University of California at Berkeley in the sixties. She joined the Peace Corps and taught English to Ethiopians. And when she came back to New York, she got a degree in social work and was employed first by the Department of Human Services and then by a private clinic. Nothing too offensive. It just didnât put her sixteen million dollars in assets to very good use.
About seven years ago, not long after she inherited the property on the border of River City, she announced that she would seek a zoning variance in order to turn the place into a shelter for the homeless. This didnât exactly please the River City people, on the one hand. On the other, being privileged, decent, and largely charitable citizens, they recognized the growing need. After a few public hearings, where they voiced their concerns, most of them decided to let Celia go about her business.
Not so Wilhelm Sturgeon. Privileged enough, heâs never been caught out being decent or charitable. He was once heard to remark that, if he were mayor, the police would be ordered to lock arms in Battery Park and march north to the Harlem River, driving the homeless before them as they went.
Sturgeon did not attend the public hearings. He didnât have to. He knows how the city operates and, from all accounts, he operates pretty much the same way. He retains a law firm connected to the City Council president and a PR firm connected to the mayor. He distributes many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to the borough presidents of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens. So when itâs time for a vote, he just sits back and awaits the final word from the Board of Estimate, which happens to be composed of the mayor, the City Council president, the city comptroller, and the five borough presidents.
All this is more or less legal, and also more or less certain to work. So it was a reasonably interesting story when the board turned around and approved the Cooper House plan. That gave Cooper the go-ahead to start providing services to the homeless on the very border of Sturgeonâs land.
The few reporters covering the story did not have far to look for a reason. The comptroller, Howard Baumgarten, had lobbied hard in favor of the Cooper proposal. This was kind of odd because Baumgarten is a notorious party hack whoâs about as hard to buy as a pack of gum. But then, there did happen to be a federal investigation under way into an alleged kick-back scheme he was running. And this community-minded action gave him the chance to appear before a stunned and bewildered media and utter the words:
âI guess this proves we arenât all slaves to the dollar bill.â
Yeah, we knew thatâwent the general reactionâbut who the hell told him?
Anyway, Baumgarten won the day. Celia Cooper got her variance. The U.S. Attorneyâs office was all over the comptroller, looking for evidence of a money-for-jobs operation. But no indictment ever did come down.
Most of this story did not even make the papers. It was unprovable, for one thing. For another, it was too complicated. And for another, no one would have read it anyway. And for another, Stertzâs wife was sick and I had a cold.
So I had to think long and hard to remember it all as I rode the subway downtown. I sat in a soggy, unsteady car, alone except for a black bum asleep in a corner under his slouch hat. I worked it all over, tried to get it straight in my head. It kept my thoughts off the jostling of the car, the noise of the wheels, the sloshing in my belly, the screaking pain in my head.
I got out at Grand Central and hit the air on Forty-second Street. A thin mist of rain was still falling. The spring hung heavy and damp all around.
I walked over to Second Avenue. The brick apartments of River City rose before me, floated above me, as I came. The skin on my face was chilly and my overcoat was dark with rain by the time I turned on Second and walked
About seven years ago, not long after she inherited the property on the border of River City, she announced that she would seek a zoning variance in order to turn the place into a shelter for the homeless. This didnât exactly please the River City people, on the one hand. On the other, being privileged, decent, and largely charitable citizens, they recognized the growing need. After a few public hearings, where they voiced their concerns, most of them decided to let Celia go about her business.
Not so Wilhelm Sturgeon. Privileged enough, heâs never been caught out being decent or charitable. He was once heard to remark that, if he were mayor, the police would be ordered to lock arms in Battery Park and march north to the Harlem River, driving the homeless before them as they went.
Sturgeon did not attend the public hearings. He didnât have to. He knows how the city operates and, from all accounts, he operates pretty much the same way. He retains a law firm connected to the City Council president and a PR firm connected to the mayor. He distributes many thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to the borough presidents of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens. So when itâs time for a vote, he just sits back and awaits the final word from the Board of Estimate, which happens to be composed of the mayor, the City Council president, the city comptroller, and the five borough presidents.
All this is more or less legal, and also more or less certain to work. So it was a reasonably interesting story when the board turned around and approved the Cooper House plan. That gave Cooper the go-ahead to start providing services to the homeless on the very border of Sturgeonâs land.
The few reporters covering the story did not have far to look for a reason. The comptroller, Howard Baumgarten, had lobbied hard in favor of the Cooper proposal. This was kind of odd because Baumgarten is a notorious party hack whoâs about as hard to buy as a pack of gum. But then, there did happen to be a federal investigation under way into an alleged kick-back scheme he was running. And this community-minded action gave him the chance to appear before a stunned and bewildered media and utter the words:
âI guess this proves we arenât all slaves to the dollar bill.â
Yeah, we knew thatâwent the general reactionâbut who the hell told him?
Anyway, Baumgarten won the day. Celia Cooper got her variance. The U.S. Attorneyâs office was all over the comptroller, looking for evidence of a money-for-jobs operation. But no indictment ever did come down.
Most of this story did not even make the papers. It was unprovable, for one thing. For another, it was too complicated. And for another, no one would have read it anyway. And for another, Stertzâs wife was sick and I had a cold.
So I had to think long and hard to remember it all as I rode the subway downtown. I sat in a soggy, unsteady car, alone except for a black bum asleep in a corner under his slouch hat. I worked it all over, tried to get it straight in my head. It kept my thoughts off the jostling of the car, the noise of the wheels, the sloshing in my belly, the screaking pain in my head.
I got out at Grand Central and hit the air on Forty-second Street. A thin mist of rain was still falling. The spring hung heavy and damp all around.
I walked over to Second Avenue. The brick apartments of River City rose before me, floated above me, as I came. The skin on my face was chilly and my overcoat was dark with rain by the time I turned on Second and walked
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