Latest / Revisionist History / The Staten Island Problem - Part 1: The Mayor vs. the Borough President

Transcript

The Staten Island Problem - Part 1: The Mayor vs. the Borough President · Revisionist History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Then, Matti Haaffer here, before we get into this episode,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know that you can hear
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: all episodes of Revisionist History The Staten Island problem ad
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: free right now. By signing up for Pushkin Plus. You'll
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, and other binges from
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Plus, your support helps
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: independent shows like us continue making the stories you love.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Sign up and save on the Revisionist History Show page
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm slash plus.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Use the code R twenty five for twenty five percent
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: off an annual subscription. All right, let's get into the series.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: A while back, my colleague Benaedaf Haffrey came to me
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: with a story about a strange little island that no
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: outsider every visits, forgotten, overlooked, reached by boat across an
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: expanse of turbulent water, where the locals practice their own
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: unique customs, engage in their own strange variety of politics,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: and where incredibly, everything that is happening currently in America
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: already happened long ago Staten Island. And so today we
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: bring you a new series, The Staten Island problem in it.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Ben is going to take us back in time to
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties, when a young real estate scion named
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump was chasing models in downtown nightclubs, when the
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: subways were covered in graffiti, and when the homicide epidemic
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: was at its peak and Staten Island decided enough already.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Ben will share what he's discovered deep in the distant
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: corners of New York's archives and tell the story of
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a civil war within the Five Boroughs, a secessionist movement,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: the rise of Rudy Giuliani, the Wu Tang clan, and
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: ultimately a parable for what we're all living through right now.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: How a country that thought it was united comes apart.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: What was it? Hemingway? One set of bankruptcy. It happens
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: two ways, gradually, and then suddenly. I promise you that
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: at every turn in this bizarre story, you will say
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: to yourself, I didn't know that, and then oh, that's
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: how we got to where we are today. This is
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: the first of what will be five episodes. You can
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: expect new ones in your feet every week, or you
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: can subscribe to push kid Plus and binge the whole series.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Right now.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Over to Ben, Let me say up top that I
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: am not from Staten Island, though many people I spoke
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to for the serious scene to think I am. I'm
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: from Boston. But when I was a kid, I used
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to dream about moving to New York. I used to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: watch Fantasia two thousand all the time. Well, actually, just
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: this one sequence about New York City set to George
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. It opens as the clarinet plays
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that iconic du and a pensil draws in the skyline
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: of New York City, and the whole thing is just
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: romantic and idealized in hyperkinetic I fell in love with
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the idea of this place. I used to draw that skyline.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I used to ride my bike around with a tape
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: player bungee to the rack, listening to Gershwin, thinking about
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: my first apartment where I live, what I'd do? Who
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: cares that the cartoon was set in the Great Depression.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I was a total dufis, But in all my reveries
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I never thought about the most remote part of New
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: York City, Staten Island. New York is made up of
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: five burroughs, each of which is like its own little
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: city queens. The Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, where I live now,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: and then the farthest away and smallest at least by population,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Staten Island. And as I've come to learn, Staten Island
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: is a kind of uncomfortable fact of New York City.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: It's the butt of the joke always. I mean, listen
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: to this recent Mayor oal debate.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I'll start with you, mus Adams.
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: Which borough have you spent the least amount of time.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: In Staten Island? Miss l A, Staten Island.
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: Mister Lander, Stotton Island, Mister Mom, Donnie.
