Gotham Gazette

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Open Government

Mayor Bloomberg's 2006 Inaugural Address


“Happy New Year. Feliz nuevo.

“Governor Pataki, Mayors Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani, Comptroller Thompson, Public Advocate Gotbaum, thank you for being here.

“And thanks to all of New York’s distinguished public servants. Today I want to especially salute those who are leaving office: Borough President C. Virginia Fields, Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Councilwomen Tracy Boyland, Margarita Lopez, Eva Moskowitz, and Madeline Provenzano, and Councilmen Allan Jennings, Bill Perkins, and Philip Reed.

“And I want to say to the public servants taking their places how much I look forward to working with all of you.

“And, finally, I want to thank everyone here.

Gracias a todos, from every borough and every community, for coming together on this wonderful day -- a day full of great promise for our great City.

“Over the past four years, I’ve met and talked with New Yorkers who practice every religion, speak every language, and come from everywhere on Earth. It’s been the experience of a lifetime, not only because of the generous warmth -- and advice -- you’ve given me, but also because you’ve shared with me your deepest hopes and dreams.

“It’s the enormous power of those dreams, over eight million of them, that gives our city its unique optimism, what one author described as: ‘that sense -- so peculiar to New York -- that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.’

“Possibility, Opportunity: This is the essence of New York. This is the air we breathe. This is the promise of tomorrow.

“But let us not forget, on Inauguration Day four years ago, that optimism seemed in jeopardy.

“The terrible devastation we had suffered only months before remained uppermost in our minds. From this very spot, we saw plumes of smoke still rising into the January chill from the World Trade Center site. We were a city in mourning, shaken and wounded.

“Accepting the enormous responsibility entrusted in me, I asked New Yorkers that day to keep faith in our common destiny, to think big, dream big, and prepare to build an even greater city.

“And because we did, today we are stronger than ever.

“True, the wounds we have suffered may never fully heal, but something else has endured. Something even more compelling; something even more powerful: our unity.

“On 9/11, New Yorkers came together. And since 9/11, we have stayed together.

“We’ve been united through blizzards and a blackout, and, most recently, we’ve overcome a transit strike that could well have shut down our city. We have accepted the risks and requirements of the post-9/11 world without abandoning our devotion to our liberties, our zest for life, or our feisty charm.

“United in the face of terrorism, New Yorkers have embraced the timeless wisdom that the secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage.

“Over the past four years, we’ve learned -- or re-learned -- that in this, the most diverse of cities, we are one people, with one common destiny. That same spirit of unity must continue to guide us now.

“We have gone through the tough times, and come out stronger.

“Our population is at an all-time high. Crime is going down; student achievement is going up; jobs are being created; new homes and parks are strengthening and revitalizing our neighborhoods.

“We’ve come a long way, and now we have a choice to make.

“We could be content with what we have accomplished, and preserve our gains, or we can take our beloved city even further forward -- and make the promise of opportunity real for every person in every community.

“No one need ask which one we’ll choose.

“We are New Yorkers!

“We never stop reaching, striving, and working. We know there is more we can do, and more we must do. We know there can be no turning back. And there will be no holding back.

“United, we will take on new challenges -- with the passion and dedication that New York demands of us. United, we will succeed.

“Think about what we have accomplished in the last four years.

“Against all odds, we’ve made the safest big city in the nation even safer, for motorists and pedestrians on our streets, from fires in our homes -- at the tragic cost of six of our Bravests’ lives -- and dramatically safer from crime in each of our five boroughs.

“Now, staying united will make us even safer.

“Our most urgent challenge is ending the threat of guns and the violence they do. Twice in recent weeks, police officers have been struck down by gunfire on our streets. Twice the flags flying on this plaza have been lowered to half-staff, and the sound of pipes and drums has escorted brave and decent young men on their final journeys.

“Detectives Dillon Stewart and Daniel Enchautegui were among twelve of New York City’s Finest who gave their lives in the line of duty during the last four years.

“Now we have a duty as well, one that rises above all partisan politics, and one we will pursue relentlessly: And that is to rid our streets of guns, and punish all those who possess and traffic in these instruments of death.

“This is a national threat -- one that crosses city lines and state boundaries.

“To meet it, we must, and we will, make common cause with our fellow Americans.

“We will take our message to Albany, to Washington, and to every capital of every state that permits guns to flow freely across its borders.

“And to those who distort our laws to aid and abet hardened criminals, know this: We will not rest until we secure all of the tools we need to protect New Yorkers from the scourge of illegal guns.

“Public safety is the foundation of our city’s prosperity.

“Without it, our quality of life, our economy, our efforts to reform the schools would surely falter.

“Ensuring our safety has paved the way to taking on the other challenges we’ve faced.

“Working together, we’ve overcome the worst fiscal crisis in a generation. It threatened our quality of life and jeopardized our future. Courageously, together we made a fundamental choice to face up to the crisis, and master it -- and not postpone and evade, thereby repeating the mistakes of the 1970s.

“And because that was the right choice, we’ve done more with less, and today our quality of life is better and New Yorkers are living longer.

“Staying united, we will be fiscally responsible.

“This is not the time to relax our vigilance, or to make the wrong choice of shifting our financial burdens onto the shoulders of our children.

“City government can and must live within its means. And we will do so without abandoning the compassion that defines our city. We will care for the elderly, the homeless, and all those in need.

“City government must also be the catalyst of opportunity in all five boroughs.

“Private enterprise, not make-work public programs, always will account for New York's prosperity.

“The public sector’s role is to create the conditions that foster private investment. That is why, from West Harlem to Jamaica, and from Hunts Point to Coney Island, we are replacing long twilights of blight and abandonment with the bright dawn of new parks, new homes, and new hope.

“Staying united, we will transform the face of our city.

“We will protect and improve our open spaces. We’ll revitalize our incomparable waterfront. We’ll begin to turn what was once the world’s biggest landfill into the City’s largest new park in more than 100 years.

“We’ll pursue the most ambitious affordable housing initiative in New York’s history. We’ll encourage development where it’s needed, and curb it where it’s not.

“And we’ll quicken the pace of rebuilding here in Lower Manhattan, creating a sustainable residential and commercial community.

“By giving New York a genuine 21st century downtown, we’ll ensure that this -- our historic birthplace -- once again captures the imagination and admiration of people around the globe.

“Four years ago, our City was caught in a deep national recession, and our economy was hemorrhaging jobs. Because we’ve stimulated growth in all five boroughs, today, by contrast, our economy is once again moving forward.

“But for too many in our city, opportunity is still elusive.

“And so long as that is true, this will not be the New York that we want it to be.

“Staying united, we will create more jobs for all New Yorkers.

“Over the next four years, we will aggressively foster small business start-ups and expansion, and promote our growth industries -- from tourism, to the arts, to the life sciences.

“And because the best anti-poverty program ever devised is a job, we’ll also step up our efforts to move thousands more New Yorkers from the dependency of welfare to the dignity of work.

“Over the past four years, we’ve also started to fulfill our most important obligation: to our children.

“To give them the future they deserve, we’ve established accountability and set standards in our public schools.

“We’ve brought a sense of excitement and possibility to teachers, to parents, and to children. We’ve given the schools an arts curriculum that is worthy of the nation’s cultural capital. We’ve begun to ensure all our students the first-rate education that is their fundamental civil right.

“That is the hinge on which the future of our city will turn.

“Staying united -- for our children’s sake -- we can and we will lead our schools forward.

“We will lock in, and extend, all our hard-won reforms.

“We will not permit anyone to turn back the clock!

“Our mission over the next four years will be: To create -- from pre-school through high school -- a public education system second to none.

“We will strengthen the three pillars of our school reform: Leadership, Accountability, and Empowerment, putting resources and authority where they belong: in the schools of our city.

“And because the eyes of the nation are on our efforts, our successes hold the promise of hope for schools across the land.

“What a wonderful gift for New York to share with the rest of our country.

“We in this City can accomplish all these goals and more, but only if we continue to stay above narrow partisan politics.

“Over the past four years, New Yorkers have shown that we can solve any problem when we set our self-interest aside, and put our common interests first. Government must embody that spirit.

“We must make our political process more open and accountable, the operations of government agencies more transparent, and our methods of appointing and electing our judges above reproach.

“On Inauguration Day in 2002, I pledged to govern our city without partisanship or prejudice.

“I meant it then -- and I’m renewing that commitment today.

“The door to this great building will remain open to all New Yorkers, wherever they’re from, whatever they believe, whomever they love.

“Over the past four years, we’ve given New Yorkers a City government of independence and integrity.

“That will continue. We will not compromise our principles. We will not sidestep the hard choices. And we will always do what we believe is right for the people of New York.

“Forty years ago, New York -- as it’s done for countless others -- opened its arms and took me in.

“And during the past four years, I’ve had the chance to fall in love with this City all over again. I’ve learned even more what connects all of us to New York so deeply, what draws us here from every corner of the globe, and what keeps us here -- generation after generation.

“It’s possibility. It’s opportunity. It’s ambitions as bold as seeing your name in lights on Broadway, and as simple and universal as creating a good home and a better life for your children.

“That’s what New York City is all about.

“Our job, yours and mine, is to give every single New Yorker the chance to realize those ambitions and pursue those dreams.

“Four years ago, I spoke of building a better New York. And I can tell you exactly who is building it.

“It’s the couple who has just made the down payment on their first home in Cypress Hills. It’s the second-grader with a newfound love of reading, checking a book out of the Harlem Branch Library. It’s the returning veteran in Sunset Park who’s ready to exchange a helmet for a hard hat, and the shopkeepers on Fordham Road whose hard work and long hours are a labor of love for their families.

“You are the people who truly make this the place where ‘something extraordinary happens, any minute, any day, any month.’

“You are making this a better City for all of us. You are the promise of New York, and we believe in your dreams.

“The challenges we confront are not easy, nor will they be the last ones New Yorkers ever face.

“After all, it was O. Henry who once wrote that, ‘New York will be a great place -- if they ever finish it.’

“But over the next four years, we will neither turn back, nor hold back.

“Staying united, we will renew the promise of our city -- and commit ourselves to finishing our unfinished work, making Our City even greater and a true City of Opportunity for all of us here today, and for our children and our children’s children.

“Thank you, and may God bless New York City.”

Comptroller William Thompson Jr. 2006 Inaugural Address


Mayor Bloomberg, Public Advocate Gotbaum, Members of the City Council, colleagues in government, family, friends, and all New Yorkers, good afternoon.

It has been my great privilege to serve as New York City Comptroller for the past four years and I am deeply honored to serve a second term. And I would like to thank the people of New York City for this tremendous opportunity.

Four years ago, we gathered here under very different circumstances. Only a few months after the destruction of the World Trade Center , a deep uncertainty was heavy upon us -- our confidence shaken, our future in doubt.

Not only were we struggling to come to terms with the painful loss of family, friends and colleagues, we were confronting a bleak economic picture that threatened to take us back down the road of financial disaster we had traveled a generation before.

Remarkably, the leaders standing before you then, myself included, were new and untried in elective office. The eyes of the City -- indeed the eyes of the Nation and the World -- were upon us. But we did not shrink from the task. Staring into uncertainty can make some feeble: to New Yorkers, staring down uncertainty is what makes us strong.

This type of strength is what our City was founded upon. Long before Lady Liberty took up residence in our Harbor, New York City was a beacon to all people around the globe seeking to escape persecution and hardship. They showed the strength of their convictions and helped New York City become a symbol of freedom, a symbol of new beginnings, a symbol of rebirth.

The events of 9/11 tried to dim our beacon's light, but as it has so often in the past, our City showed its resilience and we emerged stronger and more secure. Today, our light burns brighter than ever.

I am proud to say that we faced the uncertainty and we prevailed. In fact, after a considerable period of economic decline, we have entered a period of fiscal stability and our economy has begun to rebound.

Yes, we are all proud that the City has bounced back more quickly than anyone anticipated, but in the wake of that recovery, there are still many New Yorkers who continue to struggle…who have not shared in this prosperity.

It is our responsibility as public officials to find ways to sow the seeds of opportunity, to foster hope for a better future for all New Yorkers. The challenges we face are enormous and it is not a time for partisanship. Collaboration was and still is the key ingredient for our future success.

I entered office determined to be an activist Comptroller, by aggressively using the powers of my office to find new, creative ways to save the taxpayers money and to put our resources to work for all New Yorkers.

With the unwavering focus of the dedicated staff of the Comptroller's office, we did this in a variety of ways. To name a few…We identified more than 170 million dollars in savings through our audits of city operations. We made innovative uses of technology, including an initiative to settle claims against the City electronically, and we found new ways to do business.

Taking advantage of New York's untapped fiscal strength, we collaborated with the Mayor, the New York City Finance Commissioner and the New York State Banking Commissioner to use over one hundred million dollars of City deposits as a capital base for expanding the Banking Development District program, spurring the creation of local bank branches in neighborhoods that have traditionally been excluded from access to capital.

Together with my committed colleagues on the New York City Pension Funds, we began to invest in real estate, specifically, New York City commercial real estate. Our pension funds now own part of several New York City landmark buildings. This investment is a true testament to our belief in the long term viability of this great City.

We have also invested our pension funds in the rehabilitation and creation of housing for our City's low-, moderate- and middle- income residents…nearly one billion dollars invested to spur economic growth and opportunity. And we developed innovative programs to include more women, African-American and Latino investment firms in the management of City pension dollars.

The list is expansive, and the focus clear…we have used our Office to help the beacon burn even brighter for all. Every New Yorker deserves their fair share of our economic recovery.

In the coming term, we will continue the work we have begun --- using City resources to benefit the people we serve: creating jobs, expanding access to capital, building affordable housing, and improving government.

We will ensure that the innovative Battery Park City Housing Trust Fund we established with Mayor Bloomberg and housing advocates honors the decades old commitment to create affordable housing units, helping thousands of hardworking New Yorkers and their families to live in our City without having to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table.

We will commit additional dollars to more bank branches in order to reach more neighborhoods. There is no better investment we can make than the investment we make in our communities.

We will continue to aggressively pursue contractors who exploit workers, many of whom are immigrants, insisting that the working men and women of our City are paid a fair day's wage for a day's work on any City public works project.

We will continue to lead the fight against companies that exploit children, discriminate against workers, do business in countries that support terrorism, and poison the environment, carrying on a long tradition of New York City Comptrollers who have helped us earn our reputation as the most aggressive pension funds in the nation.

I was born and raised in New York City . I have had the chance to get to know the many communities across the City in my career, and yet in the last four years, as I have met and worked with individuals and groups in every neighborhood, in every borough, I have seen a City stronger and more unified than ever before.

We are one City and we stand united no matter the challenge.

It is this commitment to each other that helps New York to continually reinvent itself and maintain its position as the greatest City in this Nation. Our City's legacy is and will remain one of opportunity, one of hope.

New Yorkers are survivors, yes—but we are more than that. Those who were born here, those who were raised here, those who come here from all over the world, are here, not just to succeed, but to excel.

There is a spirit in New York that is truly inspiring... a spirit that lifts its leaders to want more for the people they serve.

the years ahead, I will build on my achievements, deriving strength from this spirit. I will continue to fight for fairness and opportunity for all New Yorkers and to use the power of my office to keep our City strong.

