The Battle For Gotham Part 7

In 1942, at the request of Michigan's commissioner of highways, Moses reviewed plans for Detroit's crosstown expressway between Detroit and Willow Run that ran through established neighborhoods of the city. In a fifteen-page letter, Moses wrote that generally speaking, the plan for the expressway "seems to us to have been admirably conceived and laid out."

PITTSBURGH.

He also had a hand in the Pittsburgh urban renewal plan, one of the first in the country that erased a substantial part of the heart of the city's industrial and downtown heart. In its place was a vast expanse of gra.s.s with a few stand-alone buildings placed at a distance from one another with the two sides of the triangle graced by the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. As Lewis Mumford noted in his book The Highway and the City The Highway and the City, "One look at the cl.u.s.ter of skysc.r.a.per offices that now rise in the 'rehabilitated' area of Pittsburgh known as The Point should convince them of their error; a handful of skysc.r.a.pers standing in a glittering freight yard of parked cars is a contribution to neither business nor urban beauty."

In 1957, one hundred acres of the Hill, the heart of the city's black community and center for jazz-filled nightspots, was cleared for a Lincoln Center-style cultural island with an opera house, symphony hall, and theaters. It was never built, but eight thousand residents were displaced.

Clearly, highways halted in midconstruction or before construction-not necessarily designed by Moses-in communities across the country were stopped by citizen protests that usually included long, delaying lawsuits. Where highway projects were derailed completely or in midstream, downtowns and neighborhoods have held on or regenerated-if enough urban fabric was left to do so. In many cases, however, the highway fever did not cool with Moses's departure. Alternative routes were selected, some implemented. Whether they were better or worse is hard to know, but too many cities have been crippled by highways through the city. Even more were started but never finished, leaving unnecessary cleared land in their wake.

SAN FRANCISCO.

An earthquake in 1989, not common sense, took down San Francisco's vigorously opposed and never-completed Embarcadero Freeway on the waterfront and redirected federal transportation funding into investment in the city's subway system. The rejuvenation of that moribund waterfront is now a model of success with its seven-mile promenade of sidewalks, palm trees, and historic trolleys connecting to Fisherman's Wharf, a restored ferry terminal, farmers' market, and new hotel. Nearby property values have skyrocketed 300 percent.33 But citizens, led by a straight-talking Mayor Joseph Alioto, had stopped the freeway's completion years before. He said during a 1974 Senate hearing on the cause of our transportation crisis that placing an interstate highway link along the San Francisco waterfront just to give cars access to the Golden Gate Bridge was unacceptable. "I wouldn't let them complete it," Alioto recalled. "I said tell everyone to slow up and enjoy themselves in this beautiful town. . . . There isn't a view like this in the world. You don't have to zip through it." Alioto had wrestled long and hard with strong-arming highway builders. "That crowd would put a freeway through the Vatican if they had a chance and could save s.p.a.ce or money," he said. But citizens, led by a straight-talking Mayor Joseph Alioto, had stopped the freeway's completion years before. He said during a 1974 Senate hearing on the cause of our transportation crisis that placing an interstate highway link along the San Francisco waterfront just to give cars access to the Golden Gate Bridge was unacceptable. "I wouldn't let them complete it," Alioto recalled. "I said tell everyone to slow up and enjoy themselves in this beautiful town. . . . There isn't a view like this in the world. You don't have to zip through it." Alioto had wrestled long and hard with strong-arming highway builders. "That crowd would put a freeway through the Vatican if they had a chance and could save s.p.a.ce or money," he said.

Pittsburgh, Detroit, Portland, New Orleans, Hartford, Baltimore. These were significant cities in the 1940s. The country watched them, along with New York, and followed the path being forged by Moses. "In 1964, when Robert Moses completed his major highway building . . . no other metropolitan region in America possessed 700 miles of such highways. . . . Even Los Angeles, which presented itself to history as the most highway-oriented of cities-which was, in fact, not a city in the older sense in which New York was a city but a collection of suburbs . . .-possessed in 1964 only 459 miles of such highways. No city in America had more than half as many miles. . . . But nothing about his roads was as awesome as the congestion on them."34 MOSES LISTENED TO NO ONE.

In June 1955 urban critic Lewis Mumford wrote in the New Yorker New Yorker, "Before we cut any more chunks out of our parks to make room for more automobiles or let another highway cloverleaf unfold, we should look at the transformation that has taken place during the last 30 years in Manhattan." This, of course, did not happen.

But equally significant, Moses and the highway lobby starved the subways, bus, and railroad systems of funding. Even before the war, Caro points out, the realization emerged that more roads breed more traffic, that building more roads would not solve traffic congestion, and that the only answer was coordinating ma.s.s-transit improvements with highways. Moses adamantly opposed this idea in every way possible and controlled all possible funding to thwart it. Worse, he designed every road in such a way that transit cannot be added either on the highway median or parallel to the road, as many planners advocated, even pa.s.sing up the opportunity to cheaply buy the land adjacent to highways for future transit.

City planner F. Dodd McHugh, working on a master plan for New York airports in the 1940s, urged Moses to provide s.p.a.ce along the Van Wyck Expressway to JFK. In the 1950s, Moses ignored studies demonstrating economic value by providing ma.s.s transit along the Long Island Expressway. When the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, under Moses's firm control, piled up surplus after surplus, Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Lindsay tried to spend some of that surplus on ma.s.s transit. Instead, Moses refused to let that happen and instead just planned another road.

