The Streets Were Paved with Gold - Ken Auletta [1]
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One
The Rotting Apple
Chapter Two
The Causes of New York’s Fiscal Crisis
Chapter Three
Is Anyone Responsible?
Chapter Four
Is Washington to Blame?
Chapter Five
Mismanaged New York
Chapter Six
Is New York Unique?
Chapter Seven
The Failure of Democracy
Chapter Eight
Politics: The Melody of the Fiscal Crisis
Chapter Nine
New York: Liberalism’s Vietnam
Chapter Ten
1975–78: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
About the Author
Introduction
A TRIP TO PARIS inspired this book about New York. Walking with a friend along the sun-drenched Seine, stopping to watch boats gently paddle by, passing the majestic Louvre, the hooded outdoor cafés brimming with relaxed, beautiful women, the tiny shops stuffed with treats and treasures—somehow my thoughts drifted back to New York. Not to the gloomy New York—the fiscal crisis, which I had covered since early 1975, the lost jobs, the slums—but to New York’s treasures: the meadows and gently rolling hills of Central and Prospect parks; the postcard-perfect Manhattan skyline glimpsed from the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights; the calzone and other Italian treats of Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, the cornucopia of treats along Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It was hot in land-locked Paris; hotter than it normally was in Coney Island, where I grew up, and where the roar of the ocean made the hum of the air conditioner superfluous.
The daydream terminated when my friend abruptly asked, “When are you going to stop covering a local story and start covering some big national stories?” Weren’t New York’s fiscal woes so advanced as to be hopeless? Wasn’t I bored?
No, I wasn’t bored.
No, my continuing anger suggested that I really didn’t believe New York was hopeless.
Besides, New York was the big story. Maybe it would take a book to convey that. Maybe a detailed probe of New York’s difficulties could communicate not just what went wrong here, and why, but what was going wrong in other older cities. Maybe it could illuminate some national, even universal questions: the decline of aging cities; the reasons for the rising taxpayer revolt; the inherent conflict between democracy’s social goals and its economic system, between organized special-interest groups and the broader public interest. “You can’t get anything through the state legislature in an election year that the unions don’t want,” Mayor Ed Koch told me in June 1978. “I don’t want to paint with a broad brush and say the legislators are in the pockets—in every case—of the union leaders.” If they were as honest, the mayor of Atlanta might say the same thing about the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor of Houston about the oil companies, the President of the United States about the arbitrary power of Senator Russell Long, Chairman of the potent Finance Committee. New York’s crisis, I thought, tells us about the breakdown of democracy, about politics, greed, bureaucracy, cowardice, the failure of good intentions. About how democratic government does not know how to cope with decline. No, long after we have forgotten the name of the Secretary of HEW or Jimmy Carter’s shifting poll ratings, these questions about the nature of government and democracy will haunt us.
Even if there were no broader implications, New York City’s economic, fiscal and political crisis would still be a big story. For New York, like a great novel, transcends geographic boundaries or time. It is a world city, the ultimate marketplace. For those with talent, this city is the final test. Many Americans hate New York because they fear it: not just its imposing size but its ruthless competitiveness. The very best lawyers, fashion designers, writers, artists, advertising agencies, publishers, financiers and thinkers ultimately find their way here. Succeed here and you can probably succeed anywhere. From this cauldron of competitive friction, New York charges the nation with more energy than