Our city is, and must remain…a beacon for those who hope... a compassionate home for the vulnerable…and a place where every single New Yorker has the means to realize their dreams and aspirations.

Thank you.

 

Three Days In December


 

What lasting mark will the three-day transit strike of 2005 leave on the city?

The 1980 transit strike, which lasted 11 days, gave New Yorkers at least three tangible things: dollar vans, women who carry their good shoes in their bag and walk to work in sneakers, and the term “gridlock,” coined by Sam Schwarz.

The 1966 strike, which began on the first day of John Lindsay’s administration and ended 12 days later, painted the mayor – either fairly or unfairly – as an unsuccessful leader and contributed to the notion of an “ungovernable” city that took decades to overcome.

Even a series of streetcar strikes in 1880s left a legacy of shorter workdays.

It is too early to tell what will come out of the transit strike of 2005. Some, for example, hope it will result in bicycling and even walking as the new norm for commuters, and in permanent restrictions on automobile traffic. But, for the moment, the walkout seems above all else to have brought to light a series of issues connected to public employment -- labor issues that go far beyond the beef between one union and its bosses.

PENSIONS

On the night of the union’s strike deadline, as midnight approached, it became clear that the conflict that was leading to the showdown came entirely down to pensions. In his last-minute offer, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chair Peter Kalikow drew nearer to the union positions on many issues but demanded that all new transit workers pay six percent of their wages for pensions -– up from the current two percent. The union balked, with Toussaint saying the plan would, in effect, cut the wages of new workers by four percent and only save the MTA “a pittance.” And, indeed the New York Times calculated that, if approved, Kalikow’s proposal would have saved the MTA $20 million a year for the next three years – a tiny amount of the agency’s $9.3 billion budget for the next fiscal year.

But the significance of the move extends beyond dollars and cents. “This is not the end of it. This is just the beginning,” E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute told the New York Sun. “What Toussaint has done is educate a whole new generation of New Yorkers as to how cushy pension deals are for workers by private sector standards.”

Transport Workers Union leader Roger Toussaint on his way to a press conference; Union supporters gathered on the Brooklyn Bridge

Fiscal watchdogs and some politicians have long sounded the alarm about what a post-strike editorial in the New York Times called "an issue of growing concern all across America." Even in the private sector, "pensions are increasingly at risk and increasingly self-funded," but public officials nationwide see the cost of pensions for public employees as a growing threat and the effort to scale them back a future source of friction. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has cited it as one of the "uncontrollable" expenses undermining New York City's financial future.

By one reckoning, the city's pension bill went from $3.37 billion last year to $4.74 billion this fiscal year. It could go to $5.08 billion for the next fiscal year, which begins in July, 2006. A recent analysis by the Public Policy Institute, a state-wide business-oriented group, found that people who had retired from state and local government jobs in New York collected an average of $22,676 in pension benefits in 2003, about 16 percent above the national average.

Under New York state law, governments cannot reduce pension benefits for employees. But they can impose new requirements for new employees, as Kalikow suggested. At the city level, divisions already exist. There are four pension "tiers" in New York, based upon the employee’s start date, and Bloomberg has said a fifth for those most recently hired might be useful.

Some fiscal watchdogs would go further and restructure the pension system. Today public employees are guaranteed a set benefit after they retire. In most private companies, though, employers and employees make a contribution to a retirement account. The amount the worker receives depends on how much money those investments are worth once the employees retires. The Citizens Budget Commission and the Manhattan Institute have urged that government switch over to this so-called "defined contribution plan." This would protect the government from the vagaries of the financial markets but leave the individual worker bearing that risk.

Of course, the only reason public employees have such generous pensions is that politicians agreed to them in the first place. In 2000, for example, Governor George Pataki reduced to zero the amount that transit workers and other government employees with 10 years on the job had to contribute to their pensions. And Albany has given retired public employees cost-of-living increases in their city pensions, a measure that alone will cost the city $820 million a year by 2010, according to Doug Turetsky of the Independent Budget Office.

“Now, with a foot in New Hampshire on his way out the door, George Pataki has discovered that New York has a pension crisis and that 34,000 transit workers … should be enlisted to solve it,” Wayne Barrett wrote in Power Plays, a Village Voice blog, during the strike.

And while Bloomberg has spoken repeatedly of the need to reduce pension costs, “he certainly hasn't demanded it,” said Steven Malanga of the Manhattan Institute,” In fact, in his recent contract talk with the teachers union, Bloomberg agreed to establishing a labor/management committee that could consider way to cut the retirement age for teachers from 62 to 55.

HEALTH BENEFITS

 

Faced with rising health care costs, the MTA asked workers to begin contributing to their health care costs. Until now, transit workers have not had to pay anything for their health care coverage. The MTA asked that future workers contribute two percent of their salary toward their health care. The union said it would not agree to any deal that made workers contribute to health care costs.

Along with pensions, this quickly became one of the most contentious issues in negotiations – and one that city officials and fiscal and labor experts watched closely. While some critics of the union pointed out the relative generosity of the plan in comparison to private sector workers, others said cutting health benefits could set a bad precedent for organized labor. Days before the strike, Newsday columnist Ray Sanchez described the transit talks as a “historic fight against pension and health-care rollbacks for public sector employees.”

A normally empty afternoon PATH ride; people taking the LIRR from Brooklyn and Queens to Manhattan;
The line for the Brooklyn ferry

 

The city government’s health insurance costs are rising rapidly. In 2004 these costs totaled $2.4 billion; they are expected to total $3.9 billion by 2009.

Across the country, public and private employers are squeezed by health insurance costs. Some private employers no longer provide health insurance to workers, and most of those that do require that workers pay an increasing share of the costs.

Public employees, on the other hand, have not seen this erosion in benefits and now receive much better health plans than workers in the private sector. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, local and state governments pay well over twice the rates that private employers do to insure workers (in pdf format).

But while Mayor Michael Bloomberg has frequently cited health care costs as contributing to future city budget deficits, critics say he has done little to address rising health care expenses and that, in the latest round of contract negotiations, did not gain any concessions from unions on such costs.

Malanga says the city should either reduce the amount that it pays for health benefits or find ways to offset the expenses.

A TOUGHER DEAL FOR FUTURE WORKERS

 

When transit talks reached an impasse, the issue was not about benefits or wages for union members -– it was about the benefits that future transit workers would receive.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority wanted to give future workers less generous pension and health care packages but, as Peter Kalikow, the authority's chair, repeatedly pointed out, the plans of current workers would not be affected.

Still, union chief Roger Toussaint emphatically rejected the idea. "We will not sell out the unborn," he said, using a phrase he invoked repeatedly throughout the negotiations.

Historically, however, compromising with the benefits of future union members has been the easiest way for unions to respond to employer demands for cuts in expensive benefits.

"It's a common experience, and it's a way for a labor leader to make an unpopular decision in a way that his members -- the members who elect him or her -- don't have to pay for," said CUNY professor John Mollenkopf.

Unlike Toussaint, not all municipal union leaders have stood in solidarity with their future brethren. District Council 37, New York's largest public employee union, agreed earlier this year to give future workers fewer vacation days. And when given the choice this June, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association decided to drastically cut the salaries of future officers and police cadets to pay for today's raises, instead of agreeing to other cost-saving measures.

Such action could lead to intra-union tension, as new workers enter the union with less favorable contracts and grudges toward the old guard leadership. In the case of the police officers, some also cited a fear that it could reduce the effectiveness of the police department.

"Setting a cadet's salary at $25,100 is no way to recruit the Finest," wrote the Daily News in an editorial in June, "and it illustrates how mulish the PBA and President Pat Lynch can be in refusing to accept productivity improvements.”

WORK RULES AND PRODUCTIVITY

 

Since becoming mayor, Bloomberg has invoked a kind of mantra in dealing with unions: Any salary increases will be at least partly paid for by increases in worker productivity. “From his statistic-packed management reports, to the bullpen cubicles he's made city administrators sit in, the CEO-turned-mayor is always looking for ways to improve output,” according to WNYC’s Dan Blumberg.

This issue arose early in the transit talks when the MTA sought to change rules for transit workers’ broadening job responsibilities. For example, the authority wanted conductors to become customer service agents who would roam the train, rather than stay in the conductor’s booth. Similarly, the MTA wants the former token clerks to move around subway stations and help riders. The union has expressed reservations about employees’ safety in stations, and passenger safety if conductors’ duties are changed. As negotiation went on, this issue seemed to fade although it could still emerge in a final settlement.

While Bloomberg has certainly sought productivity gains, it remains unclear how much he has actually accomplished in this area. While he has not gotten everything he has wanted, “labor experts say, he has wrung more productivity increases and other concessions out of the unions than previous mayors have,” Steven Greenhouse wrote in the New York Times.

Perhaps most significantly, this fall, the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Union received a 17 percent pay hike over 51 months after they agreed to longer trash collection routes and to allow one person, instead of two, on trucks that pick up large roll-on bins.

The city also got some productivity gains and changes in work rule from the United Federation of teachers in their new contract. The teachers agreed to three additional professional development days – work days for them but not for students – in the school year and 50 minutes more a week, limited some seniority rights and gave administrators more flexibility in assigning teachers to such non-instructional tasks such as patrolling lunchrooms and playgrounds. Noting that the contract continues the practice of swamping “time for money,” the Citizens Budget Commission commented, “This policy is very expensive. The added time bought in this contract has an extra annual cost of about $230 million.”

And the Manhattan’s Institute’s Sol Stern said the contract was a far cry from the changes originally sought by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein who had wanted to scrap a whole array of contract provisions and replace the 200-page contract with a streamlined eight-page document. But in the end, Stern wrote, “Mr. Klein bit his lip and affixed his signature to yet another 200-page teachers contract — one containing the same lock-step pay schedule, based on seniority and useless education credits, he earlier promised to end.”

The gains in productivity and work rules have also had a price beyond dollar and cents, according to some observers. "In a kind of nonbelligerent way, [Bloomberg] has taken a very hard line, and his insistence on productivity givebacks has made labor relations very, very difficult," said Joshua B. Freeman, a labor historian at the City University Graduate Center.

RESPECT

 

If Freeman is correct, the animosity may arise from the fact that work rules – how employees are treated on the job – go very much to workers’ feeling about whether their bosses respect them. Time and again, union leaders have said the city was not giving them the credit and respect that they deserve.

When the city suggested the Uniformed Firefighters Association, which is still without a contract, consider DC 37’s agreement as a model, firefighters president Steven Cassidy reacted scornfully. “Mayor Bloomberg says we're no different than people who just push paper,” he told WNYC. “That's a joke. It's an insult to police officers and firefighters who risk their lives everyday.”

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch has expressed similar sentiments. "We put on a shield on our chest, a gun on our hip and we go out and we go where no one else goes," he said. "And you're not going to respect us?"

After eight years of attacks from former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani followed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s takeover of the school system, teachers have felt insulted as well. "It's time to invest in the new three R's," UFT President Randi Weingarten told a “Respect for Teachers” rally in 2003. "Respect for teachers. Retention of qualified staff. And resources for schools." Teaches felt so slighted by what they considered micromanaging of classrooms by Chancellor Klein – a man with virtually no education experience before he began running the nation’s largest public school system – that the new contract specifically bars disciplining teachers for violating some of Klein’s rules about lesson time and bulletin boards.

Amid all the dollars and cents issues in the transit talks, “respect seemed to be the driving motivating factor,” Bruce Schaller wrote in Gotham Gazette. Workers have cited what they see as petty and punitive rules and arbitrary disciplinary actions against them. Workers are “punished and harassed daily by management,” Juan Gonzalez wrote in the Daily News. One worker told him, "We've been fed up with the MTA and wanted a strike for years."

And so, they got one. But it is not clear whether any strike could give the transit workers more respect or really resolve the many thorny issues facing New York’s government agencies and their workers in the months and years ahead.


All Images from Flickr

 

 

 

City Council Stated Meeting - December 21, 2005


MEETING SUMMARY:
The New York City Council met for its final session of the year and passed more than a dozen new bills.

NOSTALGIC FAREWELLS

It was the last meeting under Speaker Gifford Miller, who is term- limited out of office. In addition, seven other veteran council members - Margarita Lopez, Eva Moskowitz, Phil Reed, Bill Perkins, Madeline Provenzano, Tracy Boyland, and Allan Jennings - said farewell to the legislative body.

The meeting began with nearly two hours of speeches, as members recounted their efforts over the last four years, said goodbye to the departing members, and offered parting advice.

Speaker Miller recalled how 38 new members took office in January 2002, a few months after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. He praised the council for closing billion-dollar budget gaps and for instituting new lead paint regulations, protecting domestic partnerships, and making emergency contraception more easily available.

"The city is better off now than it was four years ago because of the work of this council," said Miller. "And I know that those who are continuing on will do even greater things."

Several members took the opportunity to remember James Davis, who was shot in the council chambers in 2002. Councilmember Letitia James, who was elected to the seat after his death, said that she thought Davis would be proud of the work of the council to help the poor.

Outgoing Councilmember Bill Perkins used a portion of his time to say "how bad an idea term limits is."

Margarita Lopez focused on missed opportunities, arguing that the council should have passed legislation to create accessible taxis for the disabled.

And Allan Jennings - who was the focus of an embarrassing sexual harassment case and the only council member to lose a bid for reelection his year – offered a farewell promise.

"My parting words: 'I'll be back,'" said Jennings.

NOISE CODE

The major piece of legislation passed by the council was a revision of the city's 30-year-old noise code.

The new code (Intro 397-A):
- Restricts excessive noise from construction sites and allows construction work only between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
- Forbids sanitation or other large trucks from operating in residential areas at night.
- Requires bars to keep music below a specific decibel level.
- Allows Mr. Softee ice cream trucks to play jingles ONLY while they are in motion.
- Adds noise from motorcycles, car radios, and portable stereos to the city's regulations.
- And forbids continuous animal noise inside a residence for more than 10 minutes between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. or for more than five minutes after 10 p.m.

The regulations also impose new fines - ranging from $50 to $8,000 - for those who break the law.

"This will make the city a quieter, healthier place," said Councilmember James Gennaro.

However, some members said that regulations were rushed through the process and that the council must revisit it in the New Year. "There are too many deficiencies and defects," said Councilmember Alan Gerson.

The noise regulations passed unanimously.

EDUCATION INITIATIVES

The council passed three bills aimed at improving city schools.

One bill (Intro 464-A) requires schools to do more to communicate with parents who are not proficient in English. Report cards, invitations to parent-teacher conferences, and other official notices must now be printed in nine different languages. The bill's supporters said the measure would help students who are most likely to drop out by getting their parents more involved.

"We are leaving the children of immigrants behind at a staggering rate," said Councilmember Hiram Monserratte.

However, some council members adamantly opposed it, saying it was a waste of $20 million that should go to the classroom or other more pressing needs.

"It sends the wrong message that you don't need to learn English," said Councilmember Andrew Lanza.

The council passed the measure by a vote of 35 to 11, with one abstention. Tony Avella, Simcha Felder, Dennis Gallagher, James Gennarro, Vincent Gentile, Andrew Lanza, Michael McMahon, Dominic Recchia, Kendall Stewart, Peter Vallone, Jr. and James Oddo voted "no;" Joseph Addabbo "abstained."

The two other bills require the Department of Education to provide more information to the council.