The Moses image of being above politics was a myth; he fed the political machine with lucrative contracts, fees, and all kinds of favors to ensure support for his projects, especially, as Mumford wrote, from the well-placed "real beneficiaries of the system to whom it means jobs and prestige, contracts and profits." As Joel Schwartz points out, "Behind closed doors, he handed choice locations to redevelopers, allowed them to occupy sites at their leisure, and encouraged them to build luxury high-rises without regard for city plans. At Manhattantown, Moses allowed redevelopers with Tammany ties to squeeze rent from the black occupants of condemned tenements. Manhattantown showed Moses's consort with the powerful, his contempt for the helpless, and his racism."35 If anyone deigned to oppose or seriously question one of his projects, those contracts instantly dried up. He so mesmerized the New York press for decades that it turned a blind eye to his ruthless manipulations and the scandals and inequities his policies fostered. He conducted government in secret and by fiat and showed nothing but contempt for critics. He often did more than that. As Caro discovered: And if Moses possessed no derogatory information at all about an opponent or his forebears, this was still no guarantee against attack. For Moses was an innovator in fields other than public works. He practiced McCarthyism long before there was a McCarthy. He drove Rexford G. Tugwell out of his City Planning Commission chairmans.h.i.+p-out of New York, in fact-helped drive Stanley F. Isaacs out of his borough presidency and destroyed public careers of a dozen other officials by publicly, and falsely, identifying them as 'Pinkos' or 'Planning Reds' or 'followers of the Ogpu,' the Soviet secret police.36 There were two widespread Communist witchhunts in New York City, one in 1938 and one in 1958. Both relied heavily on 'information'-much of it innuendo and outright falsehood-leaked to newspapers by Moses. There were two widespread Communist witchhunts in New York City, one in 1938 and one in 1958. Both relied heavily on 'information'-much of it innuendo and outright falsehood-leaked to newspapers by Moses.37 He went after Joe Papp, trying to cancel his already extraordinarily popular Shakespeare in the Park. In 1958 Papp had been called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He refused to say whether he had been a communist but denied he presently was one and refused to identify friends who were or had been. Moses only learned about this a year later through one of his key a.s.sistants. He sought to cancel Papp, spreading lies that Papp was a "communist of long-standing" who "took the Fifth Amendment again and again." But, as Caro points out, the Senate hearings that brought McCarthy's downfall were in 1954, and this was 1959. Papp was a street fighter and knew how to play to the press as well as Moses and, in this case, better.

MOSES IS BUILT INTO THE SYSTEM TODAY.

But as much damage to urban America that I believe Robert Moses wrought, I, too, long for a new Robert Moses. Why? Because then we would have an easy target to fight as new oversized, heavily public-financed, isolating "demolish and rebuild" projects are proposed and continue to erode our cities.

In New York, if Moses or a look-alike were in charge, it would be a lot easier to fight such plans as the oversized Atlantic Yards development with thirty-three hundred parking s.p.a.ces at one of the best transit hubs in the city,38 new Yankee Stadium parking garages replacing local parks, the Ground Zero separateness, the shopping mall and office-park mentality, and the Willets Point and Columbia University clearance plans. What we actually have is the ghost of Moses haunting the "system." Most big schemes-including new waterfront parks and big developments-bypa.s.s the local review process. Instead, they proceed under the auspices of the Empire State Development Corporation, a state authority that makes all decisions and holds public hearings but is not subject to the same local approval standards, just as Moses invented. new Yankee Stadium parking garages replacing local parks, the Ground Zero separateness, the shopping mall and office-park mentality, and the Willets Point and Columbia University clearance plans. What we actually have is the ghost of Moses haunting the "system." Most big schemes-including new waterfront parks and big developments-bypa.s.s the local review process. Instead, they proceed under the auspices of the Empire State Development Corporation, a state authority that makes all decisions and holds public hearings but is not subject to the same local approval standards, just as Moses invented.

Private developers now get public dollars and tax incentives with impunity. Eminent domain-or just the threat of it-is used more for private profit than legitimate public purposes; Moses used it for what he, at least, defined as a public purpose even if his definition of "slum" was self-serving. Planning departments today are powerless in the face of well-placed developers, a.s.suming those planners even object to the oversized and inappropriate development overwhelming all corners of the city today. Often those planners seem to see their mission as expediting new development, confusing development and planning. Some projects exhibit design appeal, but a well-designed, wrongheaded project is just that-a wrongheaded project well designed. Good design is never enough to overcome inherent urban weaknesses.

Except where public opposition succeeds, citizen partic.i.p.ation is a mirage. Scores of public hearings occur, and negotiations are well publicized. In the end, final agreements reflect what the developer and politicians wanted in the first place, with givebacks built in as sops, creating the illusion of compromise. The final plan has no relation to what a complex, organic addition to a particular place might have been. And the public partic.i.p.ation never comes until the plans and designs are set, not in the beginning when the agenda is formed. At that point, public input can only tinker, not really shape, any plan. In fact, the process today might just as well be designed by Moses. "We have a development czar in New York State now who can override any local control issue," says Kent Barwick, former president of the Munic.i.p.al Art Society, referring to the Empire State Development Corporation. "Robert Moses would be deeply jealous of that authority. It has the power to go in and do what it wants with the vague requirement that it consult with local officials with no public input required." Now, if Robert Moses were here leading all these movements, what a field day we critics would have.

Despite what Moses believed, the end does not justify the means. "Getting Things Done" in a democracy is not as important as what what gets done and gets done and how. how. And on both counts, alternative methods and programs to Moses's would have done New York better, along with the cities that followed its course. Revisionists view him as more constructive than destructive, more builder than demolisher, more a creature of his time than the shaper of his time, and the man we have to thank for the modern city. I disagree. And on both counts, alternative methods and programs to Moses's would have done New York better, along with the cities that followed its course. Revisionists view him as more constructive than destructive, more builder than demolisher, more a creature of his time than the shaper of his time, and the man we have to thank for the modern city. I disagree.

The physical achievements, whether judged good or bad, are undeniably mighty in breadth, scale, and obstacles overcome. But the danger in a revisionist view of history is that it takes on a life of its own. That life often becomes myth, like the incorrect belief that Mussolini "at least got the trains to run on time." Two questions are critical: Did the damage he wrought outweigh the good? My answer is yes. Were alternatives available to meet the city's need for infrastructure, transportation, and neighborhood repair? My answer again is yes. Without Moses, those alternatives had a chance; with Moses, they did not.

If you want to put Moses in a positive light, then favoring the car-centric, lower-density suburban vision of the city goes with it. Fortunately, many understand that under that scenario, cities are doomed. The reviving cities today, in fact, are redensifying; rebuilding local transit; revaluing existing a.s.sets like traditional neighborhoods, historic and plain architecture, and shopping streets; and taking down elevated highways and sky-ways. A good observer can't miss seeing this.

WHOSE URBAN VISION?.

Moses's own view of his era and rationale for his actions was that the city needed saving, but the question should be, "From what?" After the war, cities had problems that needed to be addressed. The infrastructure of existing roads and transit needed repair and expansion. Deteriorated buildings needed upgrading and some replacement. Public facilities needed renovating and additions. Slums were a problem, but how to define the problem and the solution was open to question and debate that Moses would not permit. No consensus existed that wiping out whole working-cla.s.s neighborhoods was a solution to real problems nor that the towers-in-the-park were the answer to anything. Social and economic challenges cannot be met solely by physical creations.

