is crucial to the city’s well being.

Michael Bloomberg
Bloomberg has supported Republicans President George W. Bush and Governor George Pataki and has looked for their support in return.

Critics say his good will efforts have not paid off. New York still gets less per capita in federal anti-terrorism funding than most other states. And the Republican national convention has not generated much lasting good will toward New York in the Bush administration.

Governor George Pataki has offered Bloomberg support on key efforts like raising taxes to help balance the budget and the Olympic bid, but Pataki has faltered in other areas, most significantly in efforts to rebuild the World Trade Center and to provide billions more in state money for schools.

Fernando Ferrer
Ferrer argues that the mayor has not done enough to fight for the city’s fair share in Albany and Washington and is too quick to give in to state and federal officials.

He particularly criticizes Bloomberg for the state of the World Trade Center site, but he has not offered a significant vision for how things should be done differently. He also argues that when the MTA raised subway fares, the mayor and his representatives on the transportation authority’s board, did not oppose the hike even though the state and city comptroller’s said they were not justified.

Related Links:

Mayoral Issues Grid

WNYC’s 30 Issues in 30 Days

Framing the 2005 Mayoral Debate: A Report by the Center for an Urban Future, Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, and the Regional Plan Association.

Listen to the debate at the Apollo Theater between Fernando Ferrer and Thomas Ognibene

 

City Council Stated Meeting - October 11, 2005


Every two weeks the New York City Council meets for its Stated Meeting to introduce and pass legislation. Gotham Gazette covers these meetings and posts a summary of the bills passed.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"When New Yorkers return to their cars on Sunday and don't find a parking ticket, they can thank God... but they shouldn’t thank Mike Bloomberg." - City Council Speaker Gifford Miller on a bill to eliminate parking meter regulations on Sundays.

MEETING SUMMARY:
HEALTH CARE FOR GROCERY WORKERS
In August, the City Council passed a bill that requires employers in the grocery and food industry to provide their workers with health care insurance.

The legislation (Intro 468-A) mandates that stores with more than 35 employees contribute $2.50 for each hour an employee works, or $5,000 a year for a full-time employee toward the worker's health costs.

Between 6,000 and 12,000 store grocery employees will be covered by the legislation.

The council argues that the bill is needed to help protect businesses, like Fairway, Gristedes, D'Agostinos, Key Food, and Pathmark, that already offer benefits to their employees. It would also block large chain stores like Wal-Mart - that sell food and do not offer benefits - from coming to New York.

Supporters also say it will also reduce dependence on government health care programs.

"These businesses puff up their profits by not offering benefits," said Councilmember Christine Quinn, who drafted the bill. "And at lunch, they give their workers an extra half hour to register on a public health insurance program."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg vetoed the bill, arguing that it violates federal law, which limits state and local government involvement in employee benefits.

The City Council overrode the mayor by a vote of 39 to 2 with two abstentions, more than the 34 votes needed. Council members Andrew Lanza and Simcha Felder voted "no"; Charles Barron and Peter Vallone, Jr. abstained.

Barring litigation by the Bloomberg administration, the law will go into effect in 90 days.

Supporters see the initiative as a pilot program and would like to extend similar regulations to other industries as well.

However, the bill will soon be revised.

Councilmember Christine Quinn has promised to draft an amendment that would exempt certain small businesses and "green grocers," companies that specialize in selling fresh fruits and vegetables, from the regulations.

NO PARKING METERS ON SUNDAY
For much of the summer, the mayor and the City Council have debated Sunday parking meter regulations, which some politicians have dubbed a battle over "pay to pray."

Mayor Bloomberg argues that Sunday meters, which were instituted three years ago, prevent people from parking their cars on Saturday night and not moving them until Monday morning, which means fewer available spaces in front of shops and businesses. The mayor also argues that city needs the $12 million in revenue, and he vetoed council legislation (Intro 669) to eliminate parking meters requirements on Sundays.

The City Council, backed by a coalition of religious leaders, argues that worshipers are forced to feed the meters while they are in church. Council leaders say its is the time to give New Yorkers a "day of rest" from parking meters and tickets.