Intro 619-A requires the Department of Education to report on the average class sizes in each school.

And Intro 550-A requires the administration to provide the council with an account of "temporary" classrooms -- converted offices, bathrooms, basements, and even storage closets that some schools have been made into classrooms to ease overcrowding.

CONTRACTS FOR MINORITY AND WOMEN-OWNED BUSINESSES

The council also aims to give more city contracts to businesses owned by people of color and women.

 

The legislation (Intro 727-A) requires each city agency to establish a plan to encourage minority and women-owned businesses to compete for city contracts under $1 million. It also eases some requirements set by the Department of Small Business. The Bloomberg administration supports the legislation.

"This sets targets of what we want to aim for," said Councilmember James Sanders Jr. "But it does not set quotas."

The measure passed by a vote of 42 to 5. Simcha Felder, Dennis Gallagher, Andrew Lanza, Peter Vallone, Jr. and James Oddo voted "no."

INTERNET ACCESS FOR ALL NEW YORKERS

In an attempt to improve the availability of high-speed Internet access in New Yorkers, the council voted (Intro 625-A) to create a commission to look the issue.

The panel, whose members will be appointed by the mayor and council, will be required to hold public hearings in each of the five boroughs at least once a year to educate the public on new technologies and to solicit comments on the availability of Internet access in various neighborhoods.

REVISED HEALTHCARE SECURITY ACT

The council also revisited a bill it first passed in August that requires employers in grocery stores to provide their workers with health care insurance. The council amended the measure (Intro 758-A) to ease the regulations for small stores. It now applies only to grocery stores with more than 50 employees (up from 35 in the previous bill).

CHILD WELFARE

The council also passed two measures aimed at improving the well being of children.

Intro 480-A will create task force to investigate the death of any child in New York. Currently, the city only tracks deaths of children who receive support from the Administration for Children's Services. In other cities, such committees have lead to new child safety laws, pedestrian initiatives, and fire regulations.

The council also established (Intro 492) a parent advisory committee for the city's foster care system. It will consist of ten parents from organizations that work on foster care issues, four foster parents, and four parents who have adopted children.

GRAFFITI

The council passed several bills aimed at curbing and cleaning up graffiti.

Intro 299-A establishes penalties for certain commercial and residential property owners who fail to remove graffiti from their buildings and empowers the city to clean it up if an owner refuses to do it. Commercial and residential building owners (of properties with more than six apartments) can be fined between $150 and $300 for failing to remove graffiti within sixty days.

Another measure (Intro 663-A) mandates community service for those caught doing graffiti.

BOATING REGULATIONS AND CRIME IN PARKS

Since the Harlem River has been cleaned up in recent years, more people are using it for recreation, which has raised new safety concerns. In October, Jim Runsdorf, a man who was rowing on the Harlem River, was struck and killed by a motorboat.

The council passed legislation (Intro 495-A) establishing "no wake zones" on the Harlem River to improve boating safety. The city will post signs on the river and distribute information to boat docks in the area.

The council also approved a bill (Intro 470-A) that requires the police department to submit crime reports for city parks and playgrounds.

ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

The council passed a package of legislation that will require the city to purchase environmentally friendly or "green" products.

 

Intro 536-A requires the city to purchase faucets, showerheads, toilets, fluorescent lamps and other products with the "Energy Star" seal of approval.

Intro 544-A reduces the city's purchasing of products that contain hazardous or toxic substances.

Intro 545-A requires that paper office supplies, insulation, polyester carpet, restroom dividers, traffic cones, plastic trash bags and other items purchased by the city contain recycled materials.

Intro 552-A reduces the use of cleaning products with toxic chemicals.

And to ensure that the city is following these guidelines and to investigate other ways to reduce the environmental impact of items that the city buys, the council voted to Intro 534-A create an Office of Environmental Purchasing.

"We will use the vast purchasing power of New York City to send a message about what can be done to help the environment," said James Gennaro.

THE NEW YEAR - AND A NEW SPEAKER

The first City Council meeting of the new year is scheduled for January 4, 2006. At this meeting the council will elect a new speaker and approve any changes in the rules that govern how the council operates.

For information on who wants to be the next speaker and some of the reforms that returning council members want, see a transcript of a recent forum with the speaker candidates.

 

Top 10 Stories of 2005


As 2005 drew to a close, one of the year’s biggest stories continued to unfold. In the early morning hours of December 20, the city’s transit workers walked off their jobs, setting off the city’s first transit strike in 25 years and leaving millions of Americans scrambling to get to work and school.

A transit strike any year would be a big story. But in 2005, the strike stood out because many of the other top stories of the year concerned things that did not happen -- Ground Zero did not make much progress, the West Side Stadium was not approved, the city was not selected as the site for the Olympics, the incumbent mayor was not kicked out, and there was no new terrorist attack in New York, despite such attacks in London and (last year) in Madrid. Indeed, some of the stories with the biggest impact on New Yorkers (or at least on New Yorkers' attention) took place outside the five boroughs -- in Washington, Baghdad, New Orleans, and elsewhere. It was, in reporter’s parlance, a slow news year in the Big Apple -- at least until late December.

One exception was the city’s newsrooms themselves. After New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail for refusing to disclose the name of a source, the paper found itself entangled in the investigation of high-level leaks in Washington and all too credulous acceptance of the Bush administration’s reasons for invading Iraq. Over at the Post, Lachlan Murdoch walked away from his job as publisher leaving his father, publishing tycoon Rupert Murdoch, to take up the job once. And Daily News editor-in-chief Michael Cooke has announced he will leave the paper early next year.

Here, not including such news about New York newsrooms, and in rough order of importance, are the Top 10 New York City stories of 2005:

1. Mayor Michael Bloomberg (And Everybody Else) Re-elected

On an Election Day marked by low voter turnout, Republican Bloomberg defeated his Democratic rival Fernando Ferrer by 19.37 percentage points. To help achieve this victory, the billionaire spent $77,894,878 of his own money – or $103 for every vote he got. Ferrer spent about $9.5 million, or about $19 for every vote he got.

The defeat represented Ferrer’s third unsuccessful bid for Gracie Mansion. This time, though, the former Bronx borough president made it to the general election after he won the Democratic primary against three other major contenders. On primary night, Ferrer hovered around the 40 percent total he needed to avoid the runoff. Second place finisher Anthony Weiner, who had surged in the final days of the Democratic campaign, said he did not want a run-off, preferring to unify the party around Ferrer (and, some cynics said, ensure his own political future). The final tally showed Ferrer squeaking just ahead of 40 percent, negating the need for Weiner’s grand gesture.

Although the election dominated political headlines, much of the press treated an eventual Bloomberg victory as a foregone conclusion. Many of the city’s leading Democrats abandoned Ferrer, and few issues emerged to capture public attention.

In other municipal elections, all incumbents running again held on to their jobs – except for Allan Jennings of Queens whose tenure on City Council had been marked by accusations of sexual harassment and strange behavior. All the open City Council seats went to Democrats, enabling the party to hold on to its 48 to 3 edge in City Council.

One of the hottest contests came for Surrogate’s Court in Brooklyn, long a bastion for dispersing patronage and wealth to politically connected lawyers. In the contest to fill the seat left vacant after Judge Mitchell Feinberg was removed for misconduct, reform candidate Margarita Lopez Torres narrowly defeated the choice of the borough’s political establishment.

2. Transit Strike And Other Transit Troubles

Members of the Transport Workers Union went out on strike on December 20, bringing a halt to the city’s subway system and buses. The union decided to launch the illegal strike -- the first transit strike in the city in 25 years -- after days of tense negotiations over wages, pensions, health benefits and work rules.

With the strike coming during the already busy holiday season, New Yorkers who normally ride mass transit scrambled to find other ways to get around town. The city instituted an emergency plan to help people, but drivers created gridlock on some roads, and riders reported confusion and congestion.

Labor problems were not the transit system’s only problem in 2005. The bombing of three subway stations and a bus in London on July 7 raised new concerns about the safety of New York’s mass transit system. Although the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had approved a $591 million security plan in 2002, at the time of the London attacks it had spent only a fraction of that amount – and that that had gone for consultants and more study. Responding to harsh criticism, the agency announced plans to improve security, deciding to pay defense company Lockheed Martin $200 million for a security and surveillance system at major bridges, tunnels and train and subway stations.

The police instituted searches of passenger bags and backpacks, a move challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union but, so far at least, upheld in court.

In October, Mayor Michael Bloomberg temporarily increased security and told New Yorkers the subway system was facing a specific terrorist threat. A source in Iraq had reportedly told his U.S. government contacts that several men – some of whom may already have been in New York – planned to set off 19 bombs on the city's subways. Federal officials later determined that the threat had been fabricated.

3. Ground Zero -- Little Progress, Lots of Controversy

Last spring, as planning for Ground Zero faltered once again, one observer wrote, “It’s striking that our parents and grandparents managed to win World War II in 44 months while we have not been able even to agree on a plan for what to do with Ground Zero.”

2005 saw some progress. Ground was broken on the transportation hub downtown. The new building at 7 World Trade Center is virtually complete – but has no tenants. And work finally began on the memorial.

But overall planning for the site remained mired in controversy and confusion, with little common ground to be found at what many consider sacred ground.

Last spring, about 10 months after the cornerstone was laid for the Freedom Tower, the building went back to the drawing board after the police department expressed concerns about security at the building. Less than two months later, officials announced a new design. It met the police concerns but removed some trademarks of the original plan -- including the twist in the tower and the openwork at the bottom of the building. The tower will not be completed until 2010 at the earliest and no one knows who, if anyone, will rent space there.

The design problem spurred concern about the slow pace of overall planning for the site. Many blamed Governor George Pataki, saying the he was not paying attention. Perhaps in response, in October, Bloomberg, who until then had largely ignored Ground Zero, stepped into the breach. Challenging Pataki, Bloomberg called for removing developer Larry Silverstein from planning for the site and for building housing, not just office space (which no business seems to want to rent anyway). After his re-election, Bloomberg continued to press his involvement, appointing members of his administrations to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

While some praised the major’s actions; others said he was creating more upheaval. And as he traveled around the country campaigning for president, Pataki vowed to stay involved at Ground Zero, perhaps setting the stage for a power struggle or simply for more inertia.

Also this year, the prospects faded for culture at Ground Zero. The Drawing Center withdrew from the site after families of victims of the 9/11 attacks questioned the political content of its exhibitions. Similar opposition prompted Pataki to overrule his own Lower Manhattan Development Commission and block plans for the International Freedom Center at the site. The decisions left the planned cultural building without any tenants, led many to question the role of the families in planning for Lower Manhattan and raised concerns about whether any bona fide cultural institution could withstand such scrutiny. Ironically, shortly after the museums withdrew, the Port Authority announced plans for a shopping mall near the site. So far, that idea has met with little, if any organized opposition.

4. State Politicians Stop West Side Stadium

After almost four years, plans to build a football stadium on Manhattan’s far West Side came to an abrupt halt in June when the leaders of the state legislature blocked the project. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had proposed and energetically boosted the project, but its defeat probably helped ease his re-election by removing a major argument against him.

The stadium’s supporters said it would be key to the future of the far West Side, would provide a home for the Jets and was essential for the city’s hope for the 2012 Olympic games. But critics challenged the financing of the deal, claiming it was a giveaway for the Jets that would be of little, if any, benefit to most New Yorkers.

In the end, the project also fell victim to the continuing woes at Ground Zero. ''Am I supposed to turn my back on Lower Manhattan as it struggles to recover?'' Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents Lower Manhattan and voted to block the stadium said. ''For what? A stadium? For the hope of bringing the Olympics to New York City?''

5. Nets, Mets, Yankees Plan New Stadiums

But other projects to provide new and improved facilities for New York teams survived and thrived in 2005.

Plans for an arena for the Nets basketball team in downtown Brooklyn, accompanied by a huge residential and commercial development, moved forward as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed to sell development rights to the Atlantic rail yards to developer Bruce Ratner.

Beyond the stadium, plans for the 22-acre area changed during the year. In July, Ratner and architect Frank Gehry proposed 17 buildings, including some as high as 60 stories. Overall, the project would include as many as 7,300 apartment and, many believe, would transform Brooklyn – for better or worse.

As it has grown ever bigger, the $3.5 billion scheme has attracted more opposition. And before the project can become a reality, the same state panel that blocked the West Side Stadium must agree to support it. Opponents also plan to launch legal challenges.

In Queens, the Jets’ loss became the Mets’ gain. Following defeat of the West Side stadium, the city and the baseball team agreed that the Mets would build a new, $600 million privately funded stadium on the site of a parking lot at the current home of the Mets, Shea Stadium. The city will provide $160 million for infrastructure. If the city had gotten the Olympics, it would have used the new stadium for that – which is what some of Bloomberg’s critics said he should have planned on doing all along.

And once the Mets got a new stadium, the Yankees wanted one too – an $800 million structure, also privately funded, to replace the House that Ruth Built. The new stadium will be north of the current one, on what is now parkland. The city will spend $135 million, and the state about $70 million. The loss of about half of Macombs Dam and John Mullaly parks has spurred some community opposition to the new stadium.

But the largest sports facility now proposed for the city is a NASCAR track on Staten Island that would seat 80,000 people. Although the track would be privately funded and has some innovative features – such as virtually forcing fans to take mass transit to the races – it has attracted widespread opposition among Staten Islanders concerned about its effects on the local economy and on the island’s already horrendous congestion problems.

6. Olympic Bid Fails

After a years of effort, lavish presentations, appeals from celebrities and much wining and dining, New York City’s bid to play host to the 2012 Olympic games failed. In July, the International Olympic Committee awarded the sports extravaganza to London. Among the five competing cities, only Moscow was eliminated from contention earlier than New York.

Bloomberg and his deputy mayor – and architect of the Olympic bid – Daniel Doctoroff blamed the city’s defeat on the collapse of the city’s plans to build the Jet’s stadium, which would also have served as the main Olympic venue, on Manhattan’s West Side. But even before the stadium fell through, many observers said New York’s bid could falter due to lukewarm support for the idea among New Yorkers and global antipathy to Bush administration policies. Of course, many of those same pundits also predicted Paris would get the games.

7. Student Test Scores Rise

City public schools students are doing better in reading and math, according to a spate of test results released in 2005. Third, fifth, sixth and seventh graders saw scores rise on their citywide English and math tests, as, for the first time ever, more than half met or exceeded standards. For example, 77 percent of fourth graders in the city met or surpassed state standards for math, a 9.3 point jump and almost double the statewide increase.

Bloomberg touted the scores as an endorsement for tougher standards, a uniform curriculum and not promoting struggling students. But others questioned any connection, noting that scores rose in other cities in the state that had not instituted such sweeping changes. And there were setbacks too. Most notably, scores dropped among eighth graders, indicating persistent problems in middle schools.

The release of federal scores later in the year added to the confusion. While New York City fared better than many other urban school districts, the scores rose far less than they had on New York State tests. Such results led some to wonder whether students were getting smarter –- or city tests were getting easier.

8. Clarence Norman Convicted

In two separate trials, Assemblymember Clarence Norman, longtime leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party, was convicted of felony charges arising from his handling of campaign contributions. The convictions came amid heightened concern over corruption in the city’s courts, particularly the selling of judgeships in Brooklyn.