• 4:13
  Speaker 7: The beacon of free transit, Staten Island, Mister Myrie, I'd
• 4:16
  Speaker 7: stan out, mister Stringer.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I've been doing this, I've been everywhere.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: It was almost a sweet I learned about Staten Island
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: after I first moved to New York City. That summer,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: some friends invited me to a Staten Island Yankees game,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: their old minor league baseball team. When I looked up
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: how to get there, I learned that I would have
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: to take a subway to a ferry, a literal ship.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I got on board. There was a bar, huge windows,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: twenty five thirty minute ride where you see the statue
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: of liberty out the right side, and then you just
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: keep going. The New York City skyline recedes into the distance,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and then you land in a place that just is
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: not New York City. New York City is all shoe
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: box apartments. Staten Island is single family homes. New York
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: City is liberal, Staten Island is conservative. New York City
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: at large is mostly people of color. Staten Island is
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: mostly white. New York City is defined by its subway.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Staten Island has a single, dinky railway, and everyone drives
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a car Anyways. New York are words that convey prestige
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and power the world over, the center of finance, the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: center of media, the largest city in the country, the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: kind of place George Gershwin rhapsodizes. Meanwhile, a member of
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the College of Staten Island board of trustees told me
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: he once suggested they drop Staten Island from the name
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of the college because it made people take it less seriously.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Once Staten Island was supposed to get the world's largest
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: fairest wheel, it did not. You was supposed to get
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: connected to New York subway. Once they broke ground on
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: a tunnel, and that was the end of it. For
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: all these reasons and more, Staten Island calls itself the
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: forgotten borough, the least beloved, the most ignored. It was
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: once the place where New York City put most of
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: its trash, literally the largest landfill on the planet. But
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: starting in the late nineteen eighties, Staten Island had decided
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: it didn't want to be dumped on anymore. It didn't
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: want to be forgotten anymore. So it began a movement
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: to secede from New York City, leave do its own thing,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: become an entirely different place, something that, if it happened,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: threatened to destroy New York. So why am I telling
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: you this? Because it all seems so familiar to me.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Every political arrangement includes some disgruntled minority, someone or some
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: place that feels left out, forgotten, like they don't matter.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I think that problem is at the very heart of
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: what's going on in our country today. So I began
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to investigate the Staten Island problem. You're listening to Revisionist History.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben Mattahaffrey, and this is our series about an
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: overlooked and misunderstood movement in the nineteen nineties to break
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: up the largest and greatest city in the country. This summer,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the United States is celebrating the anniversary of its founding
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: by an act of secession, e quibble over taxes and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: representation that defied an empire and created a country which
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: has altered the course of human history. All of which
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is to say, I think it's the right time to
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: ask what do you do when that democracy looks like
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: it's about to fall apart? This is the Staten Island Problem,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Episode one, the Mayor versus the borough President. To start,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: I've got to take you back in time to the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: New York City of long ago.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: When I moved here for the Washington Post. I got
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: hardship pay really yeah, like it was not compared to Washington, DC. Yes,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I got a special cost of limit allowance, which was
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: essentially like take a cab compensation for the fact I
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: was going to a hell hole.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Local reporter Malcolm Gladwell was on the scene in that era.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Was that the Washington Post and I had been there
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: since eighty six thirty seven, and the New York Bureau
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: I had an opening. The bure chief was leaving, and
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: I applied. As it turns out, I was the only
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: person who.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Applied how many people worked at the Washington Post, probably
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: a thousand reporters. Nobody wanted the person who wanted to
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: be the bureau chief of New York City.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Nobody but me. He wanted the job. It was the
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: sweetest set up in the world. You had, like, you know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: a credit card, you could put anything you wanted on it.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: You had like an assistant, You had an un lovely
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: office in the newsweek building.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I was like.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I want that job, such a good job, so much fun.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: But no, the perception was why we didn't want want
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to go to New York the place that you that
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: you left. You didn't voluntarily voluntarily go there.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: This was the version of New York that a man
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: named David Dinkins was going to run as mayor.
• 9:35
  Speaker 8: He was, by temperament, a conciliator, a pleaser, a guy
• 9:44
  Speaker 8: who wanted to make peace among different constituencies, and kind
• 9:49
  Speaker 8: of represented in his body and his pastor and his
• 9:55
  Speaker 8: affect kind of he really did appeal to people's better angels.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: He really was that. Marcia Smith was a high ranking
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: official in the Dinkins administration. She'd first started working with
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: him back when he was campaigning for Manhattan Borough President.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: The borough president is like the mayor of each borough.
• 10:15
  Speaker 8: As it happened, the whole policy unit in the Borough
• 10:19
  Speaker 8: President's office was all women. He used to call us cupkicks.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: She'd watched his rise to become the first black mayor
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: of the city in nineteen eighty nine.
• 10:29
  Speaker 8: The election of David Dinkin's Remember this was on the
• 10:31
  Speaker 8: heels of black mayors being elected in other major cities.
• 10:35
  Speaker 8: But this was like New York was like last. But
• 10:37
  Speaker 8: it was a very optimistic moment. This was a big moment.