Urban vibrancy had dimmed when resources were directed to the war effort, but the solution was definitely not to demolish whole swaths of the urban fabric and hope that what remained would not fall apart. The value of social and economic networks was greater than the new structures to be built by dispossessing them. Mending the urban fabric, repairing and replacing different pieces around the whole city, could have included many new projects, large and small, but never on the ripping scale of what Moses proposed and never at the same staggering social or financial cost. For example, investing more in the neglected public transit instead of just the convenience of the private car would not have precluded vehicular access, just not made it the priority. Today we struggle to re-create a transportation balance.

Was the city better off after Moses? We had thirteen expressways to help people get in and out of the city, but we had less ma.s.s transit to get people around the city. We had some celebrated new projects like Lincoln Center, the United Nations, the Coliseum (now gone, replaced by Time-Warner Center), and a money-losing 1964 World's Fair that gave the city Flus.h.i.+ng Meadow Park. But we still had a crumbling infrastructure and a maintenance burden for the new projects that continue to cost dearly. And as investigative reporter Fred J. Cook wrote about Moses's slum-clearance program in a 1956 expose in the World-Telegram and Sun World-Telegram and Sun: "It is a system under which neighborhoods actually have deteriorated; it is a system under which the number of apartments, already inadequate, has been reduced for years to come. It is a system . . . beginning again the cycle of overcrowding and bad housing that creates slums." And as architect and planner Robert Goodman observed, "The inhabitants of our dormitories for the poor have all the 'symptoms' of poverty as those living in adjacent tenement areas, without even the consolation of the corner stores, storefront churches, street life and lack of bureaucratic administration of their old 'slum.'"39 DENSITY IS NOT THE PROBLEM.

Moses and many planners since made the fundamental mistake of thinking density was the problem, failing to distinguish between density and overcrowding. Diminis.h.i.+ng density, which almost all urban renewal and slum-clearance projects did and still do, does not diminish or solve problems. Problems are just s.h.i.+fted elsewhere and, in fact, exacerbated as new units built are rarely in the same quant.i.ty as those destroyed. Fewer units mean more chances of overcrowding.

Density is critical to vibrant urbanism. Ma.s.s transit, local retail and the jobs that go with it, well-used public s.p.a.ces, and other elements of genuine urbanism can't survive without density. Car-based neighborhoods in a city function like suburbs out of the city. They are holes in the urban fabric, undermining the whole by weakening specific parts. There are, as the late New York Times New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp described, "projects physically located in a community but contributing little value to it." And as Jacobs explained, "Densities are too low or too high when they frustrate city diversity instead of abetting it." architecture critic Herbert Muschamp described, "projects physically located in a community but contributing little value to it." And as Jacobs explained, "Densities are too low or too high when they frustrate city diversity instead of abetting it."40 They can't be determined by the formulas and ratios planners favor. They can't be determined by the formulas and ratios planners favor.

Moses diminished both density and the number of affordable dwellings, thus guaranteeing continued overcrowding. He also guaranteed inflexible projects that stood like islands apart from areas of the city that would eventually dynamically and organically rebuild themselves around those islands. The real causes of slums were unaffected and in many cases made worse.

Ironically, today people a.s.sume that high-rise means high density when, in fact, the modest low-rise mixture of individual buildings bulldozed for urban renewal was higher in density than the tower replacements that were purposely less dense than what was demolished.41 Three- or four-family modest-scale houses built close together with tenements and slightly higher but still small apartment houses in between provided the density of once vibrant neighborhoods. That is what was lost. Today, this same density is so admired and expensive in Brooklyn. Three- or four-family modest-scale houses built close together with tenements and slightly higher but still small apartment houses in between provided the density of once vibrant neighborhoods. That is what was lost. Today, this same density is so admired and expensive in Brooklyn.

The myth of density was so promoted that today the idea remains pervasive that density causes crime, poverty, and other urban ills. Ironically, in communities where density has either been thinned or resisted, overcrowding is often the result.

THE SOCIAL AND PSYCHIC DIMENSION.

Moses dismissed all suggestions of alternatives to total clearance and to the misery caused by displacement. "No one has yet suggested a way to clear slums without dislocating people," he said. He was correct. Clear slums without dislocation, no; regenerate slums with minimum dislocation, yes. One is strictly physical and simple, the other organic and complex.

But what were the causes of slums? Redlining, racism, blockbusting, land speculation, disinvestment, rent gouging by slumlords, migration of rural Southerners into the city, and the gradual departure of the middle cla.s.s all undermined healthy urban neighborhoods across the country. Slum clearance solved none of these problems and, in fact, exacerbated many of them, especially land speculation, racism, and poverty.

Urban renewal and highway building reduced the number of low-income housing units, dislocated between five hundred thousand and one million people in a city of approximately eight million, and increased rents for many, all while providing a financial bonanza for private interests. Those interests profited from slum-clearance land sales, construction loans, and subsidies. The kind of societal damage described earlier by Elizabeth Yampierre was the result. Much of the social dysfunction created by such dislocation led to so many of the social problems that peaked in the 1970s. "Indeed, when the construction was done, the real ruin of the Bronx had just begun," wrote author and CUNY political science professor Marshall Berman, who as a child was displaced by the Cross Bronx Expressway.42 The impact of serial displacement was already a citywide issue in 1958. Only Caro has focused on the human side to a notable extent and only in the one case of the Cross Bronx Expressway. The dimension of the problem and its lasting impact were and are citywide. Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove, professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia, wrote a revealing book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It, a.n.a.lyzing in excruciating detail the social and psychological effects of the displacement caused by urban renewal and highway construction in cities. Her study covered several cities, with similar patterns appearing in each. Referring to the effects of all the cataclysmic disruption, serial dislocation, and the shattering of the critical web of social connections and familial relations.h.i.+ps, she wrote: It was in a state of overwhelming injury that black people faced a series of crises: the loss of unskilled jobs, the influx of heroin and other addictive drugs, the slow collapse of the family, and the incursion of AIDS, violence, asthma, and obesity. Each disaster increased the impact of the next, and the spiral of community disintegration began to spin faster and faster, just as the last domino seems to fall much more quickly than the first. The present state of Black America is in no small measure the result of "Negro removal."