After his first conviction in September, Norman had to resign from both the Assembly and his party post. He faces up to 15 years in prison and awaits two more felony trials.

But despite Norman’s downfall, some questioned whether anything -- other than the player’s faces -- would really change and found plenty of evidence to support their skepticism. Party leaders selected Reverend Karim Camara, a colleague of Norman’s father, to replace him in the Assembly. Geoffrey Davis, brother of the late City Councilmember James Davis who had clashed frequently with Norman, told the New York Sun that Camara’s selection resembled a “Mafia style” selection when “the Godfather goes to jail and picks his successor.”

And the county leaders selected Assemblymember Vito Lopez to replace Norman as Kings County Democratic leader. While Lopez promised reforms, many doubted his sincerity. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” the Daily News entitled its editorial on Lopez. And although Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has essentially acknowledged judgeships are sold in his borough, he has not yet indicted anyone on charges of doing so.

Faced with such widespread allegations, Bloomberg has said he will make improving the selection of judges a priority in his second term.

9. Fulton Fish Market Leaves Fulton Street

After 183 years, the Fulton Fish Market moved from its old outdoor location along the East River in Lower Manhattan to a new indoor facility in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. The city first proposed the move in 1999 to bring industry to the Bronx, provide a more modern wholesale fish market and to improve the area around the old market as a residential and tourist neighborhood. Legal wrangling delayed the change, but it finally happened in mid November.

Many saw it as progress, with a sanitary facility replacing what many considered a smelly eyesore. But some had doubts. “The city is throwing away its history," said a fillet man named Bobby DiGregorio, known as Bobby Tuna, told the New York Times on one of Fulton Street’s last days. "One day, there's going to be a Banana Republic where I'm standing."

10. The Gates Come to Central Park

It took 26 years of planning, 5,290 tons of steel and cost as much as $21 million but finally on February 12, more than a million square feet of saffron fabric unfurled from 7,503 steel frames in a wintery Central Park. The Gates -- the work of artists Christo and Jean Claude -- had become a reality.

The installation of gates of varying sizes positioned along park walkways transformed the park for 16 days at its most austere time of the year. By the city’s account, the work attracted 4 million visitors to Central Park and boosted the city’s economy by $254 million.

There were, of course, naysayers. But many found it entrancing. Calling it a “gift package to New York City,” Times art critic Michael Kimmelman wrote The Gates “is a work of pure joy.”

We can all hope 2006 brings more of those.

 

Predicting the Big Stories in 2006


“Expect the unexpected,” Assemblymember and Brooklyn political boss Clarence Norman said last year when we asked him to be one of the New Yorkers predicting for us what would happen in New York City in 2005. Norman certainly was right. In the 12 months since he made that prediction,the man who once controlled Brooklyn politics was stripped of his positions, convicted of various felonies and faces 15 years in prison.

Norman was not the only person who proved prescient. Brian Lehrer accurately predicted that Fernando Ferrer would win the Democratic primary only to lose to Bloomberg in the general election. The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert demonstrated dead-on accuracy when she told us, “With Jon Corzine running for governor in New Jersey and Michael Bloomberg winning re-electing in the city, it promises to be a very good year for political ad buyers.”

But not everyone fared so well. Many respondents thought the West Side Stadium would move forward – or, as writer Kevin Baker put it, “the smug little mayor will get his stadium, wasting billions in needed tax dollars and continuing to wreck the West Side skyline.” And, unfortunately for the mayor, Eric Adams of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement who Care, missed the mark when he forecast, “Jennifer Lopez will marry her fourth husband, Mayor Bloomberg.” (Indeed, has anybody heard any talk at all anymore emanating from City Hall about J-lo?)

This year, our leading New Yorkers seem preoccupied by the statewide elections and the spreading of luxury condos and posh shops into the outer boroughs. But they touched on other topics as well. When you finish finding out what they think, react to their forecasts or make your own on our 2006 Predictions message board.

Anthony Weiner, Democratic member of Congress from Brooklyn and Queens:

The Mets will win the World Series and the Democrats will sweep the elections and take back the State Senate.

Gene Russianoff, senior attorney for the New York Public Interest research Group:

On transit;
--The transit fare will not go up in 2006.
--The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will offer holiday fare breaks for a second year in a row.
--Transit officials will pledge to triple the number of trains "right behind this one."(A joke, hopefully.)

On other issues:
--The City Council will come to its senses and abandon plans to extend term limits by their own legislation.
--Hillary Duff will replace Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff

Tom Brokaw, former NBC news anchor:

I hope and expect that the most important story will be the continuing improvement in New York City public education.

Richard Gottfried, Democratic State Assembly member from the Upper West Side:

The most important story in the coming year for the city will be whatever develops in Albany on school funding issue. The elevated anxiety of the state's Republicans should work to the city's advantage, but I don't know what the outcome will be. The '06 elections, particularly for the State Senate, will have a significant impact on Albany. And lots of what Albany does means life or death for the city.

Demetri Martin, comedian:

In the next year, even more will happen than last year. Television will make it so that there is news happening at every minute, and they will make you think that you should not miss it. At least two people will fight over a cab in the cold weather. There will be more bumper stickers about not liking the president.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger, executive director, Drum Major Institute:

Progressivism will become the new patriotism. New York’s middle class will continue becoming the new have-nots. The New York Post will become the new National Enquirer. Insurance regulation will become the new tax cuts. And most importantly, when it comes to being a fresh source of ideas about how to govern fairly and effectively, New York City will become the new Washington, D.C.

Jami Bernard, film critic, New York Daily News:

Uncool is the new cool -- thanks not only to market forces but to the basic oppositional nature of New Yorkers. The boroughs become cool and so does long-neglected Roosevelt Island (really, any place where there's a water view and undeveloped real estate). Small portions of food are in, leading to a rise in a new type of trendy restaurant that serves grazing-style -- good for weight-watching but also a New York response to the proliferation of the Big Gulp lifestyle in the rest of the land and a reflection of the fact that most New Yorkers either suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder of just like saying so in order to get those great meds.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz

Those responsible for polluting Newtown Creek will be held accountable for their actions. The plan to restore Coney Island as "America's Favorite Playground" will make waves, and the Parachute Jump will return as Brooklyn's Eiffel Tower when it is lit up for all to see.

The docking of the Queen Mary 2 and Crown Princess cruise ships in Red Hook will ensure that more visitors than ever experience the Brooklyn renaissance.

The Brooklyn baby boom will continue unabated.

The voices of parents and educators will regain their rightful place in the school-reform dialogue.

John Avlon, columnist, New York Sun:

Queens Will Be the New Brooklyn. And so will the Bronx and Staten Island - the resurgence of what used to be called the "outer-boroughs" will continue beyond the now-tony confines of Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights. This will not just be the healthy upside of a city in resurgence, just five years after the attacks of 9/11 - but also the downside of Manhattan's increasing squeeze on middle class and even upper middle class New Yorkers. The spacious apartments, invigorating diversity, and relative calm of the outer-boroughs looks better and better. Whether their modest quality of life improvements can compete indefinitely with warmer and less expensive cities and states is a longer-term issue, which I hope someone in City Hall is strategizing on. With regard to Queens, its status as the most diverse county in the country will be further elevated with the arrival of Carlos Delgado to the Mets.

Elizabeth Kolbert, writer for The New Yorker magazine:

Democrats sweep the four statewide offices. Hillary Clinton runs unopposed.

Kevin Baker, author “Paradise Alley,” “Dreamland” and “Strivers”

My prediction is that there will be a major terrorist incident in New York. I don’t say this out of any special expertise, and of course I hope to hell that I’m wrong. But I believe that we must speak now against the day.

In the immediate wake of the London transit bombings, Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg rushed to Grand Central Station, to assure us that we were protected by special, hidden security measures. This was almost undoubtedly a lie, but in any case irrelevant.

Our strategy cannot be to wait for terrorist acts to begin, but to do as much as possible to prevent them from happening in the first place. Anyone who regularly visits our major public places can see that such a strategy is not in place—the few, inattentive, uniformed guardsmen, usually talking to each other; the scant police presence. Meanwhile, major resources are wasted on such ludicrously ineffectual, easily avoidable measures as subway bag searches and van inspections. Without a strong, constant, and vigilant security presence in Times Square, Grand Central, Penn Station, and other likely targets, we are inviting disaster.

Majora Carter, executive director, Sustainable South Bronx and MacArthur fellow:

If we don’t engage about development in the Bronx and coordinate what is actually going on with all these huge projects, what took place in the Bronx during the Robert Moses era will happen again, affecting quality of life, pollution and displacing people. No one is asking any serious questions or following proper planning procedures and the city could end up paying.

Bruce Ratner, developer

It will be a calm year in the sense that the same economic growth, focus on improving education, housing development, and improved safety that we have enjoyed for the last three years will continue. It will be steady, positive growth -- nothing dramatic.

Letitia James, Democratic City councilmember from Brooklyn:

My New Years wish would be that Bruce Ratner finds religion. That he wakes up on January 1, realizes he has done the wrong thing in proposing the Atlantic Yards project, and stands on the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues waving a white flag.

I pray that Marty Markowitz will realize that there are poor people in Brooklyn, and instead of diverting public revenues to build a basketball arena, he decides to build a hospital instead.

I hope that Senator Charles Schumer will recognize that his home could be taken by eminent domain if a developer wanted it.

And I would like the mayor to spend a night in a homeless shelter.

Simeon Bankoff, Historic Districts Council:

1. As all the young renters are pushed out of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Astoria/Long Island City will officially become the “hot new nabe.” This will last only a year at best before high-rise waterfront development will price out the renting twenty-somethings.
2. New historic districts will be designated in Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens – but developers will rally against landmarking, particularly in The Bronx. Individual landmarks will be all “safe” bets -- expect office buildings, publicly owned buildings, and perhaps a religious building that’s undergoing restoration. Meanwhile, historic religious buildings and schools will continue to close and be demolished throughout the city.
3. Movie houses will also continue to close and will be the subject of major preservation battles. So will historic hotel interiors as more and more historic hotels get converted to residential use.
4. There will be increased attention from the administration to public art and capital investment in historic buildings, such as schools and fire stations.
5. The city will propose to build a new municipal building as part of the World Trade Center redevelopment.
6. The new façade for 2 Columbus Circle will be unveiled, and be met with general indifference at best. General consensus will be that the building should have either been preserved or demolished. The combination of the new façade, the Hearst Tower and the Time Warner Center will combine to drain all vitality and life out of the Circle like water through a sieve.
7. Stating economic and security concerns and the rising price of gas, the Mayor will propose East River tolls again. This time, with a lame-duck Council, they might even pass.

Eugene Mirman, comedian

I predict new, fantastic levels of gentrification that will make Bloomberg build an underwater city for the poor. And some bars may be forced to close after unfair fines from the city force them into bankruptcy. Most importantly though, lots more sushi places on the way. Get ready to eat 10 times as much fish, New York!

Paul White, executive director, Transportation Alternatives:

After Mayor Bloomberg finally revokes their privilege to park anywhere they damn well please, thousands of municipal employees stage their own motorized version of "Critical Mass.” Nobody notices.

Adrian Benepe, commissioner, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

It will be the biggest year of parks construction since the 1930s in every borough. And I hope it will be a cooler and wetter summer than in 2005.

Jonathan Bowles, director, Center for an Urban Future:

1. The city’s housing market levels off, but doesn’t burst.
2. Small businesses and immigrants in the boroughs outside of Manhattan continue to drive much of the city’s growth.
3. Congestion on city subways and streets becomes even more intolerable.
4. With the 2006 elections as a backdrop, Mayor Bloomberg ups the pressure on state legislators to help the city address structural fiscal problems. Legislators agree to send billions to the city as part of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity settlement, but duck most other difficult issues facing the city and state. Ninety-eight percent of them are re-elected anyway.
5. Iowans tell George Pataki to get lost.

William Thompson, city comptroller:

There will be slower growth for the city's economy in 2006 due to higher interest rates and energy prices, which will increase costs. In addition, national and international developments like budget and trade deficits will cause the economy to grow more slowly. The housing market bubble will deflate, which will reduce the growth of household equity and employment growth in real-estate-related sectors. Our current account deficit threatens to send our currency lower and raise the cost of imported goods, contributing to inflation, although, eventually, this should increase demand abroad for U.S. products.

Errol Louis, columnist, New York Daily News:

1. Residents of my Crown Heights neighborhood, which has seen a sharp spike in shootings and murders, will rise up and create safer streets in 2006 by putting pressure on law enforcement and by stepping up citizen activism aimed at creating hope and opportunity for the community's young men.
2. As judges and Democratic Party leaders go on trial for alleged corruption in Brooklyn in 2006, the press and public will finally notice, and condemn, the equally cozy and corrupt political culture of the Queens Democratic organization.
3. The state of New York will not renew the unconscionable contract that currently allows MCI/Verizon to run a monopoly prison phone service that unfairly charges the highest collect calling prices in America to the families of prison inmates. This, in turn, will enable families in the city's poorest neighborhoods to save millions of dollars every year.
4. Members of the city's black middle class, having grown disgusted by the degrading, violent images and messages constantly being aimed at their children, will increasingly use their political and market clout to demand accountability by artists, record labels, movie studios and radio stations in 2006.

Fred Siegel, author “Prince of the City”:

1. Not only will the Republicans stand by helplessly as the Democrats win control of every statewide office, GOP control of the state Senate will be endangered as well. If the Democrats take the state Senate in 2006 or 2008, the 2010 redistricting will be entirely in the hands of the Democrats. The Republicans would barely continue to exist so that our current two-headed version of a one-party state will replaced by an unambiguously one-party state with the usual dire consequences.
2. There will be little progress at ground zero next year as Pataki and Bloomberg continue to spar.

Glenn Lowry, director, Museum of Modern Art:

I hope that Ground Zero sets sorted out and real progress is made. It's been a process moving in fits and starts that needs to get fixed. My prediction is the mayor is going to get that done

David R. Jones, president, Community Service Society

1. With the oldest of the baby boom generation turning 60 in 2006, there will be intense interest in the nonprofit community to engage this new cohort of older adults in serious work to improve the fabric of New York City.
2. Mike Bloomberg was re-elected on the basis of the past; he had managed the city’s recovery from the September 11th attacks. In 2006 New Yorkers will refocus on the future. They will be demanding progress on issues such as underperforming schools and a labor market that fails to generate an adequate supply of living-wage jobs. I see a year of renewed activism.

Nicole Gelinas, Contributing Editor, City Journal

1. New York State and City will finally wake up and realize that the best thing for downtown's psychology would be to rebuild the Twin Towers one story higher - and Larry Silverstein will agree to do it fast so they're mostly completed before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
2. Mayor Bloomberg will use the political capital he amassed after the election to really get to work on reforming the city's unsustainable Medicaid program and its unsustainable public-employee pensions before it's too late - and he'll lobby Governor Pataki to help him. The governor, or course, with no more elections to worry about, will do the right thing for the future of the city and state - and cooperate with the mayor.
3. New Yorkers will finally realize that the Bush tax cuts on capital gains and dividends were great for the city's economy, as they boost the stock market over the long term - and they'll vote in Congress men and women next fall who pledge to vote to make the tax cuts permanent.
4. Or not, on all of the above!