• 10:41
  Speaker 8: I felt it as very hopeful. I could also feel,
• 10:44
  Speaker 8: of course, the skepticism that felt like there was a
• 10:49
  Speaker 8: lot at stake.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: A lot of eyes on you guys, a lot of eyes.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: But contrary to most people who become mayor, Dinkins hadn't
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: really wanted the job, and.
• 11:06
  Speaker 9: He shied away from the idea of running from mayor,
• 11:08
  Speaker 9: and he was convinced to run for mayor.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Ruth Messenger became Manhattan Borough President after Dinkins. Around the
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: same time, the city became majority minority, more people of
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: color than white people. Those demographics were why people thought
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Dinkins should run.
• 11:24
  Speaker 9: But here's a Blackborough President with some knowledge of state
• 11:29
  Speaker 9: government and city government. For sure, perfect candidate for mayor.
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: And I promised you that he was pushed to make
• 11:40
  Speaker 9: that decision.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Dinkins was a lifelong New Yorker. He grew up shuttling
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: between his mom's place in the city and his dad's
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey. His parents had split when he was young.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: His father was a barber, his mom was a maid.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: When he grew up, he went to college at Howard
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: University and met his wife. Her father was Harlem political royalty,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and that's at the course of Dinkins's life. Dinkins died
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. So I spent a lot of time
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: talking to people about him, and everybody had a Dinkins story,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: most of them about how fastidious he was. He would
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: shower multiple times a day. He was often in tennis whites.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: A lawyer named Richard Emery remembered going to his office
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to ask him questions for an affidavit in a case.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Once they were in the bowels of the municipal building,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: and all.
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: Of a sudden, David Dinkins gets up from behind the
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: desk and he takes his pants off. I think his
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: jacket was still on, and he had garters and boxer trousers,
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: and I wanted to ask him, what are you doing?
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: And he puts them up like this, holds him with
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: one hand and takes a steamer and starts to steam
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: the pants.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: So that the crease is really nice.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: And he stands there and he's answering my question and
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: said he's steaming pants.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Dinkins didn't like a crease out of order. I have
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: to imagine that's part of why being the mayor of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Chaos City was not necessarily his dream job. When Dinkins
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: was elected, his dad told the press, I wouldn't want
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the job for a billion dollars. But Dinkins knew this
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: was his chance to make history, and he did.
• 13:23
  Speaker 10: I stand here before you today as the elected leader
• 13:28
  Speaker 10: of the greatest city of a great nation to which
• 13:31
  Speaker 10: my ancestors were brought, chained and whipped in the whole
• 13:35
  Speaker 10: of a slave ship.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: In January of nineteen ninety, David Dinkins took the oath
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of office on the steps of city Hall.
• 13:43
  Speaker 10: And this year this city has given powerful proof of
• 13:47
  Speaker 10: the proposition that all of us are created equal.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Dinkins had a vision of what the city could be.
• 13:55
  Speaker 10: I see New York as a gorgeous mosaic of race
• 13:59
  Speaker 10: and religion, faith, of national origin, and sexual orientation of
• 14:04
  Speaker 10: individuals whose families arrived yesterday and generations ago, coming through
• 14:10
  Speaker 10: Ellis Island or Kennedy Airport, or on buses bound for
• 14:14
  Speaker 10: the Port Authority.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: In that spirit, I offer this fundamental.
• 14:21
  Speaker 10: Pledge, I intend to be the mayor of all the people.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Of New York, from City Island to Staten Island.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: New York City has always been deeply segregated into ethnic enclaves,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the Dominicans of Washington Heights, black people in Central Harlem,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Italians and Jews and Canarsi. The mosaic was Dinkins's way
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of reconciling those facts. It was his way of saying
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that diversity is not a problem, it's an asset. But
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: if you cleared away the buildings he faced as he spoke,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: he would have been looking straight at the peace of
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the mosaic that had recently decided it no longer fit
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Staten Island. After Dinkins was elected, Staten Island had pushed
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: forward its bill to secede from New York City. It
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: had been in the works for years. At that point,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: but it's hard to imagine. Dinkins didn't take it personally.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: His colleague Marcia Smith thought that for Staten Island, this
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: was all about Dinkins.