That is a powerful conclusion, one that most officials ignore or reject rather than take seriously. "We have had a series of policies that continue to displace people," Fullilove noted, "and no real policies to stabilize places."43 The poor are just placeholders for the next development plan, she observed. The value of the places they are relocated to is destroyed and then can be bought cheap when the time is right. Any genuine stabilization plan or policy, Fullilove argued, echoing Jacobs's articulation of "unslumming," would include investment in an area while keeping the people in place. This preserves the social networks and all the other components of a stable urban neighborhood. The poor are just placeholders for the next development plan, she observed. The value of the places they are relocated to is destroyed and then can be bought cheap when the time is right. Any genuine stabilization plan or policy, Fullilove argued, echoing Jacobs's articulation of "unslumming," would include investment in an area while keeping the people in place. This preserves the social networks and all the other components of a stable urban neighborhood.

The bottom line is that social dislocation, whether in small numbers or large, is a primary cause of urban instability, costly to the people affected, and costly to the larger city. This is not just logical, an a.s.sumption easily understood by anyone who recognizes the authentic urban process. But it is also shown to be true in clinical studies that Fullilove and others have conducted. Between 1991 and 1995, for example, Fullilove interviewed people living in randomly selected households in Harlem. Of those interviewed, twenty-five reported that they had been homeless at some point in their lives. An astounding 25 percent had come from dislocated homes and had been separated from their parents for at least a year prior to the age of eighteen. Some experienced both. "This geographic area," Fullilove points out in conversation, "experienced dramatic disinvestment where familial and social bonds had come apart." What keeps people healthy, she adds, are the "social connections and social solidarity that come with dense social networks."

THE RESURGENT CITY.

The city hit bottom in the 1970s. The spiral of urban decay had descended pretty low, following the ma.s.sive disruption caused by the Moses era. The worst damage was done. The rest was left to burn through most of the 1970s.

Between 1950 and 1975, the city lost one million people. The federal money for big clearance projects eventually either diminished drastically or went dry. Forced to change course, government leaders found new, creative solutions, often following citizen-led efforts. The natural organic process that was taking root around the city finally had a chance to take hold and grow. Where successful, that process enhanced rather than displaced the rich a.s.sortment of people, culture, and economy we now celebrate. The unarticulated strategy was to improve conditions and lives where they lived, not try to move people around, what Jacobs described as "unslumming." Unslumming comes not when new people are moving in but when people choose to stay, make their own neighborhoods. This is distinguished from gentrification.

What has evolved organically since the 1970s is exactly what was advocated by Moses's critics, first led by attorney and housing activist Charles Abrams and later Jacobs, Whyte, and others. Demolish judiciously. Replace the unrepairable strategically. Leave standing viable buildings ranging from modest apartment houses to structurally sound tenements to run-down brownstones in need of remodeling. Discourage erosion of industrial s.p.a.ce. Invest in transit. Respect and enhance existing schools, community services, and social inst.i.tutions, all of which contribute to the critical social fabric necessary for stable neighborhoods and cannot be created from scratch. This strategy-Urban Husbandry was how I described it in The Living City The Living City-left plenty of room for needed demolition of the hopeless tenement or commercial building. But the basic stability of socially cohesive neighborhoods was not further destroyed. And a good deal of the city's wide variety of economic activity was not ma.s.sively dislodged. (Studies have shown that one-third of dispossessed firms went out of business-a rate significantly above normal business failures.) Revisionists argue that Moses did what he did because of his love for the city. Even that is questionable. He didn't love New York City as much as he loved his view of what it should should be, how it be, how it should should function, what function, what should should replace it. He reshaped New York in his image and with it cities near and far. As Lewis Mumford points out, "In the 20th century, the influence of Robert Moses on the cities of America was greater than that of any other person." replace it. He reshaped New York in his image and with it cities near and far. As Lewis Mumford points out, "In the 20th century, the influence of Robert Moses on the cities of America was greater than that of any other person."

Of all the harmful urban strategies Moses perpetrated, none is as long-lasting and economically destructive as the idea that industry was either dying or dispensable or that its location is easily manipulated. As we will see next, Moses's thinking on this subject remains fully ingrained in the thinking of New York's city planners with the power to continue what Moses unleashed.

6.

THE FACTORY.

The Secret Life of New York Industry Urban manufacturing is mostly unrecognized by economic development experts, or seen as an anachronism. This is a mistake.SASKIA Sa.s.sEN, economist

A city is a settlement that consistently generates its economic growth from its own local economy.JANE JACOBS, The Economy of Cities Donald and I were married in May 1965, five months after I became a full reporter. We returned from our honeymoon, and without telling him, I changed my byline from Roberta Brandes to Roberta Gratz. It did not seriously occur to me to keep my maiden name, something so many professional women do today, including our two daughters, Laura and Rebecca. But three months later my father died. I learned from my mother that my father had been saddened-though he did not tell me-that I had dropped the family name. In his memory-not for feminist reasons-I retrieved the maiden name and changed the byline to Roberta Brandes Gratz. To some of the editors this was a nuisance at best, an annoyance at worst.1 6.1 Ramsammy Pullay, nicknamed Dez, has been with the company since 1996. Here he is "benching" or bending a steel furniture component. Joshua Velez Joshua Velez.

Donald, like me, had been living in the city with no interest in leaving. He had moved in happily after college, having grown up in Pelham, a near-in Westchester suburb. He took a one-room ground-floor apartment facing a small courtyard on East Twenty-sixth Street. He walked to work.

In 1955 Donald had joined the family metal fabrication business, started in 1929 by his father and a partner.2 Metal fabrication simply means a process by which objects are made out of metal. Steel, aluminum, and copper, primarily, are bent, drilled, welded, polished, and a.s.sembled into chairs, tables, architectural elements, exercise equipment, and custom-designed objects. None of this is ma.s.s produced. Instead, skilled and semiskilled workmen individually operate the a.s.sorted machines that make up the process. Treitel-Gratz (now Gratz Industries) was located on the sixth floor of a six-story loft building on East Thirty-second Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. Metal fabrication simply means a process by which objects are made out of metal. Steel, aluminum, and copper, primarily, are bent, drilled, welded, polished, and a.s.sembled into chairs, tables, architectural elements, exercise equipment, and custom-designed objects. None of this is ma.s.s produced. Instead, skilled and semiskilled workmen individually operate the a.s.sorted machines that make up the process. Treitel-Gratz (now Gratz Industries) was located on the sixth floor of a six-story loft building on East Thirty-second Street between Lexington and Third Avenues.