Ron Kuby, activist lawyer:

1. Mayor Mike Bloomberg is finally going to come out against the war in Iraq clearly and definitively, something he has refused to do. That's going to happen this year as America continues its disastrous debacle and New York metro area casualties continue to rise.
2. Mayor Bloomberg will participate in a gay marriage as the presiding official, but not as the bride or groom.
3. There again will not be a major terrorist attack in New York City. Still, the city will continue its policy of indiscriminate mass arrests of demonstrators.
4. Eliot Spitzer will win the governor's race. That seems almost preordained.
5. Jeanine Pirro will continue to run for multiple offices, being utterly confused about what job she wants, but she wants a lot of face time, and something that pays really, really well. I genuinely think that Pirro has a shot at attorney general, but won't win it due to the Democratic turnout for Spitzer.
5. Mark Green will run for something. He spent a whole year not running for anything.

James Parrott, chief economist, Fiscal Policy Institute:

1. Fearing that it may be the next major city after New Orleans to be totally abandoned by the federal government, the New York City Council passes a resolution urging that New York State secede from the Union. The idea quickly catches on in our nation's Capitol and the Republican-controlled Congress kicks New York out of the country so that Hillary Clinton will have to run for president of New York.
2. Jeanine Pirro finds page 10 of her speech and says it was all a mistake and that she meant to announce she was running for attorney general.

Liz Krueger, Democratic member of the State Senate from the East Side:

1. Eliot Spitzer will be elected as the first Democratic governor of the state of New York since Mario Cuomo.
2. Ground will finally be broken on the Second Avenue Subway.
3. The New York State Court of Appeals will overturn the Appellate Division’s recent decision and recognize the legitimacy of same-sex marriage.
4. Jeanine Pirro will drop out of the race for U.S. Senate and will decide not to run for any seat in 2006.
5. Republicans in state government will continue to oppose implementation of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity court order for fair funding of public education.
6. In a calculated maneuver in his run for presidency, Governor Pataki will move far to the right in his final year in office.

James Oddo, Republican City councilmember from State Island:

2006 in a word: Suozzi! I have a feeling the Nassau County executive is something special. Politically, 2006 has all the makings of a tag team, pro wrestling match, when you tag your supposed partner and he then kicks you in the head. There will be a lot of intra-party squabbles, friend on friend infighting, and supposed allies stabbing each other in the back. Both political parties are at a crossroads. And locally, the Bloomberg administration has made a lot of alliances. I don't know if those alliances will hold out.

Robert Ward, director of research, Public Policy Institute of New York State:

Medicaid reform will pick up momentum with or without action in Albany, as New York City and counties across the state use new technology to find and attack patterns of waste and abuse.

James R. Tallon, Jr., president, United Hospital Fund:

Greater attention will be paid to health care and to the 1.7 million residents of New York City who lack health insurance coverage of any kind -— more attention than at any time since immediately after 9/11 —- due to a confluence of factors: continuing reductions in private sector insurance coverage, especially among retirees; the statewide hospital-rightsizing commission’s coming to grips with financially weak hospitals; and the Mayor’s second-term commitment to ensure that all New York City kids have health care coverage. And, of course, just about the time the Yankees and Mets battle again in the 2006 World Series, the voters will go to the polls, and health care is an issue they understand and care about.

Andrew White, Director, Center for NYC Affairs, Milano Graduate School, New School:

City Council member Margarita Lopez will become a city commissioner, carrying forward the outspoken, slightly revolutionary and occasionally bewildering legacy of current Human Resources Commissioner Verna Eggleston. While the two of them speak from very different points on the political spectrum, they share an eclectic (and radical) perspective on government and human services. Not every city commissioner in the Bloomberg era has to be a technocrat.

Brian Lehrer, WNYC public radio host:

1. Spitzer will hit up against the political limits of his record. Banks, insurance companies and other corporate sectors of various kinds will pour big bucks into the Suozzi campaign as payback for what they see as Spitzer’s overzealousness. But Suozzi's relative social conservatism will come under aggressive attack from liberal groups, and Spitzer will roll to the nomination. That Suozzi's base is suburban and the Democratic primary base is more urban won't help either.

William Weld will get the GOP nomination for governor (and more of that corporate support) and run as a moderate but the voters will decide "why elect a fake Democrat when we can elect a real Democrat?" Spitzer will make a few gestures to the right as he did on the death penalty when he first when he ran for attorney. Anyone remember when he was the law and order right-winger in the Democratic primary field? Despite overwhelming leads in the polls for Spitzer, anyone running against him will get treated more seriously by the media than Freddy Ferrer or Carl McCall did in their campaigns.

Ultimately, Spitzer and Clinton will roll to victory. Clinton's opponent in the Democratic primary, Jonathan Tasini, will get a bigger percentage of the vote in defeat than the Republican nominee, who will have lower name recognition than Mohamed El-Baradei.

Hil and El's coattails will help sweep Richard Brodsky to victory for attorney general over Pirro, now vying for a consolation prize, and draw down the State Senate Republican majority to one.

2. The Bloomberg administration will suffer its first whiff of scandal (though not close to the mayor himself.) No idea what, but second terms always have scandals.

 

City Council Stated Meeting - December 8, 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 are 75 buildings on the Greenpoint Williamsburg waterfront in this book, the AIA Guide to New York City, the Bible of what is beautiful and architecturally worthy in this city. This building not in here." - Councilmember David Yassky arguing why a Brooklyn warehouse at 184 Kent Avenue should not be an official landmark.

MEETING SUMMARY:
The New York City Council overrode three vetoes from Mayor Michael Bloomberg; the council rejected a landmark in Brooklyn, instituted parking regulations on a Hindu holiday, and gave public administrators $32,000 raises.

REJECTING A LANDMARK
A week ago, the council overruled the Landmark Preservation Commission's recommendation to designate the Austin, Nichols, and Company Warehouse, located at 184 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, as an official landmark.

Councilmember David Yassky, who represents the district where the building is located, said the building was not worthy of protection.

"There are 75 buildings on the Greenpoint Williamsburg waterfront in this book, the AIA Guide to New York City, the Bible of what is beautiful and architecturally worthy in this city," said Yassky. "This building not in here."

The current owner of the building has plans to convert it into luxury condos. Yassky and others argued that designating the building as a landmark would impede plans to transform the area from a manufacturing to a residential neighborhood.

Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the council's action; his spokesperson called it a "highly significant building designed by a historically significant architect."

Some members sided with the mayor, arguing that the council was giving too much power to developers and doing nothing to help the 50 current residents who are being evicted from the warehouse.

"I don't see how we can substitute our judgment over that of architects and historians," said Councilmember Letitia James. "We need a process that is free of influence from developers, free of influence of politics, and free of influence from politically connected lobbyists."

But most council members sided with Yassky, and said the council was within its power to reject the landmark commission's decision.

"If we have a vote, should we not be using our own judgment?" asked Councilmember Melinda Katz, who chairs the land use committee.

The council overruled the mayor by a vote of 37 to 8 with 2 abstentions. The council only needed 34 votes to override Bloomberg.

Tony Avella, Charles Barron, Letitia James, Margarita Lopez, Michael McMahon, Bill Perkins, and Al Vann sided with the mayor. Gale Brewer and Vincent Gentile abstained from the vote.

HINDU HOLIDAY AND PARKING
In September, the City Council voted unanimously to approve a new parking holiday (Intro 420-A) to mark the Hindu celebration of Diwali, also called the "Festival of Lights."

Diwali is a five-day celebration, which occurs in the fall, usually in October or November. The parking holiday only applies to the third day of the celebration on the day that Lakshmi Puja is observed.

Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the measure, arguing that there are already 44 other days of the year when alternate side of the street parking is suspended and the Department of Sanitation cannot clean the streets - and this measure would create one more.

The council said it was an important gesture to the growing Indian community. It voted 47 to 0 to override the mayor. The law takes effect immediately.

RAISES FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS
The council also overruled the mayor's veto and 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. The Surrogate's Court judge in each borough appoints public administrators.

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

The override passed by a vote of 45 to 2. Council members Charles Barron and Allan Jennings sided with the mayor.

NOTIFICATION OF FIRE EXITS
The council also passed several new bills, including legislation (Intro 295-A) aimed at ensuring that audiences at theater performances, movies, and concerts know where the exits are located in case of an evacuation.

The bill requires that all exits at public performances be "conspicuously marked" and that "an audible announcement be made not more than 10 minutes before the start" to notify the audience of how to vacate the room. Movie theaters will be allowed to project the information on the screen.

Councilmember Oliver Koppell, who drafted the bill, said it was a response to a fire in a Rhode Island nightclub in 2003. In that incident, pyrotechnics used by the heavy metal band ignited a fire and some audience members were unable to locate the exits; 96 people were killed.

ENERGY EFFICIENT APPLIANCES
Another bill passed by the council (Intro 379-A) requires landlords who receive certain tax subsidies to purchase energy efficient appliances for their tenants' apartments.

Under the measure, when an appliance breaks down or is replaced, a landlord who receives J-51 or 421-a tax benefits must purchase a new product with the Energy Star certified seal. The bill applies to refrigerators, room air conditioners, dishwashers, and clothes washers.

The council hopes the measure will reduce pollution and lower energy costs for tenants. The measure passed by a vote of 46 to 1. Allan Jennings voted "no."

THE COUNCIL'S FINAL WEEKS
The City Council's legislative year ends in two weeks, and both the mayor and council are hoping to finish some last-minute business before Speaker Gifford Miller leaves office and a new speaker is elected in January.

The main item on the agenda for the final weeks is updating the city's 30-year-old noise code.

Last year, the mayor and the council said that they would work together to overhaul the outdated regulations and institute specific language about construction noise, nightclub music, barking dogs, and even Mr. Softee ice cream truck jingles. But negotiations broke down when Speaker Gifford Miller was running for mayor, and both sides accused the other side of delaying the process.

A hearing on the noise code is scheduled for December 14. The full council hopes to vote on new ordinances and other unfinished business at the final Stated Meeting of the year, scheduled for December 21, 2005.

 

City Council Stated Meeting - November 30, 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:
"This is a piece of trash. We should knock it down and put something nice up." – Councilmember Simcha Felder on why a Brooklyn warehouse should not be designated as a historic landmark.

MEETING SUMMARY:
REJECTING A LANDMARK IN WILLIAMSBURG
By a vote of 43 to 6, the New York City Council rejected the Landmark Preservation Commission's decision to protect a historic building located on the Williamsburg waterfront. It was only the fifth time in the last 15 years that the council has overruled the agency.

The building at the center of the debate is the Austin, Nichols, and Company Warehouse, which was built in 1913 by architect Cass Gilbert, who also designed the Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan.

The massive reinforced concrete warehouse – located at 184 Kent Avenue - served as the headquarters for wholesale grocers Austin, Nichols and Company, then sat vacant for many years. In 2000, developer Moishe Kestenbaum began renting out some apartments in it.

Recently, Kestenbaum announced plans to convert the apartments into luxury condos. He also plans to build a large rooftop addition and modify the building's windows.

In September 2005, the New York City Landmarks commission designated the building an official landmark, calling it an "influential and innovative commercial building" that must be preserved. Although the designation only applied to the exterior of the building, the developer would have to submit any plans to alter it or to build a rooftop addition to the commission.

Councilmember David Yassky, who represents the district where the building is located, led the fight to overturn the commission's decision.

"This is simply not worthy of landmarking," said Yassky.

Recently, Yassky helped broker a deal for the developer to give $335,000 to build affordable housing in the area in return for permission to alter the Austin Nichols building.

"I believe that the future of the waterfront is in residential development, and that is what we should be promoting," he said.

Yassky was able to convince most of his colleagues, including Simcha Felder, who chairs the council's landmarks committee, to support him.

"This is a piece of trash," said Felder. "We should knock it down and put something nice up."

However, some members warned that the neighborhood could lose a historic structure and that the current tenants would likely be displaced.

"The community is in favor of those landmarks," said Councilmember Tony Avella. "I think it is a disgrace that this council is going to turn [it] down. Shame on this body!"

Other members said they did not know anything about the building before the meeting and were not prepared to weigh in.

"I did not come prepared for any deep thinking on this issue," said Al Vann, who remarked that he thought it would be a "regular day" when all the council member voted yes everything.

Six councilmember - Tony Avella, Letitia James, Margarita Lopez, Michael McMahon, Bill Perkins, and Al Vann - sided with the landmark's commission. Vincent Gentile abstained from the vote.

The mayor can veto the council's decision, but the council has more than the 34 votes needed to override him.

(For more on this and other historic landmarks in the city, play Gotham Gazette's Landmarks Preservation Game)

HEALTH CARE TRANSLATIONS
In 2002, the City Council approved a law that requires that information about public health programs such as Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus be published in at least seven different languages - English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Yiddish, Korean, and Haitian-Creole.

By a vote of 48 to 2, the council approved a measure (Intro 700) that continues the practice.

Republicans Dennis Gallagher and Andrew Lanza voted against the bill, arguing that it cost taxpayers $20 million a year that would be better spent on schools, firehouses, or police.

"We should write things in English languages," said Gallagher. "And we should make English our official language here in the United States."

VACANT LOTS
The City Council also approved a bill (Intro 510) aimed at cleaning up vacant lots in the city.

The new law will hold those who own or lease a property accountable for maintaining the lot and its surrounding sidewalk and street areas. Owners can be fined by the Department of Sanitation if a property contains "garbage, refuse, rubbish, litter, debris and other offensive material."

ROSA PARKS DAY
The council also passed a resolution (Res 1240) commemorating the life and recent death of Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who refused to give up her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955. The council is calling for December 1 to be observed as "Rosa Parks Day" and encourages businesses in the city to close or to allow workers to take time off to attend events commemorating her life. The resolution does not create an official city holiday.

The next Stated Meeting is scheduled for December 8, 2005.

 

Measuring Miller's City Council


Three years ago, the New York Times Magazine plastered City Council Speaker Gifford Miller’s boyish face across its pages with an article entitled “The Kid and His Council.” It described the 32-year-old speaker as “ambitious” and “savvy” and even predicted that he had a “good shot at becoming the second youngest mayor in city history.”

Today, Miller is a few weeks away from being unemployed, coming in last place in the Democratic Primary for mayor and term limited out of office.

But if the kid did not live up to expectations, what about his council? And is it fair to call it Miller’s council?

The New York City Council is an oft-ignored branch of city government. The mayor ridicules it. The press largely ignores it. And the public (subjected to millions of dollars in relentless campaign commercials for the mayoralty) does not understand its role in the day-to-day life of the city.

But over the last four years the City Council -- the first of the term limit era -- has built a record for New Yorkers to consider. And while the City Council Speaker is endowed with much of the power –- in charge of negotiating the budget, controlling the legislative agenda, and hiring the staff that works behind the scenes -– the council is comprised of 50 other members, who push their own ideas and agendas.

There are differing views on the council’s accomplishments.

It passed four on-time balanced budgets, some more fiscally responsible than others.

It has been praised for passing new laws to help the poor and rethinking how affordable housing is built, but criticized for spending too much time debating issues beyond its control.

It has been both lauded and condemned for its role in big-ticket development projects across the city.

There is only one thing on which there seems universal condemnation: Allan Jennings.

FACING THE BUDGET CRISIS

When Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council took office four years ago, they faced the worst fiscal crisis since the 1970’s, with a $3.8 billion budget gap in 2002, and another $3.2 billion in 2003.