• 15:25
  Speaker 8: Oh my god, what are they thinking? And well, of
• 15:28
  Speaker 8: course they're thinking that because they don't want to be
• 15:31
  Speaker 8: governed by a black mayor.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So it immediately seemed racially tinged.
• 15:35
  Speaker 11: You.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Dinkins knew Staten Island was threatening to secede, but
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: he didn't know how seriously to take it. Then one
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: day his finance commissioner began looking into the matter and
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: determined this was a bigger deal than anyone realized. The
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: administration looked into it. If Staten Island succeeded, New York
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: could be in a financial crisis. The city would, who
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: is almost twenty percent of its land, including crucially its
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: last operational dump, with a smaller population, It would get
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: way less than federal and state aid. It would lose
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: possibly the thousands of government workers who lived on Staten Island,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: including thousands of police officers in the middle of a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: crime wave, and it could leave the first black mayor
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: with the legacy presiding over the city's destruction. Could Dinkins
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: keep the biggest, most fractious city in the country from
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: breaking apart. He had to scare Staten Island out of
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: doing it, So the city launched a task force, and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Dinkins decided that he personally would set sail for the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: island to argue the case himself. We'll be right back
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: one night. A few weeks before David Dinkins went to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Staten Island, a police officer named Michael O'Keefe was patrolling
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights in an unmarked car.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: He saw a young man tugging a jacket around his waist.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: It was July, not jacket weather. He thought he was
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: probably hiding a weapon. O'Keefe pulled over. The kid was
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: a suspected drug dealer named Keiko Garcia. O'Keeffe got out
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and tried to arrest him. Garcia resisted. What happened next
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was fast and unclear, but it was a warm evening
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: and there were witnesses on the street. They said they
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: saw the cop beat Garcia with a walkie talkie, take
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: out his knees, and shove him into the lobby of
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: an apartment building. They said they heard him screaming mama, mama,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: they are killing me in Spanish. Then two shots. When
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: more police arrived, they found O'Keefe's standing of Garcia dead,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a bullet in the stomach, one in the back. That night,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the riots began.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Eighties. Bottles and bricks are being thrown. Several cars have
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: been set on fire.
• 18:14
  Speaker 8: Some of their occupants have been thrown from the cars.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: The building across from the shooting burned. There was fire everywhere.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Oh shoo.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: A police helicopter hovered overhead. Someone shot at it. In
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: the lobby of the apartment building where Garcia was killed,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: someone used his blood to write Kiko, we love you
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: on the wall. One man threw a bottle at some cops,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: then ran away across the rooftops. When they chased him,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: he fell five stories to his death. Protesters burned pictures
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of the police.
• 18:50
  Speaker 7: Police officers watching their image burn didn't want to talk
• 18:53
  Speaker 7: on camera, but told me later they thought it was
• 18:55
  Speaker 7: disgusting and were frustrated by orders not to interfere with
• 18:58
  Speaker 7: a demonstration.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: People listening in on police radio said they heard cops
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: joking that if they saw Al Sharpton protesting, they should
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: shoot him. Phil Caruso, head of the police union took
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to the news.
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: Of course, we don't approve of it, we don't condone it,
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: but it's something that is sort of a reaction on
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: the part of police officers under a lot of stress.
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: I think what we should do is start focusing on
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: the so called victim. In this case, it was a
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: known drug dealer who was wanted under a warrant because
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: he violated his parole.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: So, yes, the cops were annoyed with the protesters, but
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: they seemed even more annoyed with the mayor.
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: I came to pay my respects and offer my condolences
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: to the family and to assure them that everything that
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: can be done will be done thoroughly investigate the circumstances
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: of this debt.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: From the start, Dinkins seemed suspicious about what had happened.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He met with Garcia's family and consoled them. He invited
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: them to Gracie Mansion. He paid for Garcia's body to
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: be shipped back to the Dominican Republic for a funeral.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: He walked the streets of Washington Heights and met with people.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: He told them, I promise you justice, I beg you
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: for peace.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I used to live up here I love to come
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: to this neighborhood.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: The cops felt Dinkins had sold them out, that he'd
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: sided with the family of a drug dealer, and somewhat
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: important agreed.
• 20:33
  Speaker 7: And my god, if you're going to pay for that funeral,
• 20:35
  Speaker 7: there's that place, thousands and thousands of funerals not paid for.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I'm all city today.