Watching the fate of this building and business unfold was for me another source of learning about both the changing city and the working of the urban economy. The evolution of the Gratz family business continues to be instructive, just as my own father's dry-cleaning business provided urban lessons. Gratz Industries, like most city manufacturers, faces an ever-changing array of challenges from both the national economy and city policies. More than eighty years old, it is as contemporary as it ever was.3 A 1997 report, Designed in New York/Made in New York Designed in New York/Made in New York, noted about the city's "large, complex manufacturing sector": "Although manufacturing in New York struggles with high costs and a continual need to reinvent itself, the frequent public p.r.o.nouncements of its demise are, as the pundit said, premature. Twelve thousand firms employing a quarter of a million production workers endow New York with what is still one of the densest concentrations of manufacturing in the United States."4 MANUFACTURING: EVER CHANGING.

Treitel-Gratz had moved to Thirty-second Street in the 1930s from a small brownstone on lower Lexington where it started in the 1920s. The East Thirties were filled with furniture manufacturers. By the 1960s, an a.s.sortment of small manufacturers and esoteric businesses occupied this loft building: a menu printer, a bra manufacturer, a cabinetmaker, three decorative wood finishers, a manufacturer of machines for glove makers, a type-setter, an umbrella manufacturer, a drapery and slipcover maker, a dinette furniture seller, a gold stamper, a store display maker, and a woman who raised rats. Quite a combination! Some of the businesses worked together on special jobs and were spontaneously and conveniently cl.u.s.tered for the decorating trade. We did metalwork for the cabinetmaker and store display maker and used the upholsterer when we needed that work. Everyone did odd jobs for one another. It is difficult to place a monetary or operational value on this kind of synergy. "By the early 1930s, the company had established itself as the metal shop of choice for, among others, the celebrated industrial designer Donald Deskey," wrote Charles Gandee in an article about the company t.i.tled "Heavy Metal" in the New York Times Home Design Magazine New York Times Home Design Magazine in spring 2003. Deskey was then doing the celebrated interior furniture for Radio City Music Hall, including the Art Moderne furniture for the office of the great impresario S. L. Rothafel, known as Roxy. Other great industrial designers, like Raymond Loewy with his iconic Coca-Cola machine, George Nelson with his furniture prototypes, and John Ebstein with his toy models for Gabriel Industries, were also customers. The company's history parallels the history of twentieth-century design. in spring 2003. Deskey was then doing the celebrated interior furniture for Radio City Music Hall, including the Art Moderne furniture for the office of the great impresario S. L. Rothafel, known as Roxy. Other great industrial designers, like Raymond Loewy with his iconic Coca-Cola machine, George Nelson with his furniture prototypes, and John Ebstein with his toy models for Gabriel Industries, were also customers. The company's history parallels the history of twentieth-century design.

In 1948, Hans Knoll, a German emigre, wanted to bring the furniture of legendary Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe to the United States and enlisted the company to engineer and manufacture the Mies line of chairs and tables now considered cla.s.sics-Barcelona, Bruno, Tugendhat-all first exhibited at the 1929 International Industrial Exposition in Barcelona. In 1958 architect Philip Johnson turned to Deskey for the interior of the Four Seasons Restaurant when it opened in the base of the Mies-designed Seagram Building on Park Avenue that was also filled with Mies furniture. Johnson was a protege of Mies and coarchitect on the building, and he designed the restaurant interior with Garth Huxtable. That restaurant, a city-designated interior landmark, was-and still is-furnished with the cla.s.sic Mies furniture.

In the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, American furniture design was in its heyday. Treitel-Gratz furniture and metalwork were going into scores of new office buildings in New York, Chicago, and other cities and suburbs, especially those designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill.

But aside from the building interiors, Knoll furniture, a line of furniture designed by Nicos Zographos, and the industrial-design model work, most of Treitel-Gratz business in the 1950s and early 1960s was actually precision sheet metal for electronic equipment, before that field of work moved to California with the aircraft industry. But as can-and often must-happen in any kind of business, especially manufacturing, as one product line diminishes or moves away, another fills the spot. It happened for Treitel-Gratz as the art world was transformed in the 1960s. Isamu Noguchi had long been a customer for many of his metal sculptures since the 1940s, but Alexander Liberman was the first of a new group of sculptors who came to Treitel-Gratz not just for its reputation for skillful implementation and metal craftsmans.h.i.+p but because of its proximity to Manhattan. Liberman often visited the shop and worked alongside one of our machinists.

People fail to understand the importance of New York City-based manufacturing if they don't recognize the value that industry has to the fields, like art and architecture, for which the city is famous. For designers, being able to implement ideas locally is critical to their craft. Surely, it was true for the long line of leading artists, architects, and furniture designers who pa.s.sed through our factory. We've always been convenient to a subway. "Urban manufacturing needs to be done where it is used," observes Columbia University professor Saskia Sa.s.sen, who has written several books on global capital and the mobility of labor. "This is not an old, outdated condition but a very contemporary one. This is not about the past; this is cutting edge. The specialized service economy demands it; the new economy needs this kind of manufacturing." Designers benefit from proximity in many ways but none so important as what architect David Childs calls "the knowledge of the skilled workers who operate the machines, work with the materials and understand what those can do. They know things you can't put in books. Designers need that knowledge more than ever."

THE CHANGING ART WORLD CHANGED US.

In the 1960s Alexander Liberman brought sculptor Barnett Newman to the shop. Newman subsequently brought in a whole group of young Minimalists who were either his friends or proteges, all little known. The Minimalists were changing the nature of contemporary art. Many of them made a big splash with the 1966 Minimalist show Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum. That landmark exhibit defined the Minimalist movement. Donald Judd, Walter De Maria, Sol Lewitt, Robert Rauschenberg, Forrest Myers, Michael Heizer, Robert Indiana, and more-it was a cast of soon-to-be stars.

Just as the company history parallels the evolution of interior and industrial design of the twentieth century, so does it parallel the evolution of the Minimalist and post-Abstract Expressionist art that emerged in the 1960s when the center of the art world s.h.i.+fted from Paris to New York. In New York, the art scene s.h.i.+fted from the Upper East Side to SoHo with the new trend in larger and larger artworks and the opening of the Paula Cooper Gallery in 1967. Key artists exhibiting there came to us.