In the first two years, the mayor and the council agreed to cut billions from the budget, eliminating 4,000 city jobs and reducing library days, and also raised a slew of new taxes, including hiking the property taxes by 18.5 percent.

The council fought some of the mayor’s most severe cuts, such as eliminating senior citizen meal programs, closing zoos, and slashing City University scholarships. But the council relented on many others, even unpopular measures like agreeing to close six firehouses.

“When you have a $7 billion budget gap… you are choosing between unpalatable and disastrous,” Miller said at the time.

Four years later, the city’s economy has stabilized. Many of the services that were cut have been restored. And homeowners, who saw their property taxes go up, now receive a $400 rebate.

Still, many of the underlying fiscal issues remain.

The annual “budget dance” between the mayor and the council continues: the mayor calls for cuts and the City Council restores its favorite programs. Critics argue that the mayor and the council really only haggle over a small portion of the $50 billion budget.

“We are still engaged in a budget dance where we negotiate over $200 to $300 million,” said Councilmember Charles Barron. “It is the council that passes the budget, not the mayor. We should do more.”

To its credit, the City Council did present some innovative ideas during the budget negotiations, such as taxing insurance companies that are exempt from business taxes or setting up a “rainy day” fund to prepare for future deficits. But the council lacked the political power to make these ideas a reality.

And in an election year, the speaker was criticized for using the budget to dole out goodies to his supporters. "There is so much pork you can almost hear it oink," said Bronx Councilmember Madeline Provenzano.

Critics say that both the mayor and the speaker should have done more to prepare for the future. Next year, the city expects to have a $2.3 billion deficit. The following year, experts project a $4 billion deficit.

KEY LEGISLATION

Over the last four years, the City Council has passed hundreds of new bills, most of which Mayor Bloomberg signed into laws. The council’s legislative agenda is most evident in the more than two dozen bills that the mayor vetoed and council overrode with more than a two-thirds majority.

The council members are most proud of legislation that:
- Instituted more stringent regulations on the removal of lead paint
- Barred the city from doing business with so-call “predatory lenders
- Enabled people on public assistance to count education toward work requirements.
- And provided emergency contraception in hospitals and pharmacies.

All of these laws were passed against the mayor’s wishes.

However, some observers are troubled by the lack of cooperation between the executive and legislative branches.

“Vetoes paralyze government,” said former Speaker Peter Vallone, Sr. “A veto should be the exception and not the rule.”

Critics of the City Council also point out that the lawmakers still debate resolutions about international relations, draft meaningless legislation, and hold hearings on matters over which they have no authority.

RESHAPING THE CITY’S LANDSCAPE

Another power of the City Council is its role in land use issues, deciding what kind of buildings can be built in an area, what historic landmarks should be preserved, how tall buildings can be, and where new industries can set up business in New York.

Over the past four years, the council has used its power to try to jump start economic development in area’s like Red Hook, Brooklyn by approving a new IKEA store while at the same time, slowing overdevelopment in some residential neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Observers say that one of the council’s biggest victories was the rezoning of a 175-block area of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn.

In negotiations with the mayor’s administration, the council was able to require that a third of the apartments built – approximately 3,500 of 10,800 slated for the area - will be affordable. The plan will also create parkland, a public waterfront esplanade, and funding to help displaced businesses find new headquarters in the city.

But critics say that the council gave up too much of its authority in another rezoning matter, the rezoning of the West Side of Manhattan.

The agreement provides for about 28 percent of housing built to be affordable, a significant increase from what the mayor had proposed, but it gave up the one tool the council could have used to block the proposed West Side stadium.

And the City Council also agreed to commit billions in taxpayer money to help finance improvements to the area’s infrastructure.

"There is no real estate in the free world that is more developable than the West Side of Manhattan,” said Councilmember Lew Fidler. “To dedicate $1.3 billion of tax money in this city to this project is outrageous."

THE DISTRACTIONS

The council also faced its share of scandals, tragedy, and distractions over the last four years -– some self inflicted, others beyond its control.

In March 2002, Brooklyn Councilmember Angel Rodriguez, one of the senior members and a candidate for speaker, was charged with bribery and extortion. He pled guilty, resigned from his seat, and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.

In the summer of 2003, tragedy struck City Hall when Councilmember James Davis was shot in the council chambers prior to a meeting.

And this year, the council spent nine months investigating charges that Councilmember Allan Jennings, had sexually harassed his staff. (He was the only incumbent defeated for re-election.)

But Miller’s critics say that that the speaker’s run for mayor was one of the biggest distractions of the last four years. At a recent forum, two of the candidates vying for the position of speaker made it clear they will not use the post as a step toward higher office.

“I am not running for speaker of the council because I want to be something else someday,” said Lew Fidler. “I think that that is important that my colleagues on the council understand. It is about the ideas of 51 members; not the ideas of one.”

MILLER’S LEADERSHIP STYLE

When he was elected speaker, Miller vowed to make the City Council more democratic, allowing individual members a more active role than had been the case in the past. This was a break from the practices of his predecessor, Peter F. Vallone, who several times stripped members of their committee chairs if they voted against his budgets.

“It was not a question of punishment, but rather the removal of a reward,” Vallone wrote in his recent book Learning to Govern. “A member who could not vote yes on crucial leadership issues was violating a consensus agreement that was a condition of that reward.”

Miller allowed committee chairs to hire some of their own staff members, made voting records accessible, and gave some members leeway to vote “no” on many items.

However, some council members say that the speaker still controls too much of the agenda.

Bills do not come up for a vote unless the speaker supports them. Most votes are unanimous. Some council members even have a difficult time getting their bills drafted, because the speaker controls the office that puts the bills into the proper legal language.

“If you submit a legislative request, you should know you will be getting a bill,” said Councilmember Christine Quinn.

In four years, the City Council only failed to override one mayoral veto.

Speaker Miller, who represents the Upper East Side, opposed Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to put a garbage marine transfer station in his district. The council voted 29 to 19 to reject the mayor’s plan, but Miller could not get the 34 votes he needed to override the mayor’s veto.

In the most recent budget, the speaker cut funding for projects of those council members who voted against him.

“We need rule changes so that the next speaker is not in a position to be vindictive,” said Councilmember Letitia James.

THE FUTURE OF THE COUNCIL

As Miller prepares to leave office, the returning members are already jockeying for power. Some are pushing for changes that would take power away from the speaker.

Various rule changes currently being discussed include:
- Allowing bills to be voted out of committee even if the speaker is not in favor of it.
- Permitting more debate on the floor of the council
- Creating the ability to amend bills once they come up for a vote
- And giving individual members more say in the budget process.

Some argue that such changes will strengthen the City Council and make it a more dynamic balance to the mayor.

“If members are allowed to take on the issues that are important to them and given the tools to advance those issues,” said Councilmember David Yassky, “then it is more likely that their constituencies will drive the public agenda, involving more people in the process, and, therefore making the council stronger.”

Others wonder with an already powerful mayor, term limits, and new speakers every four years, if the changes will weaken the institution.

“On one hand, as a matter of good government and transparency, it sounds wonderful,” said Andrew White of Center for NYC Affairs at the Milano Graduate School. “On pure politics, the most effective and influential legislatures are often ones with a strong leader.”

Whoever is elected as the next speaker hopes to hold the position for more than four years. Each of the seven candidates vying for the seat said at the recent forum that they are open to amending term limits – either by repealing them entirely or giving council members 12 years in office rather than eight years.

“If we do that… we can be a good partner to the mayor when he is right," said Bill deBlasio, "and be a stronger check and balance when he is wrong."

Book Club Meets with Peter Vallone
This Wednesday from 6 pm to 7 pm former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, Miller's predecessor, will join the Gotham Gazette Reading New York book club to discuss Learning To Govern, his new memoir of his career in city government. The meeting will take place at the Jefferson Market branch of the public library, on 6th Avenue at 10th Street in Manhattan. Everyone is welcome. If you plan on attending, please RSVP to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

RELATED LINKS:

- Term Limits Revisited
- Transcript of a Forum with Speaker Candidates
- Gotham Gazette’s online database of laws passed since 2002
- New York City Council Official Web site
- Backroom Deal Breaker – a blog on the Speaker’s race  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Boy from Brooklyn Grows Up


Gotham Gazette: Welcome to the Gotham Gazette Book Club. Our guest this month is Jonathan Lethem. Mr. Lethem has written six novels as well as various stories and articles. He has won the National Critic’s Circle award and just recently won a McArthur Fellowship, which as you all probably know, is referred to as “The Genius Award.” It’s a large cash grant with no strings to essentially say, “You’re doing a really good job at something and we’d like to have you continue doing it.”

His most recent novels have been about Brooklyn. The first one, Motherless Brooklyn, was about a private eye with Tourette’s syndrome who was trying to solve the murder of his boss. His most recent novel, which we read for this month, is The Fortress of Solitude. It is about a white boy growing up in a black neighborhood in Brooklyn, who then leaves. The novel tells the story of this one boy and also goes into the gentrification of this one neighborhood.

Mr. Lethem you wrote four novels, that didn’t deal with New York City. Then you came back, and I was wondering what it was about your home town that drew you in?

Jonathan Lethem: Well, you know, I was living in California when I first left college, and this was when I began to try to become a fiction writer, and I was 19, 20, 21, and at that point I don’t think I could’ve contended with the material of Brooklyn. I couldn’t have even come close to writing about it directly, with any sense of perspective or coherence. In a way, I was sort of on the run from New York for a while; it was an overwhelming place to have grown up, and I loved it, but I didn’t understand it, I didn’t understand how I felt about it, and so, to the extent that that material was a part of what I was writing about or going to write about, I couldn’t come at it directly. In the earliest work, as I began to experiment with short stories and novels in my 20s and slowly became a writer who was able to write stuff that people would want to read, I would set things in California or other settings that were not even very specific. I avoided New York as a topic for the most part, although there were a couple of short stories that kind of tiptoed into that material.

But on another level, a lot of what I was writing was about the same issues that I encountered growing up. A lot of my early novels, well, they’re all urban. I’m very interested, from the very beginning, in writing about cities, and people’s lives in urban situations, and I’m usually writing about class and race and culture juxtaposed against one another – people getting pushed together in different combinations, groups of people, and I write a lot about aloneness or about otherness or about being an outsider.

And so, in other ways, even though I didn’t call it Brooklyn, and I wasn’t able to use that material directly, I was warming up to this stuff that I would eventually make my central preoccupation in the two Brooklyn books. After about ten years living in California – at first I loved that place, and then I was sort of bored with it – I was kind of exasperated with it and wanted to leave. I also wanted to reclaim New York; I felt ready to live in New York City again. I was also, quite suddenly, very ready, and very eager to write about New York directly.

Gotham Gazette: You mentioned that New York as a subject was daunting. Is there something you can articulate that was daunting about it, or was it that it was just too close to your own personal experience?

Jonathan Lethem: It was initially too immersive. It was like asking a fish to write about the ocean. I couldn’t see anything else, so I couldn’t think about it clearly. I had to go away from it to get any kind of angle of view onto those experiences. You know, it was very rich for me to consider, but it was also very disorderly, very incoherent. Until I lived in another place for a long time, I couldn’t have told you what parts of my experience and what parts of my personality were me, and what parts were Brooklyn. So, I was sort of waiting to understand that.


Until I lived in another place for a long time, I couldn’t have told you what parts of my experience and what parts of my personality were me, and what parts were Brooklyn.


NEW YORK LITERATURE

Gotham Gazette: We had another New York writer come to one of our previous meetings: E.L. Doctorow. We were talking about what it means to be a “New York writer”. I asked him whether he thought that he was a New York writer, and he said, “Well, there’s Southern literature, and there’s Western literature, but there isn’t really New York literature. And so, therefore, I’m not a New York writer.” Do you think there is something that is New York literature?

Jonathan Lethem: I might disagree with him a little bit. I think the position of someone like myself – and I won’t speak for Doctorow – is very lucky in a way, because we have the option of writing regionally, the way someone who’d get called a Southern writer might. Also, there’s something about New York City that’s universal. It’s a symbol, an image, and a metaphor, that is so familiar and compelling to people outside this place that it doesn’t feel like regional writing, if we’re incredibly specific about it. When someone writes about a part of Alabama or Mississippi, or if someone writes about the desert, about Nevada or Arizona, with the kind of extensive interest in the place, in the environment, in the specific culture, it feels very regional. But, I think for me, doing the same thing with Brooklyn, it doesn’t have that feeling. So I’m sort of getting to have my cake and eat it too, because New York, and Brooklyn in particular, are kind of archetypes.

But I do feel, the thing that Doctorow doesn’t: There’s a history of writing about this place that I’m participating in when I do it as directly as I did in Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude. That I’m conscious of certain points of reference, things like Call it Sleep by Henry Roth; and James Baldwin’s Another Country, and Last Exit to Brooklyn, and various other things. Certain early books by Bernard Malamud, you know these are points of reference for me, that encouraged me to delve into the material, and that I felt I was communing with, or communicating with, and replying to, while I was writing Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude. So, that is a kind of regional writing tradition, for sure.

Gotham Gazette: Do you think there are any attributes that you can pull out and say, “This is New York writing,” or even, “This is Brooklyn writing”?

Jonathan Lethem: I wouldn’t want to try to characterize it so specifically. There are things that about a number of people who I associate with Brooklyn, or with New York writing, that excite me; and that I’d like to think I’m participating in too, a kind of abundance, a kind of polyglot of sensibility. The sense of lots of cultures, lots of language, lots of different kinds of voice and personality existing in various close juxtaposition. And you can feel that as a subject matter in certain writers associated with New York, but it certainly doesn’t name them all, nor is it exclusive to New York. So, I think it’s a dangerous question.

Gotham Gazette: In Motherless Brooklyn, the characters are involved with, first of all graffiti, but also the wider hip-hop culture. And those are definitely New York art forms; I don’t think anybody would dispute that. Do you think that growing up around there, and those sorts of art forms has influenced your writing?

A: That’s interesting. One of the things I was doing in Fortress of Solitude, in some ways, with the cultural/historical parts of it, was trying to give a little bit of a time capsule, or a window into what certain schoolyards were like in 1978, when hip-hop was being invented. In a funny way, I was trying to make up for something I failed to do, which was pay any real close attention to that at the time. I was very snobbish about hip-hop culture and very eager to turn my attention to other things that felt more timeless, more highbrow, more worthy. I was inattentive to things like the birth of rap, or the debatable artistic merit of graffiti. To me, it was all sort of embarrassing. That was what teenagers were doing where I grew up, and I wanted to go elsewhere.

And of course, if you read Fortress of Solitude, you can see the character wants to go elsewhere. But he’s also paying attention, he’s also immersed, and I actually wanted to be immersed in. So the book is kind of a cheat. It’s me going back, and being a better citizen, a better teenager of Brooklyn than I really was.