• 20:39
  Speaker 7: It would be more justification clothing than that.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: One earo President of Staten Island, Guy Mullinary, the.
• 20:46
  Speaker 7: Mayor has not bested with the responsibility of giving religious
• 20:49
  Speaker 7: comfort to the family of.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: Somebody killed who's a drug dealer.
• 20:53
  Speaker 7: And I think, I think, but that was very badly played.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And I think mull and Aary had got his start
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: as a real estate lawyer on Staten Island. Then he
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: got into politics and realized he was really good at it.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: He used to just open up the phone book and
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: call random people on Staten Island to talk. He was beloved,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: polarizing in extremely old school. This is him talking to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: a WNYC reporter defending himself the time he said a
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: lesbian shouldn't be Attorney General of New York.
• 21:23
  Speaker 7: Not one editorial ever took her a task for her
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: going out and asking for goats because she was a lesbian,
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: not a single look. Do you think there's a difference
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: between that and say you are having a fundraiser with
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: who's the Italian Americans?
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Sure?
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: Sure, what's the Italian American agenda?
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: She had a gay and lesbian agenda.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Mullinary's philosophy was that the only rules in politics are
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: what the voters think, and his borough was full of
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: people who did not think much of New York City.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Staten Island was a essentially the last outpost for people
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: who would like to leave the city but couldn't because
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: they worked for the city and therefore had to live
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: within its boundaries. There were a lot of police officers
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: on the island, to the point where when I bought
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a used copy of Mollinary's memoir on eBay, it showed
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: up with the inscription blue lives always matter. To put
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: it mildly, this was not Mayor Dinkins's crowd in the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: weeks after Garcia was killed. It was Mullinary who took
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: a stand against Dinkins and how he handled everything. He
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: wrote the police precinct in Washington Heights that quote, I
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: know that your morale has taken quite a beating in
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: recent weeks, and the actions of Mayor Dinkins have undoubtedly
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: contributed to your present feelings. However, I did want you
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to know that there are some of us in government
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: who hold you in the highest esteem. Dinkins learned about
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the letter just before his trip to Staten Island. He
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: was furious. Mollinary said that Dinkins's leaked it to the press, and.
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: My letter never would have been made public except that
• 23:05
  Speaker 7: he chose to make it public.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: So if you made it public, then how can you
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: make the.
• 23:09
  Speaker 7: Accusation that I'm trying to stir things up an acre
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: to listen in our city.
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: I'm not.
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: I didn't want to be standing before all of you
• 23:15
  Speaker 7: talking about this issue.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: Was just a private letter, I.
• 23:18
  Speaker 7: Said to the Minimument of the Precinct, who needed a
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: look from somebody in government.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Nobody else was doing it.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: But at that point Dinkins couldn't call the trip off.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So one hot summer morning, David Dinkins finally got on
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: a ship and set sail for Staten Island. We'll be
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: right back. The mayor boarded a ferry in Lower Manhattan
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and charted, of course, a half hour out to sea
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: until it reached Staten Island, Dinkins got off the boat
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and made his way to Borrow Hall. A small crowd awaited.
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: Him, and I would like to greet you all this
• 24:08
  Speaker 7: morning to mark Mayor Dinkins's week long visit here on
• 24:12
  Speaker 7: Staten Island.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: A camera crew followed Dinkins on his week out on
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the island. The tapes are in the city archive and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: they are kind of amazing. You see Dinkins in a
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: baby blue suit on the steps of Staten Island Borough Hall.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Then a short man with big glasses and white hair
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: steps in front of him. Staten Island's Borough President, Guy Mullinery.
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: Mayor Dinkins, distinguished guests and fellow Staten Islanders.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Good morning today.
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: I'd like to speak to you all about the borough.
• 24:42
  Speaker 7: I have represented an elective office for seventeen years and
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: whatever the problems have been the last few days, I'm
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: going to forget them and hope they didn't exist.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: And I think the.
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: Mayor and I, whatever our differences are, we'ved up it before,
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: just as I have with the mayor before him and
• 24:58
  Speaker 7: the mayor before him.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: Well, when you represent you Stun Island, it goes with
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: the terrifight thing to a certain extent. But we'll try
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: to put those differences aside, at least I will, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: I'll speak only for myself.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: It was a hot day. The mayor stood in full
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: sun behind the borough president, looking deeply displeased as he
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: wiped sweat from his brow. Then Molinari's daughter, susan congresswoman
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: for Staten Island, took the mic.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I know it, excuse me.