From the 1960s on, office furniture, custom metalwork, and sculpture dominated. As the field of architecture evolved, so did the content of our production. I. M. Pei, Charles Gwathmey, Deborah Burke, Masimo and Lila Vignelli, Robert A. M. Stern, James Polshek, and Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and others, looked to the company to solve fabrication challenges.

Change is inevitable in manufacturing. One big change with a company like ours can s.h.i.+ft the whole picture. In the mid-1960s, Knoll took its business away to its own manufacturing operation in Pennsylvania. At the same time, a new item for production was added. Romana Kryzanowska, the chosen successor to innovative exercise master Joseph Pilates, came to Donald to produce metal exercise equipment, long before his Pilates Method became the rage. In time, Pilates exercise equipment surpa.s.sed custom metalwork and furniture as the company's primary product.

6.2 Barnett Newman with his first steel sculpture, Here II Here II (1965), at Gratz Industries. (1965), at Gratz Industries. Ugo Mulas, courtesy of the Barnett Newman Foundation. Ugo Mulas, courtesy of the Barnett Newman Foundation.

Like many New York manufacturers, our work goes all over the country and abroad, more heavily abroad with the weak dollar. But also, like many local companies, our work is part of the fabric of the city, in homes, museums, offices, building lobbies, and the public realm-Maya Lin's Time Piece Time Piece in Penn Station, the b.u.t.ton and needle in the Garment District, the Martinelli sculpture on the facade of the United Nations, the Robert Indiana in Penn Station, the b.u.t.ton and needle in the Garment District, the Martinelli sculpture on the facade of the United Nations, the Robert Indiana LOVE LOVE sculpture at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street, and the stainless steel and gla.s.s Bank of America sculptural logo hanging in the lobby of its new building at Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue. As the city loses businesses like ours, often unnecessarily, the ability diminishes to design or invent and fabricate locally. As the report sculpture at Sixth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street, and the stainless steel and gla.s.s Bank of America sculptural logo hanging in the lobby of its new building at Forty-second Street and Sixth Avenue. As the city loses businesses like ours, often unnecessarily, the ability diminishes to design or invent and fabricate locally. As the report Designed in New York/Made in New York Designed in New York/Made in New York noted, "New York is home to a highly evolved manufacturing sector, which . . . retains a strong core of production facilities capable of producing goods for world markets. Many of these manufacturers produce for the design-driven market. Fas.h.i.+on, jewelry, publis.h.i.+ng, advertising, and marketing-these are New York City's best-known industries in which design plays a key role. But designers are also essential in other lower profile but important New York industries such as custom furniture, architectural woodwork and metal, accessories, lighting fixtures and toys." noted, "New York is home to a highly evolved manufacturing sector, which . . . retains a strong core of production facilities capable of producing goods for world markets. Many of these manufacturers produce for the design-driven market. Fas.h.i.+on, jewelry, publis.h.i.+ng, advertising, and marketing-these are New York City's best-known industries in which design plays a key role. But designers are also essential in other lower profile but important New York industries such as custom furniture, architectural woodwork and metal, accessories, lighting fixtures and toys."

In fact, the whole country still manufactures much more than is popularly understood. America remains by far the biggest manufacturing economy in the world, producing more by half than China and two-thirds more than j.a.pan. This is difficult to comprehend because all sorts of primarily technological innovations have increased productivity and diminished dependency on a large labor force. That labor is now increasingly higher skilled than before.5 THE INDUSTRIAL NETWORK IS COMPLEX.

Manufacturers form a complex web of similar and disparate operators that function both individually and interdependently. The modest and small scale of most of these manufacturers allows for considerable flexibility, quick production, and innovation. As Scott E. Page, professor of complex systems, political science, and economics and author of The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies, told the New York Times New York Times: "New York City is the perfect example of diversity functioning well. It's an exciting place that produces lots of innovation and creativity. It's not a coincidence that New York has so much energy and also so much diversity."6 The ability of the designer to partic.i.p.ate in the fabrication process can be critical, especially since so much of local manufacturing is customized work. In 2007, for example, we fabricated at the behest of Gensler, the national design firm, a rather complicated floor-to-ceiling bronze screen for the lobby of the Park Avenue UBS office building. Ed Wood, the princ.i.p.al at Gensler who designed and engineered the screen, made frequent trips to both the factory and our affiliated s.p.a.ce in Harlem where the ma.s.sive screen was a.s.sembled. Most of the fabrication occurred at the factory, but specialized parts requiring machinery we didn't have were produced by a Bronx fabricator. A patinator in Beacon, New York, another fabricator in New Jersey, an engineer in Ma.s.sachusetts, a rigger in Philadelphia, and a score of local shops all had a hand in this complex structure. At one time, all of these operations could be found in the scattered industrial neighborhoods of New York. No more. And while most of the work stays local, or not far away, the proximity issue makes a difference at every step of the process and in the final cost. Our complex, mostly local network of suppliers numbers close to 150 businesses.

While "experts" have long been quick to declare manufacturing dead in New York and other places around the country, many manufacturing companies like Gratz Industries stay very much alive if flexible enough to adjust to changing times and and if not undermined by government policies. Too often, industrial districts are declared "blighted" when many diversified businesses exist in the seemingly run-down a.s.sortment of industrial s.p.a.ces. if not undermined by government policies. Too often, industrial districts are declared "blighted" when many diversified businesses exist in the seemingly run-down a.s.sortment of industrial s.p.a.ces.

In an article t.i.tled "The Changing Face of Manufacturing in New York City," Sara P. Garretson, executive director of ITAC, the Industrial Technology a.s.sistance Corporation, wrote: "No question, manufacturing has experienced a drastic decline. The cost of doing business here (particularly labor, energy and taxes) has driven away many manufacturers who depend on high value volume and narrow profit margins. Land costs discourage companies that need to expand, particularly those that want large, single-floor production facilities, and environmental regulations have hampered others. The manufacturers who thrive here offer a wealth of lessons the city can use to stabilize, or even expand, its manufacturing base."7 Few factory buildings or their districts ever look spiffy. Architecturally, they range from the design worthy to the plain. But together they form a comprehensible pattern built over time as industry evolved. Significantly, industrial neighborhoods contain a mix of scale that accommodates the large factory or the small job shop with residential buildings scattered throughout. The mix of buildings and uses is exactly what sustains the district if not knocked off balance by inappropriate rezoning.

