Article Archive

For nine years we have been writing about New York city and state government. For the most part, when one writes a column, it is to call public attention to a situation which requires correction. Relatively few columns are devoted to the praise of an individual or agency, unless such good work has been bookmarked by those with authority.

This does not mean that we view the government as doing badly on the whole. If one were to do a thorough review, one would find different scores for different agencies, just as a report card could find a student strong in some areas and deficient in others. There are some leaders in government who possess exceptional merit, and there are others whose functioning is below par. Sometimes they are propped up by deputy mayors, City Hall staff, or their own deputy and assistant commissioners, who they either appointed or inherited, or were imposed on them by actors either seeking to help or undermine the hapless commissioner.

NOTE: A few of you already know most of this history, but the majority will pick up some information which is no longer widely disseminated in 2011. It helps us to know what happened years ago, and how history sometimes repeats itself and sometimes does not. The dispositive rule in some cases is 25-W: What goes around, comes around, or, put more briefly and crudely, 15-P: Payback is a bitch.

New York City politics has changed considerably in the last half century. For one thing, the characters are of diminished stature. For another, more have been unseated by prosecutors than by electoral rivals.