A WET SUMMER RECALLS
A DROUGHT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
By Henry J. Stern
August 11, 2003
The most notable feature of July and August in New York is
that it has been the wettest summer that most of us can remember. That's
good for the parks, which are greener than usual. But it doesn't help
much else, particularly when the high humidity makes people so uncomfortable.
There is nothing any one can do about it, the newspapers report that fifty
people died in a heat wave in France. I recall past summers when the
enemy was drought. In those years the grass turned brown and died off.
To relieve heat, Parks has about seventy swimming pools around the city,
all free and open to the public, except when it is raining. But most
people prefer to retreat to air conditioned places (if they have access to
them) and wait out the heat and the storms that follow.
My most vivid memory relating to rain and drought goes back
to the summer of 1966. That was Mayor Lindsay's first year, and to
improve staff morale and togetherness, the administration through Sid Davidoff
obtained movie tickets for a crowd of his appointees. The picture we
saw one night was "The Endless Summer", a popular film on surfing which was
shown for many years. Its early run was at the Kips Bay Theater.
That year, New York City was enduring a severe drought, and
water consumption by city agencies was sharply restricted. One summer
morning, Mayor Lindsay told his cabinet that the situation looked better
that week. My boss at the time, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving, raised
his hand and asked the Mayor whether, in that case, it would be all right
to fill Harlem Meer, which had been drained for possible reconstruction.
The Mayor quickly said yes. I was present at the meeting, which was
at the old Sun building (280 Broadway), and as soon as the session ended,
with the consent of my commissioner, I telephoned our engineers at the north
end of Central Park to fill the meer immediately, using all possible water
sources. (Rule 7 - Do it now.) It took about five million gallons
of water to fill the meer, while New York City's daily consumption was over
a billion gallons. Five million out of a billion is now called chump change.
That evening, or the next one (after all, this was 37 years
ago), I was standing on Second Avenue and 31st Street, just outside the theater,
when I was approached by an angry advisor to the mayor on water policy, later to become water commissioner. What right, he
said, did I have to fill the meer. "I was only following orders," (Excuse
23-X), I said, a bit disingenuously. He then started to rant and rave
that what I had done was terrible, and that the meer would now never be cleansed
of all the debris, filth and impurities which covered its bottom. I
was sorry about that, but didn't see how he could be so enormously emotional
and deeply upset over the issue of how clean the bottom of Harlem Meer turned
out to be. Nobody swam in it or drank from it anyway, and from Parks'
viewpoint, it was better to have a full meer than an empty one for the next
few years.
A year or so later I learned from the newspapers why the water
commissioner had been so upset with me. He was indicted, and later
convicted, for having taken a $10,000 bribe to direct the cleaning of the
meer's bottom to a certain contractor. The case also involved a well-known
gangster, Anthony (Tony Ducks) Corallo, and Carmine DeSapio, the former Democratic
leader of New York County. Since the meer was now filled, it could no longer
be dredged. No contract, no payoff. We had cost him ten big ones.
DeSapio was once the leading Democrat in New York State.
He was Secretary of State under Governor Averell Harriman. (That is
not a foreign policy position; he supervises certain agencies and affixes
the state seal.) DeSapio's fatal political error came in denying Mayor
Robert F. Wagner the senatorial nomination in 1958. He lost his county
and district leadership to Wagner forces in 1961 and, when he sought a comeback,
was defeated three times for District Leader (1963, 64 and 65) by the young
Ed Koch.
Robert F. Wagner, Sr. had been an illustrious United States Senator from New York
from 1927 to 1949; he sponsored New Deal legislation such as the National
Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act), the Federal Housing Act and the Social Security Act. His
son and namesake had been elected Mayor in 1953 and re-elected overwhelmingly
in 1957. Now he wanted to follow his father in the Senate.
DeSapio was opposed to Wagner and blocked his candidacy.
He supported Frank S. Hogan, the honest Manhattan district attorney first
elected in 1941. One of his objects may well have been to kick Hogan
upstairs so that he could select the new District Attorney for New York County,
a job more important in his reckoning than United States Senator. The
DA decides which criminals to prosecute and, to DeSapio's mix of political
and business activities, a friendly DA would be a valuable asset. At
the Democratic state convention (this was before state-wide primaries), Hogan
became the party's nominee. In November, he lost by a wide margin to
incumbent Senator Kenneth B. Keating of Rochester, who in turn was unseated
after three terms by Robert F. Kennedy in 1964.
Hogan was re-elected eight times as district attorney until
he resigned because of ill health in December 1973, having served 32 years.
He died in April 1974. Robert Morgenthau was elected that November,
and is now in his 29th year as DA. Hogan's best-known predecessor was
Thomas E. Dewey, a Republican who ran for President three times (once as
a former DA in 1940, and twice as Governor) when he was the GOP nominee against
Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.
Morgenthau was no civilian either, he had run for Governor
against Nelson Rockefeller in 1962, and had served as United States Attorney
for the Southern District of New York, by appointment of President John F.
Kennedy. These positions are vitally important to the administration
of justice, and have usually been held by well-regarded public servants.
It is the mission of local reformers to try to see that high ethical standards
are followed in all five boroughs of New York City and its surrounding counties.
So endeth the lesson (Rule 17-L).