The uneducated or uncurious observer would be unaware of what productive businesses exist in such areas that play an important role in the city's overall economy and social fabric. Few city officials or planners comprehend or appreciate the hodgepodge, gritty nature of an industrial district, nor do they want to. As architecture professor John A. Loomis wrote in the Livable City Livable City article "Manufacturing Communities-Learning from Mixed Use": "Mixed-use neighborhoods defy neat zoning categories. They are mature communities with integrated networks of activities and building types, woven together over many years from countless incremental, often spontaneous acts of building. They are often inhabited by one or more distinct ethnic groups, which contribute to a rich cultural life." article "Manufacturing Communities-Learning from Mixed Use": "Mixed-use neighborhoods defy neat zoning categories. They are mature communities with integrated networks of activities and building types, woven together over many years from countless incremental, often spontaneous acts of building. They are often inhabited by one or more distinct ethnic groups, which contribute to a rich cultural life."8 The city's Planning Department is quick to measure an area when it can show a statistical decline in the number of businesses as justification for an already planned upzoning. Rarely are surveys designed to show an area's hidden strength. One former Planning Department staffer conducted a very revealing survey in the 1990s of Brooklyn's Greenpoint and Williamsburg waterfronts about to be rezoned. "Don't show me those maps of job density," a hostile department boss said. The genuine survey with door-to-door canva.s.sing to really understand what was going on undermined the p.r.o.nounced a.s.sumption that a residential rezoning was in order and would have no negative effect. Honest surveys actually reveal what is needed to improve business rather than replace it. New innovations and new businesses in the incubating stage become known. In fact, one former staff planner says, "They made it clear they did not want to know."

"City government needs to protect the opportunity for new things to get a foothold and live," Jacobs said. "Just keeping things open for opportunity is important. Opportunity, not necessity, is the mother of invention."

URBAN RENEWAL INTERFERES.

Manufacturers, like any business, experience many ups and downs but survive if they can change with market demand. But undisturbed was not to be for Gratz Industries. The story of Gratz Industries should not be viewed as unique. Similar tales are found in all cities.

In the early 1960s, the entire Thirty-second Street block-a mixture of small apartment houses, industrial lofts, and six-story tenements-was condemned for urban renewal to make way for a post office. Because emptying some of the buildings on the site, especially one apartment house around the corner, was a politically hot topic, Senator James Buckley opposed the project. That killed it but not before most of the properties had been condemned as blighted, businesses and residents displaced, and then properties demolished.

The block had exhibited traditional urban vitality, regardless of its worn look. No vacancies existed. In each building, a new tenant appeared when one moved out. Pedestrians filled the street. Shopping and other uses drew them nearby. But, by law, to be an official "Urban Renewal" site, the block had to be declared "blighted." Blighted, in this case, as with so many others, simply means the property is wanted for a different purpose from the one for which it is currently used: That the Thirty-second Street buildings were filled with economically viable uses was irrelevant. That the buildings were merely neglected by owners waiting for a lucrative government buyout was irrelevant. That the buildings could have been economically renovated and upgraded, like thousands of similar surviving properties around the city have since, was irrelevant.

The only relevant fact was, as usual, simple: a new development agenda was set, and manufacturing was not on it. This was just like what was ill.u.s.trated in the chapters about Greenwich Village and SoHo. Manufacturers and manufacturing districts have experienced this over and over and not just in New York. This is not not a natural process; it is about real estate. a natural process; it is about real estate.

The federal government continued to own the cleared Thirty-second Street site after the post office project died. Empty land is a monumental lost opportunity in cities everywhere. In this case, it was even more: an unnecessary loss of economic diversity. Years later the land was sold to a private developer. The federal Urban Renewal program was notorious for condemning privately privately owned property for a owned property for a public public purpose with the help of eminent domain, then eventually selling it to another purpose with the help of eminent domain, then eventually selling it to another private private property owner. This still happens today and is a source of great injustice. The abuse of eminent domain is a scandal of national proportions. property owner. This still happens today and is a source of great injustice. The abuse of eminent domain is a scandal of national proportions.

Until a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Kelo v. New London) in 2005, the purpose of eminent domain was understood to have been primarily for taking private property for a public purpose such as school construction, roads, public utilities, or other clearly public uses. Over time, however, this fundamental idea had been corrupted to permit the taking of private property from one owner to give to another private owner, this time a real estate developer or commercial user.

All over the country, small businesses have been erased by eminent domain to make way for shopping centers, big box stores, or corporate office parks. Modest, middle-cla.s.s residential communities have been partially or completely erased for a commercial, so-called mixed-use project of a grand scale or for a stadium or casino.

One woman, Susette Kelo, a divorced nurse, renovated a falling-down Victorian house. She and her neighbors in New London, Connecticut, had watched neighboring land confiscated for development that hadn't even materialized, again empty land representing an erasure of economic and social value. This area was once the heart of a downtown community that many cities once had but lost to "renewal" projects over time. These were traditional areas where people walked to work, to shop, to school, or to the movies, the very kind of neighborhoods experiencing great popularity today where they still exist. Susette Kelo and her neighbors sued to stay. The city wanted their land as part of a Comprehensive Plan that included condos, a hotel, and labs for Pfizer, Inc. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, ending with a decision broadening government's power of eminent domain.9 Jane Jacobs, who didn't oppose eminent domain in principle, contributed to the brief and noted: "Eminent domain is being terribly abused, almost as a war-making instrument, an instrument of force, not being used decently." Enormous repercussions have ensued across the country since the decision. Jane Jacobs, who didn't oppose eminent domain in principle, contributed to the brief and noted: "Eminent domain is being terribly abused, almost as a war-making instrument, an instrument of force, not being used decently." Enormous repercussions have ensued across the country since the decision.

And, as on Thirty-second Street, this urban renewal project has been another debacle. Eight years later, no construction has occurred. The land is empty. The promised 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenue never materialized. Developers, desperate to obtain financing, even applied to HUD for taxpayer-backed loans to build luxury rental housing. So far $78 million in public funds have been spent on the project with nothing to show for it but ninety acres of emptiness and lost businesses, jobs, and retail uses, disrupting lives and erasing a community. Quite a definition of economic development. (In November 2009 Pfizer Inc., for whose expansion the land was cleared, announced the closing of its already huge New London R&D headquarters and made plans to sell or base those offices and leave New London entirely.) TO LONG ISLAND CITY.