"When New Yorkers return to their cars on Sunday and don't find a parking ticket, they can thank God... but they shouldn't thank Mike Bloomberg," said City Council Speaker Gifford Miller.

The council voted 41 to 2 to override the mayor's veto. Council members Tony Avella and Helen Sears voted with the mayor.

Republican Councilmember James Oddo that the bill should have been tailored to apply only to areas in front of churches, but the Department of Transportation refused to negotiate.

"There was a better bill out there, but we can't negotiate against ourselves," said Oddo.

Mayor Bloomberg has accused council members of using the issue to pander to voters in an election year.

"It is not pandering to do something that people want," said Miller. "This is a responsible step to give a little relief to New Yorkers, and that is known as good government."

Council members Tracy Boyland, Miguel Martinez, Phil Reed, Diana Reyna, James Sanders, Larry Seabrook, and Joel Rivera were absent.

The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for October 27.

 

How the Irish Built an American Icon


Thomas Kelly, author of "Empire Rising," joined Gotham Gazette's Reading NYC Book Club on September 28 for a wide-ranging discussion about the Empire State Building, political corruption, Irish immigrant in New York and writing about New York City.

Gotham Gazette: Your book tells the love story of two Irish immigrants: Michael Briody, an ironworker working on the construction of the Empire State Building, and Grace Masterson, a bohemian artist-type living on a houseboat on the Brooklyn waterfront -- something I don't believe you can do anymore.

Thomas Kelly: No, but you could then. She's based on a great aunt of mine who did live on a houseboat.

Gotham Gazette: Both of these characters have a connection to the Empire State Building. They are also somewhat involved in the inter-related worlds of Tammany Hall and organized crime. The setting seems to be a crucial part of the book. There's a lot going on in the New York that Mr. Kelly describes, big development and labor issues, the thriving Irish immigrant community, and, of course, money and corruption in government. Why did you decide to write about New York during this time period?

Thomas Kelly: My previous two books dealt with a lot of the same themes but in a contemporary setting. I worked in construction for about ten years, and that has reared its head in all my books.

James Elroy once asked, "How do you write about crime and not write about the Kennedy assassination?" In New York City's history, as far as construction, the Empire State Building is it. More than all the other great projects -- the Brooklyn Bridge, the aqueducts, the water tunnels, the other skyscrapers -- the Empire State Building represents New York City to America, and America to the world.

For a novelist it's very rich territory -- this whole transition, the mafia and the gangs becoming ascendant, and switching to an Italian and Jewish thing from an Irish thing. The Irish have kind of made it by this point: They've got the mayor, the governor, the police department and the fire department. They're barely into law yet, but they're moving up, moving on.

As a novelist, all of this is going on on the macro level. On top of that I put these characters, some of whom were based on family members. Michael Briody was a great uncle of mine who met a certain fate in the Bronx at that time. He was an Irish immigrant. It was one of those things that gets whispered about. He's buried at St. Raymond's in the Bronx. I went to visit his grave and decided to write a book describing what happened to him. Of course it's fiction, but it's within the realm of possibility.

Grace Masterson is based somewhat on a great aunt of mine. When I was fairly well into the book, I found out this woman lived on a houseboat in Williamsburg. My father's sister told me about this aunt they used to visit in the 1920s, how they would take the train to Manhattan and then the ferry across to Greenpoint. I thought, "Wow, this is great stuff!" I already started the book, so I had to go back and put her there. For me, she's a stand-in for the novelist. It's like getting that little bit of remove from Manhattan: She's across the river, painting, taking in the sights.

My family came in the 1920s from Ireland. I think about the Empire State Building going up at the time. I wanted to write about family history, and they sort of melded at that time. I don't want to write a nonfiction story of my family. I just wanted to take a little bit of the truth and imagine the world they lived in.

THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING: PUNCTUATION POINT TO THE ROARING '20s

 

Gotham Gazette: Why does the Empire State stand out as unique, as opposed to say the Chrysler Building, which was built a couple years of earlier as the world's tallest building?