But, I also was very interested, in this book, in relating the impulses that I now see when I look at, say – the birth of rap music, or graffiti – I wanted to relate those artistic impulses to other fragile attempts to create art that I’ve seen myself very responsive to, things like experimental film, or certain kinds of, you know, genre writing, that exist in a sort of slightly trash space between pulp and high culture. There’s a kind of relationship that you could say graffiti has to something like a paperback science fiction novel, where no one’s completely sure whether the energy they feel from it is legitimate, or disgraceful, something to be discarded. So, I wanted to bring all of these things. And of course, this is also true of popular music, of rock n’ roll, and jazz, before it was legitimated and put into the academy. So I wanted to talk about all of this stuff, kind of in one space. Even though some of the energy of that book is devoted to, you know, a kind of documentary, or time capsule, really showing you what it was like, for a few pages, at the beginning of the culture of hip-hop, the more important relationship, I think, is to just look at those things in the light of all the other art forms that the book happens to mention. You know, film and painting, and writing, and obviously music, of all kinds – American popular music of all kinds.

BROOKLYN AND GENTRIFICATION

Gotham Gazette: In terms of Fortress of Solitude being a Brooklyn book, the narrative is one of gentrification. There’s the main character, Dylan Ebdus, he’s a white kid who grows up in a black neighborhood, and is sort of terrorized. And when he moves back, the neighborhood has changed a lot. Like Dylan, you grew up in that neighborhood in Brooklyn and moved away, and then you came back and found something very different. I’m interested in your take on the neighborhood’s transformation.

Jonathan Lethem: Right. Well, Dylan’s take is very harsh. If I were to describe simply the differences between myself and that character, they all have to do with how relatively isolated his experience is, how under-nourished his perspective is on race, and on the place he comes from. I didn’t have his bad luck; I was much more connected to Brooklyn, in a lot of ways. Partly because I never went as far away, or pushed it as completely out of mind as he did, but also because I was better at nourishing my friendships and connections. I didn’t fall out of touch. I had friends, and I also had siblings who stayed and with whom I was in touch continuously. So, he’s a kind of lens onto the total alienation, you know.

Gentrification, for him, made this place unrecognizable, because he sees it in extremes. I’m a little less certain than Dylan is that I can conclude that it’s all bad, or all good, or even that it’s all one thing. Because, in the end, that’s what I’ve come to feel about Brooklyn and gentrification, is that it’s always been true, it’s always been gentrifying, and it’s never going to be done. The place is always, still, a conflation of different classes and cultures. There’s something in the nature of Brooklyn that resists being totally renovated. There’s always the old Brooklyn peeking out from under the veneer that’s being laid over the top of it. Which is what I love about it, and it was already the case when my family moved there in the 60s, and I think it is still the case now.


There’s something in the nature of Brooklyn that resists being totally renovated. There’s always the old Brooklyn peeking out from under the veneer that’s being laid over the top of it.


This is not to say that people haven’t been displaced, or property values haven’t gone up; it’s a remarkable, revolutionary change in many places. But there’s so much continuity, there’s so many ways in which I walk the streets now and they’re the same. There’s still a lot of very awkward- to me, to my eye- beautifully awkward juxtapositions of different class and race and culture and economic circumstance, side-by-side. The exact boundaries may have changed. The people that were sort of wrong to think they should buy up Atlantic Avenue forty years ago are very right now. They lost their shirts being ahead of their time; well, now it’s a good bet. You know, you can tell it’s happening. There’s still, you know, a scruffiness that makes it recognizable to me. And I’ve come to see this as more of a process of flux that’s always taking place.

Gotham Gazette: Are there any particular juxtapositions that stick out to you as particularly noticeable or interesting?

Jonathan Lethem: Well, one thing that I’ve felt is that a couple of times when people have spoken to me about the book, is that they will speak as though I’ve given them a window onto a time when you had to think about what streets you walked down. And that’s completely different, and it’s not the case anymore. They’re so amazed: “Wow, you were really frightened, or you, you know, really didn’t want to turn the corner onto Wyckoff. “ And I get very frustrated with this reaction, because I think, they’re kidding themselves, that they don’t, in fact, have pre-conscious maps, that they’re not thinking about, that still function in terms of where they go in the city that they live in. And again, it may not be Wyckoff Street now; it may be four streets over.

I got to the point of frustration where I was being interviewed by a reporter from The New York Times who was speaking this way—and I said, “Let’s talk and walk.” And we walked off—I don’t know how well you guys know Brooklyn—but we walked off Smith Street, which is, in the book, of course, a place that frightens Dylan very badly, but now is extremely chic, and we walked to Hoyt and Warren and crossed Hoyt and went into the projects. And I said—and she was somebody who lived in the neighborhood, the interviewer—and I said, “You ever walk in here?” And you could see her coming up against the cognitive dissonance of, “Oh, wait a minute. I do just still flinch, I don’t think about this part of my neighborhood.” It’s like there’s a big circle of what’s okay around the projects. It’s right there.

And these same experiences are still being had in the city, that you feel like you belong on one block, and you cross the street, and you’d be completely in the wrong place. And that is New York City, and it’s still very true. And I don’t think it’s just historical. That the book describes it says I’m trying to push into visibility or consciousness the fact that this is still very true. This is still the condition of life in the city.

Gotham Gazette: At the beginning of your book, there’s this character, Isabel Vendle, sort of the evil mastermind behind turning Gowanus into Boerum Hill, and you see in the book, how she even picked the name out of a history book. Someone who actually was trying to come and couldn’t make it, made me make sure I was going to ask you if that was based at all on a real person.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, partly. It’s funny if I suggest she’s based on this person, Heather Buckler, it’s quite unfair because Isabel Vendle is so much worse than Heather Buckler. Heather Buckler was this fascinating elderly Quaker lady who lived on our street, who did give the name to Boerum Hill. But, she was also quite wonderful in a lot of ways.

The novelist has this horrible tendency, which is called poetic license, to smash together real things with imaginary things. So, there’s a part of Heather Buckler, this grand Quaker lady, in that character, but there’s also a big part of Mrs. Haversham from Great Expectations, you know the idea of the kind of frustrated crone who manipulates the life of a young child. In the forge of my imagination—she came together with that.

One of the impulses to write Isabel Vendle was I wanted to write an old lady character, as good as the ones in Paula Fox’s novels, because I had just been reading Paula Fox. I was trying to live up to that standard. Of course, Fox’s novels are quite fierce, and many of the characters are very despicable, or unhappy types of characters, in particular, the mothers and grandmothers. So there’s some of that in there too.

But, there is a local woman who sort of picked the name Boerum Hill out of a history book. And of course it did mean something. If the area was going to be marketable to the realtors, it was going to have to have a name other than Gowanus. Now with the hipster irony about urban place names Gowanus has become this very sexy name in the neighborhood. People will call things, for instance, the Gowanus Yacht Club, kind of ironically reclaiming it. But at the time, that name would’ve been poison to anyone’s hopes to interest families in moving to that neighborhood, because it only meant a degraded waterway.

BROOKLYN NETS ARENA

Calvin Johnson: I’m curious about your take on the Bruce Ratner development, which is really right on top of the store that the first part of the book is named after.

Jonathan Lethem: Well, we probably shouldn’t spend terribly long on it, but it’s a very interesting question, and I’m not clear what I think. I haven’t been in the city continuously in the last year and a half while this has been so actively debated; I’ve been living partly in Maine. If I’d been in the neighborhood a lot, I probably would have absorbed a lot more of the details and the passions that attach to this debate. As it is right now, I feel I’m aware of them, but I haven’t grasped it. But, what I suspect is that, you know, there’s a purist instinct, which is one I relate to and understand, which kind of relates to “Don’t build Westway!” We remember Robert Moses, who was going to demolish everything, and that purist instinct is: New York is always about to be destroyed by a developer and anything is bad.

Yet, actually, of course that purist instinct has to be examined, too, because cities do grow and change. That zone is not particularly wonderful, and it’s got this got this enormous kind of nothingness in big parts of it. There are always homes that are proposed to be destroyed, but there’s great swaths of empty lots and stuff, that—you know, it’s not as if nothing’s going to be done there. Or as if you’d really want nothing to be done there, forever. So, something will probably come, right?

But, as far as I can tell, Ratner has done just the worst possible job of including community voices in the dialogue. That’s just such a fundamental error, to not begin there. It’s both offensive and naĂŻve. It’s not going to work, I think, because I think the neighborhood is going to be militant against it. The other thing to say is that all you really you know of Ratner, all that’s tangible of Ratner, is that horrific shopping mall. And if he wants to begin to negotiate aesthetics and the community’s wishes in that neighborhood, his first act would be to tear the thing down. And then, we can talk. Okay, you want to make something good; you’re already in the red, with that thing that’s there.


All you really you know of Ratner is that horrific shopping mall. And if he wants to begin to negotiate aesthetics and the community’s wishes in that neighborhood, his first act would be to tear the thing down.


But, I speak without knowing a tremendous amount, and knowing that there’s a lot to know that’s specific. The traffic prospect is frightening. And there’s a lot of other things that you can imagine, happening with that space. But, there’s a lot of money being brought in, too. This is also true of developments quite a lot closer to where I happen to live in Brooklyn, along the kind of Atlantic Avenue/ Boerum Place axis where big buildings are going up, and, of course, the park development, which has some very corporate aspects to it too. That’s a space that everyone should be entitled to use. But, there is a risk of changing this whole hour into that conversation.

REMEMBERING THE 1970s

Daniel Sangeap: I came back to New York about six years ago, and it’s a very different city, and I wondered, to what extent, Dylan’s point of view, about the old Brooklyn, the old New York as I think of it, is just really a function of him being a kid at that time, or is it a function of New York being different? The adults that are there don’t have the same fear or the same concern—which is maybe legitimate because they’re adults—but also, I feel like, New York was very different back then. The adults seem to very much more okay with where they are.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, I think it’s more the particular characters. One of the things about the book, to say just a very general thing, is that I knew I was going to be trying to evoke feelings about history and sociology and political stuff. But I knew also that I could only feel comfortable doing it, I could only have any authority doing it in the manner of a novelist, which is through particulars, and through characters and sensory details and emotions. Not through any comprehensive: “This is what people were like then.” I’m not saying anything about what anyone generally was like. I’m saying specifically: “This is this guy, Dylan, and this is this guy, Mingus, and here’s his father and here’s his father.” And the rest comes in because we all have feelings about these things. And I do too, so it comes in. But I’m not claiming that every black kid, say, that I grew up with, or that grew up in my generation, went to jail and was addicted to crack. I’m just saying that this character Mingus had that misfortune. And, so on from there, and it would be true of the adult characters as well.

Book Club Member: In 1977, for two years, I lived at the Y at 3rd Avenue and Atlantic, and I remember that neighborhood very well. I remember Dean Street; I used to, in those days, walk around stoned a lot, and walked on streets and walked in the evening, and it really was like that. I really enjoyed the book, because it was so real. I think I even remember, the car with the stripes on it. Right, you didn’t invent that?

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, sure, there’s a lot of stuff that’s real.

Book Club Member: It was real. And, I want to give you a real Brooklyn compliment, by telling you that you are a sick motherfucker (laughter). As a compliment.

Jonathan Lethem: Make sure you get that on the transcript. (laughter)

Book Club Member: Yeah, it’s a great book.

Jonathan Lethem: Thank you, so much. As a writer I previously had only written fiction where I’d pretty much invented everything. And in this book, which was a much larger canvas than I’d ever worked on before, I wanted there to be invention—that’s what I do, I’m a storyteller—but I also thought, I could really kind of do a time capsule. I could throw a lot of stuff in there that would be, you know, in the matter of almost a documentary film. Where you just could really get to look through the window of this book, if you were interested, or if you remembered the place, and know what it was like to be on certain streets on certain days in, you know, 1977 or 1982. And I wanted to just actually see if I could bring a world back to life, a little bit. So, thank you.

Book Club Member: And I was an adult at the time.

Jeff Caltabiano: Just to piggyback on that, obviously the book is a lot about memory, and I’m kind of curious about process. How much of what you wrote — the particulars, the streets, the places the familiar spots you name — how much of that was from memory, and how much was you actually going out, walking those streets again, remembering some of those things, and writing them down?

Jonathan Lethem: Well, of course, the answer’s not going to be all of one or the other. I’m fortunate. I’m blessed with a good memory, which I think a novelist mostly has to have. Not just because you work from your own recollections, but because you need a good memory, actually, to hold everything you’re writing in mind, over the course of two or three or four years. So you need a memory just to be able to construct a whole novel, and I have a pretty good one. I’d say the majority of the details—just the sensory details and the names—were in my head at some level. Some of them had to be teased out. In the period when I was preparing to write this book, and in the first year or two of writing it, I was doing a lot of very conscious reminiscing. And of course, the more you do this, if you know—if you have any experience like this—you begin to reconstruct, and evoke, and make opportunities for even retrieving completely lost parts of your own recollection just by working on it, just by dwelling on stuff.

But then, I had a secret weapon, which is a lot of conversations with old friends, and with my brother most particularly, who was invaluable. Dylan is a semi-autobiographical character, but he’s also a portrait of a couple of guys: my best friend Carl, and my brother Blake. I had those guys with me, and so the book is, in a funny way, a little bit like a collective oral history. It’s got a secret weapon, and the secret weapon was lots of nights of reminiscing, and comparing notes. Triangulating, you know; someone would have one fragment of an impression of a memory, and someone else would have another corner of it, and then the three of us, playing off each other, well we’d suddenly understand something we’d never understood. “Oh, that guy was doing that,” you know, “Oh, that’s what that was about?” Suddenly, we’d have a consensus, and it was much more valuable than anything I could have come up with on my own.

John Guzman: When I read the book, there are three parts. The first part—maybe it was what I was going through this month, but it feels shadowy. I couldn’t put the things together. Then there was a break and that little history about rap and about Southern music in a sense. The last part, felt very smooth. I understood it, and it felt good to me. It felt like the first part was totally different from the second.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, they’re very different.

John Guzman: I wonder, in your process, is there a hiatus between them?

Jonathan Lethem: Well, I didn’t stop, no. I continued working straight through. But, they are quite different, and a lot of people have very strong reactions about that. I mean, more often, people feel that the first half is extremely lyrical and dreamlike, and they feel rather upset by the harshness or clarity of the voice in the second part. But, I always knew that the book was going to have to have a rupture in it; to be a kind of broken book with two very different halves. I mean, we can speak of the middle section, but that’s really just kind of an interlude, that thick liner note that divides the two.

The two halves of the book are meant to represent a very different kind of consciousness. One is the lyrical, dreamlike quality of childhood consciousness when everything is sort of embraced in sensory impressions, and the second half is the quite jaded quality of his adult life; Dylan is a very jaded character — harsh, unforgiving, un-self-forgiving. And, you know, I myself missed the first half of the book when I moved on to the second half, because it had been so embracing.

It’s very paradoxical, because it seems like a lot of terrible things happen to the boys, but you still feel there’s something golden about that time and that street, whereas Dylan is so contemptible when you meet him as an adult. He seems so bitter, and his sense of—his imagination seems so dwindled, so pinched in many ways. But, then again, his intelligence is very acute, and he’s working very hard to put all of the difficult things he knows into a meaningful context, so that’s a trade-off, you know. He’s confused as a child. He’s more lovable, but he’s more at the mercy of his experience, and in the second half he’s beginning to fight his way through those confusions or traumas. Maybe, by the end, he becomes likable again. I hope so.