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: It's customary during most trips when you have special guests
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: coming to either the city or the island.
• 25:36
  Speaker 6: I'm sure you've done it. You give them a special
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: key to the city.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: Well, today it's my great pleasure.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: In Staten Island's own way, it presents you with an
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: unofficial lock to the garbage dump. She and her dad
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: held up a gigantic sign that said Moulinary Landfill Locke.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Dinkins did not look happy. Minutes in, it was clear
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: that this would be a very drying week for David Dinkins.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: He took the lectern.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Let me just say a word about Guy Molinary. Uh.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: He knew, he knew I was going to be here today,
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: just like I knew.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: That he would be here to greet me about There
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: was no doubt about that.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Both Dinkins and Mellinary were ex Marines, but only Moullinary
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: had seen combat. What Dinkins got from the Marines was
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: a love of rules and decorum. He was proper and patrician.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: What Mollinary got from the Marines was a killer instinct.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: He was a street fighter. The very public feud between
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the two of them was making it hard for Dinkins
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: to focus on the task in hand. The letter kept
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: coming up.
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: I hope that that's the last time I will address
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: this subject for now, because what I want to do
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: is get about.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: The business of government here on Staten Island.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Denkins tries to reset to his real purpose stop seceession,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and I was.
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: Asked, well, what do you hope to accomplish here on
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Staten Island?
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: I said, if nothing else, If nothing else.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: I hope that I can convey to the people of
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: Staten Island that I deeply care about them and about
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: all of them. If this were a political visit, why
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: in blazes would I come.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know the number of votes that were cast.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: For me in nineteen hundred and eighty nine, so I'm.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Not here for political reason.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: If I were to come for political reason, might I
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: not then reason, I'll come to Staten Island for two
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: days because you have less than five hundred thousand people,
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: and they got two and a half million people in Brooklyn.
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: Why not go to Brooklyn for eight and nine days.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: And come here for two days. But I'm here for
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: seven days.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: At this one imagines his knees buckled.
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: Seven days, not in Monday to Friday, not simply Monday
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: to Friday, Monday through Sunday. So I don't care whether
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: you agree with me on all issues or not. If
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: you are reasonable people, you have to say to yourselves, well,
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: by God, he does care.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Seeming more than a little pissed off, he began his
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: pitch for the city of the Mosaic.
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: But you know, the glory of Staten Island does not
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: in any way confine itself to the past. In fact,
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: the island of the Seven Hills may well have been
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: the first part of New York that European explorers cited.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Dinkins has clearly had his speech writers dig deep for
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: some nice things to say about Staten Island.
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: The Staten Island Ferry oldest surviving free Black settlement in
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: the United States only zoo and American incidentally, to exhibit
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: all thirty two species of rattlesnakes.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Pouring sweat from his brow, David Dinkins limped to his
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: finish a line about how Staten Island maybe was the
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: first place his favorite sport, tennis, was played in America.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: So thank you, Staten Island, you have given me that.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Finally, he addresses the elephant in the.
• 29:21
  Speaker 12: Room, and I hope that that I will be able
• 29:26
  Speaker 12: to persuade the people of Staten Island that this government,
• 29:30
  Speaker 12: and I am the representative of this government, that this
• 29:34
  Speaker 12: government does care about Staten Island.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: I'll be speaking to this question of secession, but just
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: so to give you some advanced notice, y'all ain't going nowhere.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: He was right and he was wrong all at the
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: same time.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: God nice, you keep the faith.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: And with that the mayor's seven day vis it to
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the forgotten borough began. Borough President Guy Mullinary had Mayor
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Dinkins trapped on Staten Island for an entire week. He
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: could control the narrative about many things in that time.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: The dump with that lock gambit, but even more urgently,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: the increasingly tense relationship between Dinkin's and the cops after
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Washington Heights. Here's a reporter asking Mollinary about all that.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: You think he shouldn't go for a place to the feuderal. No,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: absolutely not, absolutely long.