Thomas Kelly: For a lot of reasons. It's not that much taller than the Chrysler building or 40 Wall Street. But the Empire State Building is a much more massive structure. The Chrysler Building has about 18,000 or 20,000 tons of structural steel; the Empire State Building has 65,000. So it's three times as big, even though it's only about 15 stories higher.

The Empire State Building was also the punctuation point to the Roaring '20s. Those other buildings went up when things were still going crazy. Then they demolished the Waldorf-Astoria hotel to build the Empire State Building. The destruction of that building started the day the stock market crashed. It's a symbol of ambition, drive and human endeavor. It's going up and the city is falling into depression, as is the county around it.

In addition, there's the involvement of Al Smith and the whole history of Tammany and what it symbolized to Smith. So I felt it had a much richer history than those other two buildings. There were a lot more stories to tell.

TAMMANY HALL

Gotham Gazette: The other plot line in the book is Tammany Hall. From the beginning of the book there's a sense that Tammany Hall has created a well-oiled machine to make itself rich. But there's also a feeling of an impending reformist wave. Fiorello LaGuardia actually did get elected as a reformer several years later. So is this, in a sense, Tammany's last hurrah?

Thomas Kelly: Tammany is a fascinating institution for a lot of reasons. We see it today as a negative thing, as these corrupt party bosses. But you have to understand Tammany. It was started by Aaron Burr and staunch, Anglo-Protestants around the Revolutionary War.

At times, it was wholly corrupt, but it did a lot of things for a lot of people, especially in the 19th century. There were no government programs for anything at that time. Basically you had a barbaric capitalist system, and if you didn't survive, nobody cared. Tammany and other machines around the country provided services, jobs, they paid doctor bills, they brought a turkey on Christmas. And the only thing they wanted in return was your vote. They recognized this was democracy and whoever gets the most votes wins. They very shrewdly capitalized on that. At times they got out of control.

The 1920s fascinate me for a lot of reasons. It was the most revolutionary decade in American history. People talk about the 1960s, the sexual revolution. Nonsense. The 1920s, that was the real sexual revolution; the '60s were like a rich kid aftershock. The modernization, the movement from rural to urban. The country kind of exploded in the 1920s, in a lot of positive ways, and Tammany was in the mix of this.

The back story here is really Prohibition. In 1919, the politicians are telling the gangsters what to do. By 1930 -- and this is what I tried to get at in this book -- the paradigm is shifting. There's this noble Protestant effort to keep the animals in the ghetto, but out of the saloons, scrubbed, up to work early and praying to a Protestant God at the end of the day. And this backfired horribly. It created, for the first time and maybe the only time ever, a real power in the underclass and the underworld in America. By 1930s, a real reckoning is at hand. The balance is shifting, and the guys with the guns are saying to the politicians, "Wait a minute, why should we listen to you anymore?" That's what I wanted to get at.

The book lays out the back story of what led to the downfall of Jimmy Walker a year and a half or two years after the book ends. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is cunningly playing his angles, knowing that to run for president in 1932 he needed Tammany locally, but nationally he needed some distance.

MACHINE POLITICS, THEN AND NOW

Gotham Gazette: In your other books, you also write about machine politics, which in some ways, are still with us. Can you contrast the machine politics of the different eras?

Thomas Kelly: One anecdote that describes this difference very strongly is that at the Democratic Convention in 1932, a fellow named Jimmy Heinz, a big Tammany leader from Upper Harlem, had as his roommate, very openly, Lucky Luciano. It's the equivalent of Clarence Norman and John Gotti being roommates. That's not going to happen.

Then, it wasn't seen as doing something wrong; it was seen as "there's power to be exercised, we control it now, and this is how we're going to exercise it." Tammany, and even some gangsters, would say, "Wait a minute, you got your money from putting ten-year-olds in coal mines and slave trading. Now we want to get our piece of the pie and we're the bad guys?"