But I knew, anyway, that I was going to have to put my reader through this weird break, this rupture, because I wanted to show this thing that I felt so strongly in my own experience, and in the experience of people knew, that I had never seen a novel quite demonstrate. Which is, the way childhood experience can seem both very close at hand, like it’s with you all the time, and simultaneously far away. And so, the book itself had to represent that in a way. The difference in the voice. Even Dylan, as an adult, all he seems to think about is growing up with Mingus. But, you can still feel from the book, from the voice, that everything’s changed. He could never get back to that golden place.

Rhonda Matthews: We read it in our book group, and we felt that you captured the childhood really well that way. That’s one of the discussions we had, how it’s so confusing in the beginning with all these characters, and it’s kind of how it is when you’re a child. You don’t know who’s important, because there’s all these people in your life. And then — this is me speaking —what made you put in that superhero part? Everything we’ve discussed has been very concrete and autobiographical, and then there’s this piece that comes in out there, that—we almost all questioned, did that even really happen, or is that fantasy? And then according to how you wrote it, it really did happen, because it’s very integral to the end of the book.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, well, it’s another thing; in a way a leap I asked my readers to make, a difficult aspect of the book. But, for me it was very important in a way that is hard to completely express. It was an intuitive choice. But, I think because I was working with so much memory material, so much that is concrete, the city, the history, my own personal accounts, my friends’, and relatives’ personal accounts, that I also had something in the book that was unmistakably symbolic, metaphorical, fictional. This would totally would push the book out of being any kind of memoir, or any kind of history, and into the world of imagination. Because, to me, that’s in a way, where life occurs, as a juncture of literal experience and the dream life; the world of the symbolic, where language and metaphor kind of—and memory—kind of alters our experience. And wishful thinking kind of alters our experience.

So the superhero thing, for me was a way of describing parts of Dylan and Mingus’ hearts, parts of their experience, that literal descriptions couldn’t get to: the urge to become something totally new, the urge to transform themselves, to transcend where they were from. You know, in some ways, it seemed like a very embarrassing, very obvious metaphor. But I thought: this is a book where I shouldn’t be subtle. I should go ahead and grab on to the most extreme, and provocative, and blatant kind of image. And the idea, that every teenager is a kind of attempted superhero, trying to grow, trying to become something more than their families, or their neighborhoods, or their experience tells them they can be. And for me, this idea of the superhero was a very rich way to talk about that stuff. But, it’s also me having a kind of fun that I like to have, of making the reader go into a strange world.

Ronda Matthews: You were saying you weren’t isolated, you had these other people to go to. And throughout the entire book, Dylan is so isolated, and one of the things I was thinking was, doesn’t he have grandparents, he doesn’t have cousins, he has no one. There is never a time when he’s in a group. He even goes to Stuyvesant and still feels like an outsider. What made you want a character that was so isolated, when—did you feel that way?

Jonathan Lethem: This is how fiction works, is you exaggerate aspects of life to make them more visible. I knew I was writing a book about feelings of isolation, and of otherness, and of disenfranchisement, so I made my character, in some ways, absurdly isolated. I mean, once you start pointing it out, yeah his inability to connect is almost exasperating: “Come on, you must have had one good girlfriend”, or, you know, “Why can’t you relate to anyone?” But I wanted to write about the part of childhood, the part of experience, that I think everyone identifies with, even if they, like me, have many more tools for connection than say, Dylan Ebdus. But everyone, I think, feels this as some level of their being. Part of their experience of childhood is, “I’m not from here.” And that’s why orphan stories are popular. I mean, if you think about how many great characters in fiction, from Dickens to The Prince in the Pauperr, to fairy tales, are children who are not really from where they’re from—they’re displaced, or they’re orphans, or they’re kidnapped—Why is this such a popular image? Well, it’s because it describes something about the way everybody feels about growing up, even though most of us do grow up in families and with friends, where we do, more or less, belong.

RACE

Gotham Gazette: One of the sort of biggest points of isolation for Dylan is obviously race, and it struck me that this is a kid that seemed to have very clear-cut ideas of how race played out from the time he was seven years old. And I was wondering if race played such a large role so early in your childhood.

Jonathan Lethem: The central situation that I thrust Dylan is one that comes out of my experience: of being a kind of reverse minority, being one of very few white kids in a neighborhood that was predominantly black and Hispanic, and yet knowing—as it was impossible not to know—that you were part of a larger majority. In the end, the roles were going to flip, or you could find places that were available to you where you were going to be part of the dominant majority. But that didn’t necessarily help you in sixth grade to know that. So it was a very odd dilemma, and it was what I wanted to write about, so I put the character into the cross-hairs of this.

But again, just as I have said about other aspects of Dylan’s experience, I sort of disequipped him. There are many senses in which I was a little luckier. I had other kinds of perspectives, inflections, possibilities, available to me to keep it from being quite so totally stark. But what we have in common is that this situation, and the specificity of it, made, not just me, and not just Dylan, but, really, all the kids—black, white, Hispanic—that I grew up with, unusually conscious of race issues. We couldn’t have articulated what we were conscious of. We weren’t happy about them, or comfortable with them. But in a weird way, everybody I know, who I grew up with, and I talk to now, now that we can reminisce, exhibits this quality of having been thinking about race, as a kid, well before you would expect kids to think about such things.

It was just something about the mosaic of that neighborhood, and I think the times and the culture, that made it very likely that every kid was forced to be a little bit of a sort of social theorist at some level. Partly for social survival, but partly because it was in the air. The thing about the early ‘70s, is that the Civil Right Era had just — well, you don’t want to say “shot it’s wad”— crashed on shore, and we were all looking at what had washed up. And there was so much success and so much failure at the same time, which was bewildering. The Jim Crow laws were changed, and things were speak able in our culture that had been unspeakable, that had been taboo even to talk about.


The Civil Right Era had just crashed on shore, and we were all looking at what had washed up. And there was so much success and so much failure at the same time, which was bewildering.


It was such a remarkable transformation. Yet, by the mid-’70s, and certainly by the end of the ‘70s for the most part the black population in America was kind of a designated under-class. The economic disenfranchisement was just as bitter a fate as Jim Crow laws, in some ways. Well, this is confusing, to be told, “Your parents grew up in a racist society, but we just took care of that, now everything’s going to be great,” and then to see that somehow, you were the first people who had to admit to each other—look each other in the eyes and say—it’s still unfair, “I’m going to get to go to college; you’re not.”

This was very vivid; again, it was impossible to describe. So the consciousness of it was there, and was being wrestled with in very strange ways. I know every kid goes through bullying, and in every place, there’s an aspect of making fun of you for whether you’re the short, or the fat, or the differently colored — difference is something that bullying makes easy use of. But in Brooklyn, in the ‘70s, it seems generally true—not just my mistake, or Dylan’s mistake—that at some level, the kind of racist-tinged taunting that went with being bullied—being a victim or a perpetrator of bullying back then, had a quality of being a negotiation over issues that were also being negotiated by the adults in the neighborhood. It was loaded, fraught bullying. It wasn’t just, “Oh, I’m bigger than you, I’ll knock you down, and oh, you happen to be white, so I’ll call you white.” It contained with it, some kind of description—that seems incredible in a way, but there was some kind of description of, “Okay, my people used to be very afraid, because we would get lynched. And now we’re not afraid anymore because we’ve got more power, or we’re more articulate. There’s been a Black Power movement; we’re allowed to be assertive. But, we’re still under your thumb in other ways, so we’re going to take it out on you.” You know, there was meaning buried in it, which was very awkward to be confronted with.

Gotham Gazette: In the very first passage of your book, you mention that “White people are coming back to Dean Street.” Obviously, gentrification and race go hand-in-hand, and I wondering if there was also an aspect of, by having white people here, they’re sort of invading the neighborhood? Even if you didn’t feel that at the time, if you can look back and kind of see that.

Jonathan Lethem: Oh, sure. I mean, it meant all of those things at once. And that’s the thing: it’s very uncomfortable stuff to talk about. But I knew just as I had to make the superhero a ridiculously obvious symbol, what I needed to do was push this stuff into visibility. Not be polite, or deferential, or avoid it, but to say, every kid is sort of trying to become a superhero. With the race stuff I had to make sure that I wasn’t politically correct, I wasn’t censoring myself, because the book was about the un-nameability of these things that make us uncomfortable. Now that means that I had to transgress. I had to say what people think and don’t say, as often as I could do it. It’s very easy to—just as it’s easy to walk in the neighborhood and not notice that you’re not crossing Hoyt Street. Discomfort with race and incomplete feelings about race are in every interaction; they are in every part of our culture. This is what you mostly try not to acknowledge, because it’s just so hard.

BENDING GENRES; DISAPOINTING READERS

Dan Sangeap: I can imagine that people in the sort of mainstream audience would’ve been perhaps deterred—I know I almost was—from picking up your book, based on the description of “Oh, it has something to do with superheroes and comic books,” which you know, is not a huge draw to describe it that way. Turning it around to the other side, it seemed like you had a little bit of a reputation with genre writing prior to this novel. I could see that those people would also be very disappointed if they picked up this book, and thought, “Oh, it’s going to be about superheroes,” and it really wasn’t.

Jonathan Lethem: Well, I had made a long practice by now, I mean I had really gotten away with, for quite a while, of being very obstinate about disappointing expectations, because none of the books have been like one another.

In a way I got that project of disappointing expectations started very resoundingly at the start, because my very first book, Gun with Occasional Music, introduced a hard-boiled detective. It was a book that was kind of a combination of film-noir and science fiction. And while, you know, 99 percent of the writers who’ve ever introduced a detective in their first book—if that detective is alive at the end of that book, everybody knows they’re going to write about that detective over and over again. And everyone, initially, because they had no other examples of my writing available to them but the one book, was so sure that I’d do that, that there are people in the audiences that I talk to who will still express disappointment. You know, now I’m going on 15 years later, and they’ll still be sort of waiting hopefully: “Are you going to do another Conrad Metcalf book?” Like they’ve been reading all of the others, and they’re sort of politely not wanting to let me know that they’re disappointed.

So, by the time I get to novel six, my new idea is I want to write this massive autobiographical documentary portrait of Brooklyn in the ‘70s, but there’ll be a superhero character in it, well, if anything, I’m almost meeting expectations by disappointing them. Because, by doing something that no one has seen from me before, I’m kind of keeping to my own weird code.

But I know that it’s dismaying sometimes, and I’m stuck, as most of the characters in Fortress of Solitude are stuck, with making the kind of art—singing or graffiti or experimental film—that they seem to have to make. I’m stuck with my own impulse, to make these kinds of books. I’ve given up on the idea that I can calculate what people want and then deliver it. That doesn’t seem to happen for me. So I’m very lucky, anyway: I have great reception. Whoever might be put off, I have plenty of other people, like you guys, very fortunately, who seem curious about what I’m doing.

Tracy Brisson: I was just curious about your next project.

Jonathan Lethem: I just turned in a draft—an almost finished version—of a new novel that’s totally different from Fortress of Solitude on a lot of different ways. Fortress of Solitude isn’t my last book, it’s my last novel. There’s actually two collections since then. I had a book of short stories and a book of semi-autobiographical essays, both of them relatively small collections. The book of essays is almost a memoir by mosaic — a series of little glimpses of myself. The book of stories, which is called Men and Cartoons, has a lot to do with the idea of putting superheroes and other fantastical creatures—talking animals and stuff—into realistic stories. Both of those little books, in a way, are quite close to Fortress of Solitude. They sort of have a quality of being like after-births to this giant novel. So if you put the three together — or you could even include Motherless Brooklyn — I’ve spent awhile writing about Brooklyn and superheroes and, kind of, detectives.

I wanted to stop with all of that at once, and so I just wrote a novel that has no fantastic element—no superhero or talking animal of any kind—that also has no Brooklyn in it—it’s not set in New York; it’s set in Los Angeles. If you’ll notice, the last books all, in a way, have parenthood in common. There’s always fathers and sons in these books, and, if you read Motherless Brooklyn, it’s sort of about adopted fathers and adopted sons. But, I wanted to throw that out, so there’s no children and parents. The characters in this novel are all twenty-somethings living in Los Angeles, trying to start a rock band. It’s quite a silly book, in comparison to Fortress; it’s a romantic comedy. It was a way to leave behind all of this heavy personal exploration, and to just put Brooklyn aside, at least for a couple of years, and do something that was a piece of pure storytelling. So that’s just being finished up, and it’ll be published early 2007.

Book Club Member: Were you in Los Angeles when you were in California?

Jonathan Lethem: No, I was in Northern California. I was in Berkeley, mostly. And actually, it’s an interesting question, because it would seem—“Oh, then why didn’t he write about Berkeley”—but I wanted to write about a place that I didn’t know so well. By writing about Brooklyn for these last—you know the majority of the last—ten years of my writing life, I’ve been constantly exploring the relationship of myself to a place that I had intense feelings for. And I wanted to actually use place in a slightly less freighted way. I wanted to use Los Angeles—I wanted to write about a place I was merely curious about, that I didn’t have a lot of personal associations or emotions connected to. And I’d been in L.A. just enough to write about it with that kind of amused, bemused, confused sense of detachment, where I’m writing about it as a tourist.

Book Club Member: It’s not really a question, it’s a comment. In the 1960s my family and I moved to Clinton Hill, and when I read Fortress of Solitude I was taken back there. I found it very easy to just slip right back to that time. I thought it was magnificent. And my daughters went to St. Ann’s, and I remember when they would come back on the bus, there was always some kid who would say, “Let me have some money.” And you’d better let them have some money.

Also Dylan’s parents: he was alienated from them, because they were weird: the mother just goes off, and the father seemed to be in his own little world, and really didn’t connect with his son very well.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, and it’s that same Gothic imagination that has me turning Heather Buckler into Mrs. Haversham that has me exaggerating some aspects of my own experience, or changing them and adapting them to make a quite horrible experience for Dylan. My father’s a painter, but he’s nothing like Abraham. He’s very social and actually a very connected person. In fact, in his art as well—you know, Abraham paints these abstract colors over and over again—my father was a painter of people, and he always had models and friends—other painters—in and out of his studio. Very colorful, social place, his painting studio. My mother, as you may know from some of my other writings—from either the autobiographical essays, or from some of the other novels where I approach this quite directly—my mother died of cancer when I was a teenager. So I had a mother, and a quite active and wonderful one, much further into my childhood than Dylan. Dylan has his mother run away when he’s six or seven in the book. And of course, it’s worse to have a parent run away, then to have her die. But while she’s around, Dylan’s mother is in some ways a portrait of the looniest and most fun and bewildering aspects of my own mother, who was a very outspoken and funny and challenging, fascinating parent to know. Of course, I got to get a much better handle on my mother than Dylan got on his, because I was with her for so much longer.

Book Club Member: Until she ran way, she really was quite great for him.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, that’s right. I agree with you.

Book Club Member: But, she just ran off.

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, it’s probably quite implausible that that mother would run away from Dylan, actually. If you think about it hard, it might be a bit of a stretch that, however in love with this other guy, or out of love with her husband, she might have been, that she would leave that child behind. I mean, I think I’m doing enough in the book to distract you that you don’t focus on it.

Gotham Gazette: So, we’re out of time. Thank you very much.

Jonathan Lethem: You bet.

Gotham Gazette: Our book for November is Learning to Govern by former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone. He will be joining us here from 6 PM to 7 PM on November 30. You can buy the book on our Web site. (Applause)

 



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