In 1967, with the impending demolition of the Thirty-second Street building, Gratz Industries moved across the Queensborough (Fifty-ninth Street) Bridge to Long Island City, Queens, where it remains today. The first move was to a rental building. Then we purchased the current eleven-thousand-square-foot cinderblock building in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge. At the time, Long Island City, on the east side of the East River across from Sutton Place, was primarily a manufacturing district, the city's most concentrated industrial district outside Manhattan. Three subway lines, the Long Island Railroad, and the Long Island Expressway are all accessible here. Tenements, small apartment houses, apartments over retail shops, and even a one-block designated historic district of brownstones mark the area. Enclaves of cla.s.sic working-cla.s.s areas in Long Island City have shops, churches, small workshops, and single-family homes. The majority of firms are like ours with twenty-five employees or less. Within its 330 blocks are twelve hundred industrial firms employing forty-five thousand people.

6.3 Gratz Industries today in Long Island City. Mural was painted by a local youth organization. David Rosencrans David Rosencrans.

The proximity to Manhattan was critical to the location choice, since our customers are mostly Manhattan based. And Long Island City was filled with the kind of suppliers we used, minutes away as unantic.i.p.ated needs arose during the manufacturing process. This complex and delicate a.s.sortment of seemingly unrelated businesses enables all to network easily among themselves. Even the gas station next door to our present location has found need for our services and we for theirs. Time is money in any business, and these critical connections make this delicate economic network work.

Taking the business out of New York never tempted Donald. Fully one-third of the district's businesses moved from Manhattan.10 The upholsterer moved to Long Island City, too. Several of the businesses from Thirty-second Street closed for good, years earlier than they otherwise would have. Others scattered. Several left the state. Some would have evolved into different businesses, if not fatally disturbed. Undoubtedly, some of them would have disappeared naturally as their markets dried up or they sold out to larger companies, but, as can be observed today in similar types of buildings, new businesses would have moved in. Furthermore, just because a business might eventually close doesn't justify closing it down before its time and denying the business owner the opportunity to sell profitably to a subsequent owner or to reinvent the business. The upholsterer moved to Long Island City, too. Several of the businesses from Thirty-second Street closed for good, years earlier than they otherwise would have. Others scattered. Several left the state. Some would have evolved into different businesses, if not fatally disturbed. Undoubtedly, some of them would have disappeared naturally as their markets dried up or they sold out to larger companies, but, as can be observed today in similar types of buildings, new businesses would have moved in. Furthermore, just because a business might eventually close doesn't justify closing it down before its time and denying the business owner the opportunity to sell profitably to a subsequent owner or to reinvent the business.

Many companies manage to reinvent themselves, as New York Times New York Times economics editor Catherine Rampell has demonstrated. With a combination of "perseverance, creativity, versatility and luck," she notes, many companies have survived, and some, like IBM, have transformed themselves many times. Few remember, as she points out, for example, that radio was p.r.o.nounced dead in 1953 with the advent of television. "But the industry revitalized itself by tapping into new markets," such as "the youth music market, congregating around the car radio . . . longer-form news and talk radio." economics editor Catherine Rampell has demonstrated. With a combination of "perseverance, creativity, versatility and luck," she notes, many companies have survived, and some, like IBM, have transformed themselves many times. Few remember, as she points out, for example, that radio was p.r.o.nounced dead in 1953 with the advent of television. "But the industry revitalized itself by tapping into new markets," such as "the youth music market, congregating around the car radio . . . longer-form news and talk radio."11 Gratz Industries reflects this pattern, and our production a.s.sortment continues to evolve. Some of it stays the same, like the cla.s.sic modern furniture and Pilates equipment. Some of it continues in a different form; the cast of architects, industrial designers, and sculptors changes. New markets open up, like interior work for hotels, high-end retail stores, and restaurants in New York and abroad. And who could have predicted a renewed interest in Modernist furniture, giving us an opportunity to again manufacture Modernist pieces long out of production, or the global spread of Pilates, with our equipment in demand from Sweden to South America to Russia?

Some materials, like bronze, or processes, like chrome plating, are too costly to offer easily. And some items are more cost-effective to outsource. But all of these are normal adjustments in any business. Yet the skills of our twenty-five or thirty workers-machinists, welders, benders, polishers-remain applicable, as adjustments come along. And our pay scale and health insurance-as in all manufacturing-are probably double the pay of chain-store retail or tourist industry services, the kind of businesses whose job-creation ability is overpromised by city officials. And unlike chain stores and hotels, our profits stay in the local economy.

6.4 Pilates Cla.s.sic Reformer is the primary piece of Pilates equipment. The whole Pilates line is now a major portion of our business.

Our employees mirror blue-collar New York. The city's production workforce is 63 percent immigrant and 78 percent people of color, similar to ours. In cla.s.sic manufacturing form, some employees come with one or no skills and learn new ones as they move along. A few have been with the company for ten, fifteen, even thirty years.

As the number of New York businesses employing these kind of workers diminishes, the opportunities disappear for blue-collar workers and the immigrants who keep coming. Yet these employees live in neighborhoods around the city, support local stores, send their kids to local schools, fill church pews, and volunteer in civic activities. They are not suburban commuters. They pay local taxes. None would find a place on Wall Street or in the tourist industry to which the city so heavily caters.

INDUSTRIAL s.p.a.cE IS BEING NIBBLED AWAY.

In recent years, Long Island City has gone through a number of zoning changes that have eroded its status as the heart of industrial New York. City Hall and the Planning Department, through several administrations, have devalued and dismissed the importance of this district. Such a view can only be based on ignorance. Notes Professor Sa.s.sen, "City agencies don't understand this aspect of the economy. Misunderstanding continues since the 1980s that we need only luxury office buildings. New York has steadily been getting rid of or shrinking industrial zones. They fail to distinguish between what can leave the city and what benefits from being in the city." Sa.s.sen is a world-renowned economist known for her specialized knowledge and understanding of urban economies, with several books to her credit. She is called upon and listened to in cities around the globe, but the message she has been delivering to New York for several decades has fallen on deaf ears. She has repeated these messages many times over the years, noting years ago, for example, that the "ripple (or 'multiplier') effects of manufacturing in the regional economy are as much as one third larger than those of comparable service sector activities." Her voice is not alone.

A 2003 report, Engine Failure Engine Failure, by the Center for an Urban Future and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, suggested a dramatic s.h.i.+ft by the city away from traditional FIRE (finance, insurance, and real estate) businesses, large-scale commercial properties, and policies that increa