The guys who ran Tammany Hall in 1920s had a very big say in who became the Democratic nominee for president. They could deny someone, or basically appoint someone. They had a lot more power.

But it's the same stuff now. The buying of judgeships -- that's how Judge Crater [a state supreme court judge who is a character in "Empire Rising"] got his judgeship. Now they try to hide it more, but it still goes on.

TAMMANY'S GOOD SIDE

Jacqueline Arasi: People could go to a Tammany Hall location and get help, that's how they got to be known. They were very nice -- even when I was passing out leaflets for La Guardia they brought us coffee and cake. There was a real positive element to Tammany Hall. I think it's a more positive history than a negative history.

Thomas Kelly: Absolutely, there was a real positive element. Unfortunately, the negative history has been written by their enemies, and you're looked at like you're abetting some sort of criminal enterprise if you point out they did good things. For the Catholics and Jews at the time, the Protestant churches would give out money and say, "Sure we'll help you out; why don't you convert?" All Tammany wanted you to do was to show up on Election Day.

When the demographics started changing in the 1880s and 1890s, when waves of Italians and Eastern European Jews and Poles started coming, Tammany was very smart. Guys like Charlie Murphy and Big Tim Sullivan saw the writing on the wall. They reached out to those communities, took care of them and brought them into the fold. They did a lot of things: getting people jobs, bailing kids out of jail who had done something stupid, and on and on.

Gotham Gazette: But Tammany wasn't just asking for your vote. Aside from enriching themselves, they were involved in things like widespread voter fraud and so on -- correct me if I'm wrong.

Thomas Kelly: Well, what's your definition of fraud?

The period I'm talking about in the book was a little more sophisticated than it was 20, 30, 40 years before when it was guys with bats showing up at voting booths. Again, it's one of those things -- there's no black and white here -- people trying to survive and trying to get ahead. The decisions they made are probably not dissimilar to the ones we'd make.

CONSTRUCTION AND CORRUPTION

Gotham Gazette: How much documented corruption was there in the building of the Empire State Building?

Thomas Kelly: Well, there's almost none documented, and much of what today we would consider corruption was accepted business practice then. For instance, at that time if you wanted to break a slab of sidewalk, you'd give a kickback to the building department.

Two building code changes made the Empire State Building possible. One was elevator speed, and the other was steel thickness. The technology in steel had advanced so much by the 1920s that you could use much thinner, lighter steel, which was much stronger than the old stuff. If you're going up 102 stories, it's something you want. If you have people going up so high, how can you do so without faster elevators.

The changes were mysteriously vetoed twice by Mayor Walker, and then, after the materials were already ordered, he reversed himself. I find it hard to believe, given what went on at the time, that there wasn't a significant payment to somebody. I imagine a scene at the beginning of the book with a million dollar payoff.

Walker's this great figure. He died broke, basically. The Protestant experiment to keep the animals in line created power and corruption. Walker rode that wave, and did it with a lot of charm, and people loved him -- not just the Irish. He was a very charismatic guy; he was always witty and good at tweaking the noses of the powers that be outside of politics. He raised his salary from $25,000 to $40,000, which was a lot of money back then. There was an outcry in the press, and he responded by saying 'Well, imagine what I'd charge if I worked full time!'

But he was very popular. He brought in baseball on Sundays, got boxing legalized as a state assemblyman. Then, at the end of the story, he's going to Yankee Stadium and gets booed. Even he knew that the Depression changed everything. All of a sudden it's not good times, people are suffering. And there's this guy driving around in his Duesy with a floozy.

THE CHANGING CULTURE OF CONSTRUCTION

Gotham Gazette: The culture of construction is a big part of the novel. Do you have a sense of how much that's changed, how different it's going to be for the workers who, for instance, build the Freedom Tower if they ever start building it?

Thomas Kelly: It's probably changed a lot less than people think. Different materials, but a lot of the process is exactly the same. There's a line I use in the book that, during the 1920s, building the skyscrapers is the closest peacetime equivalent to war -- all the planning and energy that goes into it. They're still huge undertakings. People still get hurt, people still die. It's hard work.

Gotham Gazette: Is it still mainly Irish, or has that changed?

Thomas Kelly: Construction unions in this city have long been very tribal, and they still are, though less than they used to be. I was a sandhog, and that's been Irish and West Indian since the days of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. You have the third or fourth generation working there.

The ironworkers are mainly Irish. Most come from Newfoundland -- they call them "fish" or "newfies." There's this sort of exaggerated myth of the Native American ironworker. Joseph Mitchell started it when he started writing about it in the 1940s, and Gay Talese continued it with "The Bridge," writing about the Mohawks. They were never more than five percent of the union. They got into it because, when they were building bridges upstate and Canada, the ironworkers brought some of the locals into the union, and they happened to be Mohawks. It became this weird reverse racism with some of these writers. Not to take anything away from what these Mohawks did and still do, but it's kind of funny how that happens.

In the beginning, a lot of Swedes and Norwegians came off the tall ships and were used to working in heights. They lived in Bay Ridge. There's a little bit of everything now: Italians, African Americans, Puerto Ricans. But still the biggest group would be Irish, and the biggest subgroup would be the newfies.

It's different with different trades. For the carpenters, there used to be about a half-dozen locals: the Jewish local, the Italian local, the black local, the Irish local. There's always a lot more peaceful co-habitation and intermingling than the negative stuff, but the negative stuff gets the press. Building trades now are almost 50 percent minority. I don't think Wall Street has gotten that close.

WORKING CLASS NEW YORK

Gotham Gazette: In the New York you describe, the culture seems very much influenced by the working class. I don't think many people would say that the working class is driving the image of New York City today. What do you think happened?

Thomas Kelly: That's a 12-part lecture.

Let's focus on Manhattan. I hate it when everyone focuses on Manhattan, but let's face it, when the rest of the world thinks about New York City they think about Manhattan from about 96th Street down. In the 1930s, that slice of Manhattan was filled with middle class, working class, and poor people. It was a lot of immigrants and a lot of regular people, families. What has happened -- and what is happening now at probably a faster rate than ever -- is the displacement of the population that can't afford it. I saw in the paper that 44 percent of the apartments in Manhattan are $1 million apartments.

A friend of mine once said that he liked New York better when the corporals ran the city. And what he meant by that was that you didn't have to be a big shot to be treated like a big shot. The city was run by the workers, and they felt invested in the city. Things have changed a lot in that regard and not always positively.

I write mostly about that other New York, which for me is the real New York. I try to go against the images of New York that go out to the world. It's not Donald Trump; it's not Central Park South. It's a much, much bigger story, and unfortunately over the last few generations less and less of that story is being told. What's going on today with the Dominicans and Bangladeshis, it's not much different from the story of the Jews and the Italians and the Irish. They're hard-working people who came to a crazy place from far away and want to make their lives better. That story is ongoing. Unfortunately as it becomes less white, it probably also becomes less attractive.

THE MYSTERY OF JUDGE CRATER

Kevin Baker: Any theory on the Judge Crater bones?

Thomas Kelly: In the book I deal with the disappearance of Judge Joseph Crater who, for those of you who don't know, disappeared off the face of the earth in August, 1930. He became one of the most famous missing people in American history, to the point that if you didn't show up for work they'd say you pulled a Crater.

I have my version of what happened in the book. It's not a big part of the book, but it's emblematic of the level of corruption at the time. Judge Crater represents the audacity of the corruption. Someone said, "Alright, we'll just disappear a state Supreme Court judge off the street." That just doesn't go on in America. This isn't Columbia during the drug wars. Things got so out of hand because of Prohibition.

RESEARCH VS. IMAGINATION IN HISTORICAL FICTION

Gotham Gazette: How much of your work is based on research and how much on imagination?

Thomas Kelly: I think it was E.L. Doctorow who, when asked how much research he does, said "just enough." A lot of historical novels are written by historians. They're histories; they're not stories. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to be meticulous about detail, and I missed one or two. I had Babe Ruth batting fourth in the Yankee lineup, when he wore number three because he batted third; and I had him using a doughnut on his bat. Luckily, someone caught them for me. These tiny details are important. As a storyteller you're creating an illusion, and anything that jars people out of that is bad.

The great thing about the 1930s is that there were still enough people who had been adults at the time. They were 90 when I talked to them, so they would have been 20 at the time. I talked to a friend of mine's great aunt who just died at 100. She was the daughter of Tammany Hall district leader in Hell's Kitchen. I also talked to, I think, the last guy alive who worked on the Empire State Building. He gave me great details. He was 17 at the time.

The amazing thing about the Empire State Building is that they built it in 13 months, and they built it on straight time - 40-hour weeks with no overtime. This man told me that on Friday they would pick a floor, say the 34th floor, and when the bell sounded on Friday afternoon they would bring barrels of beer and girls up and they would drink and gamble and have a casino in the sky.

He told me: "I'd leave around midnight, and come back Monday morning and they'd still be there, then they'd go right back to work!" If they hadn't done that, they'd probably have built it faster! That's a detail you're not going to find in a history book.

The other thing I did was go to the public library and read the tabloids of the day, which put you there in a way the history books just don't. The tabloids of the 1930s, they make the New York Post seem like Readers Digest. It's just blood and guts and sex; it's just pre-code America, it's amazing. It was the Wild West.

IRISH IMMIGRANTS AND THE WARS IN IRELAND

Gotham Gazette: How much of the involvement of Irish immigrants with the Irish Republican Army and the wars in Ireland was true?

Thomas Kelly: In 1923, you had the Irish War of Independence and following that immediately the Irish Civil War. One side decided to sign a treaty with the British, which cordoned off a part of Northern Ireland, something that we still deal with today. The other side said we shouldn't give the British anything. It degenerated into this nasty, ugly civil war that lasted 18 months. Only about 660 people were killed, but it wasn't armies; most of it was assassinations, atrocities.

The losing side of this war became the second largest Irish migration to the United States. That was during the 1920s, and that's when my family came over. This was a very rural, very embittered population. They were as angry with the Irish who sold them out as they were with the British. They were mostly young.

When you look at the South Bronx, where a lot of them went, the second or third generation Irish didn't accept them. The established immigrants were like, "Who are these animals coming off the boat?" The Irish weren't accepted by the established Irish.

This was a very impoverished population, and what's amazing to me is how few of them got involved in the rackets. Very few of them became gangsters at a time when there was plenty of opportunity to get involved and make good money. So these really were committed soldiers to the cause.

Gotham Gazette: Were they people who fled the war, or people who moved to the United States with the specific intent of carrying on the war?

Thomas Kelly: They were the losing side of the civil war. A lot of them left because they couldn't get jobs or they were shut out of opportunities in Ireland. Some of them just came here and said, "the hell with Ireland," and never looked back; others continued the struggle. This is sort of a twilight period for the IRA, but there was still very much going on.

I get into this in the book with Michael Briody. He's trying to raise money and send guns back. There was a committed cadre of people at this time that was devoted to that struggle. I found notes of meetings of the American political wing of the IRA where they had a debate over whether they should open a speakeasy to finance their cause. They voted against it because they didn't want to be seen as criminals. They were revolutionaries.

A lot of them got involved in starting the subway union. Here is a great New York story that hasn't gotten a lot of play. They were Irish, and they went to the church, which said "Commies! Get out of here"; The Ancient Order of Hibernians said, "What are you crazy?" So they ended up going the Communist Party, which was Eastern European Jewish. This combination of these Irish farmboys and Eastern European Jewish intellectuals created the Transport Workers Union.

In the 1920s the subways were all privately owned railroads, and they were some of the most vicious employers in the country. There were big strikes that were viciously put down, violently put down. And one of the ways they organized the unions was the Irish guys would speak in Irish -- Gaelic. They would hold secret meetings. This was necessary because spies for the companies called beakies were paid an extra dollar a day to rat out anybody who was a union sympathizer.

So all that's going on, and I have these characters that are caught up in these crosscurrents.

Gotham Gazette: Did the involvement of immigrants in New York have much of an effect on the situation in Ireland itself?

Thomas Kelly: No. It was a tragic lost cause by that point. These guys were dreamers; they were madmen to a certain extent. It was a pretty pathetic effort at that time.

And you can't underestimate the power of the idea of America and these freedoms. Many of the Irish coming over here, they were fleeing not just the Brits, but the Catholic Church, and now their fellow Irishmen.

That's what happens with this character. First he falls in love, and he had never been in love. This guy joined the British army when he was 15 to fight World War I. He comes back and gets involved in the IRA, fights against the British, fights the civil war. Now he ends up in America. He's 30 years old, he's been at war his whole life. He falls in love with this woman who is from where he's from; he's got this job he loves. And all of a sudden he's like "Wow, maybe the past should just be the past."

And I think that sort of thing happens all the time in this city. People come into Kennedy Airport every day leaving something like that behind. Some of them think they'll get back to it. My grandparents never went back. A lot of them never did.

WRITING ABOUT FAMILY

Gotham Gazette: You mentioned that your family was the basis for some of the characters in the book. What did they think of it?

Thomas Kelly: Well, for me all that matters is my aunt Mae, my father's sister who died last year. She was quite a character. She came over at seven years old and went on to become an English teacher at Roosevelt High School. She was always the one who gave me books, and inspired me to read.

My first two books were filled with a lot of profanity. The first book has about 38 homicides. So the English teacher reads the first book and says, "Obviously you're a good writer but the language is a bit rough." She doesn't mention the 38 homicides -- how Irish is that?

So I really wanted to tip my hat to her, because a lot of the inspiration was family stuff. So the F word appears once. She said she really enjoyed the book. And I asked her if she noticed anything and she said: "Yes, I can read it to my grandchildren."

But the real beauty of writing fiction is that you can say "Well, no, that wasn't you." And it wasn't.

Sylvia Price: My grandparents are getting older, and they don't remember much. It's hard to get them to talk.

Thomas Kelly: I couldn't get everyone to talk, and you've really got to work your way into it. For many of these families coming to America there's almost this insane need to be clean, to be perfect, to be upstanding. They want to be accepted. It was that whole "work hard and do the right thing, and don't allow yourself to justify those stereotypes."

I would just start asking her about what it was like. For me, we had this whole conversation about the iceman, and then the coal man, and then Jimmy the tea man who came by horse and wagon to the Bronx. Just details like that. From that, it would lead her to something else.

People are uncomfortable talking about themselves, and a past they'd maybe rather forget. So it's kind of tricky. But I'm compelled to get those stories, because I believe that when those people die, those stories die with them.

WRITING ABOUT WORK, WRITING ABOUT NEW YORK

Gotham Gazette: You mentioned a problem you had with Gay Talese's "The Bridge." Your book reminded me in many ways of that book, about the building of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The day-to-day routines and interactions of the people who were working on the bridge and, in your book, on the Empire State Building, seemed very similar. What did you get out of that book?

Thomas Kelly: It's a great book, and the focus on the Mohawks is legitimate. I wish there were more like it. I think he's a fabulous nonfiction writer. He's very meticulous in detail, very graceful.

Gotham Gazette: Are there any other books that you would recommend, either about this topic, or about New York in general.

Thomas Kelly: There aren't a lot of books about work. It's kind of sad. In one of the reviews of "Empire Rising," the guy reviewed it very positively, but said it was a throwback to whole socialist-realist novels of the 1930s, like "Christ in Concrete." But you can count these titles on one hand.

Who built the pyramids? A bunch of slaves. Who built the Roman aqueducts? We don't know. What were their experiences? We don't know.

Book Club member: What are you working on now?

Thomas Kelly: I'm writing two pilots for television, one for HBO and one for CBS. The one for CBS, One Police Plaza, is kind of a cop thing: the West Wing meets the NYPD. The other is about Manhattan at night, it's about a family. One brother's a night watchman type and the other's a sandhog. It's about how the city is changing. One brother is just home from prison after 15 years, comes back to the West Side and it's like stepping onto the planet Mars.

I'm starting a new book. I want to do this epic thing about the rise and fall of postwar New York. It opens in 1945 when the guys get back from the war and ends around the time of the Knapp commission [on police corruption] in the 1970s. It's a little more about cops and a little less about construction. It's really about how the city evolved and changed over that quarter century. I want to show cops in a place like New York as those who have a front-row seat to history and use them as a way to look at these big social changes.

Book Club member: Are you going to use family members for source material?

Thomas Kelly: I had an uncle who just died who was quite a character. He arrested the guy who killed Kitty Genovese. At 80 he was 6-foot-3, 220. I can imagine what it was like in 1963 trying to keep a confession from him. Just the story of a guy like that, starting in the 1940s, with all the stuff going on in New York, race and class, money, and change.

The funny thing about New York is we don't have a Saul Bellow. There are so many stories to be told. How do you wrap your arms around it? In a way it's true, but I want to attempt broader stories and the way all these worlds interact.

New York is a way that this interaction goes on, as much as it's becoming polarized. Those guys living in the penthouses are still going to have to get out on the streets and go past the kids from the projects. That doesn't happen in a place like Greenwich, Connecticut. It doesn't happen in a lot of places in the world. We have this forced interaction that has made New York probably a much greater human experience than other cities. We can't ever be LA.

From a storyteller's point of view there's a lot to be said about New York. I feel like I could write for the next 1,000 years and not crack it.

 

Mayoral Issue Grid: Arts



Mayoral Issue Grid

ARTS
-Freedom Center

Arts advocates are concerned with a slew of issues - including low city funding for non-profit arts organizations; too few arts programs in the schools; lack of support for individual artists; lack of access for the public - but the only arts-connected issue that has gotten any attention in the campaign is the latest battle in the culture wars. This time, it is happening at Ground Zero.

Two cultural institutions had been invited to be part of the new World Trade Center complex. One, the Drawing Center, is a small downtown museum founded in 1977. The other, the International Freedom Center, was conceived for the site. Critics, including a few family members of 9/11 victims, started labeling past Drawing Center exhibitions as anti-American, and expressed their suspicion that future Freedom Center exhibitions would be as well. They also said that it would not be appropriate to have anything on the site that was not about September 11th, 2001.

The governor sided with the critics, demanding an "absolute guarantee" that no future exhibition or lecture would be anti-American or offend anyone, and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation gave in effect an ultimatum that the two cultural institutions had to work out a plan for any future content with the 9/11 families who had objected.

The Drawing Center found this condition unacceptable and withdrew. The Freedom Center has until September 23rd to come to an agreement.

At a forum of the Democratic mayoral candidates held on August 16th, 2005 at Jazz at Lincoln Center, when asked about the controversy, they gave vague answers (three mentioned the word "diversity") or truncated answers (two quickly changed the subject) that seemed to indicate a tilt towards allowing the critics to determine the contents of future lectures and exhibitions at the Freedom Center.

Fernando Ferrer

When asked about the Freedom Center, Ferrer said; "I think there should be a diversity of views, exhibits, and activities in the Freedom Center. But I think that they have to be guided by a sense that we lost 3,000 people and families and this entire city have been deeply affected."

Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg objected to the actions of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation in regards to the Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, saying that, while he was "sympathetic" to the loss of life, "the question is what is the best memorial to them, whether you build something to the future or something that looks back. I always thought we should do both... If we are a democracy and we are going to have an inclusive process, we should stick with inclusive processes."

Related Articles

Long-Term Issues Facing The Arts In NYC
Arguments pro and con for The International Freedom Center from the Wall Street Journal
Daily News editorial calling for "oversight mechanism that would monitor the suitability of all exhibits in the future."
NY Times editorial blasting Governor Pataki for failing to stand up for "the quintessentially American principle of free speech and the role of culture, in this most cultural of cities, in helping us understand 9/11."

 

 

 



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