• 30:34
  Speaker 7: I mean that I think basically tote we disagree with that,
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: And I think as the weeks go by and to
• 30:38
  Speaker 7: day is going by, and you'll see the reaction of
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: the police community, and I think you'll.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Find out that I was right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: In case you're wondering why the borough president of Staten
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Island was even talking about Washington Heights.
• 30:49
  Speaker 7: According to Millinary, a lot of the drugs that were
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: sold in Washington Heights wind up in this borough.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Dinkin's toward the island all week. He kept trying to
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: reach higher, only to be dragged out on my reality.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: He gave speeches invoking the Civil War. He quoted Lincoln
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: comparing Staten Island to the South, Seceeding he made his pitch.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Secession undermined the very principle of democracy. We're supposed to
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: be able to argue about things and come to a compromise.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: You can't just leave when you don't like something. But
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Staten Islanders we're having none of it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: My question is why you allow one deputy mayor to
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: direct you down a path of destruction.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Here he is at the local newspaper's editorial luncheon, staring
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: down at his plate, trying to eat. I have to
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: say he looks totally miserable. The path of destruction this
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: woman's asking him about is a reference to the dump
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and how his administration had no real plans to close it.
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: Us genuine a minute, but just interrupt the flow, just
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: to sit here and listen to you give some conclusions
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: that are really not accurately a little painful.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: I'm here because I tear and I represent all of
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: the people.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: We have a very difficult and knotty problem with respect
• 32:06
  Speaker 4: to the disposal of solid waste, and experts do not
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: all agree.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: That Dinkins was in an unwinnable situation, being accosted while
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: he ate his lunch, standing in the sun all around
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the island, being blasted with unpleasant questions as he sweat
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: like crazy.
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: The main thing is getting out of the sun. Boy,
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: I cannot understand united a space inside. They just could
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: have been right in there, you know, in the car.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: His week there was building to a climax when Dinkins
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: would finally visit the infamous dump fresh Kills, the largest
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: landfill in the world, which yes, smelled terrible, but also
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: seemed possibly to be highly toxic. This was the kind
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of place the fastidious David Dinkins really did not want
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to be, so when he took his tour by car
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: and then gave a press conference, it did not go
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: over welly.
• 33:00
  Speaker 7: Like you were going to get out and take a
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: walk around some of the landfill area everyfore, and.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: I looked like, and what was that body language? How
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: did it it was?
• 33:08
  Speaker 11: How?
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: How did you determine?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: It was?
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: Our understanding when the motive caate stopped and I was
• 33:11
  Speaker 7: going to get out and to take a walking.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Mulinary roasted Dinkins about it all in the press quote
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: after forty years of Staten Islanders living near an ever
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: increasingly large dump, David Dinkin spends forty minutes reviewing his
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: own data and declares it's safe. The message was clear,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: too clean to walk around trash Island. Huh, mister mayor.
• 33:35
  Speaker 7: I was wondering what it was that it made you
• 33:38
  Speaker 7: shape your mind.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: What I'm doing is has taken me to be briefed
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: by Commissioners Lloyd and Jurling, which we have been able
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: to do, and and.
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Throughout the ride, I was getting breathed as we were writing.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: The week soon ended and Dinkins went back to Manhattan,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: seeming to have made matters worse. And what would soon
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: become clear is that Moullinary had much bigger plans, not
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: for Staten Island to leave the city, but for Staten
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Island to take it over entirely. When I started reporting
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: this series, a historian told me America happens first in
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: New York City, And now that I spent way too
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: long learning about a borough that did its best to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: leave that city, I have to say I agree. This
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: is a story about what happens when neighbors feel like
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: they have nothing in common anymore, when they had these
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: irreconcilable differences, and they just don't think they can be
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: part of the same place anymore. Back in the nineteen nineties,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: a chess game was being played for, yes, the fate
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of the largest city in America, but I think the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: stakes of it are much higher because the more I
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: looked into the story of Staten Island's secession and where
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: that split came from, the more I understood how we
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: got to where we are today. Coming up on the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Staten Island problem.
• 35:10
  Speaker 7: Will you trust your friends and neighbors and the people
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: in Staten Island or you trust the people five miles overseas.
• 35:17
  Speaker 13: There's a lot of Donald Trump and the Gui Moultiner
• 35:19
  Speaker 13: style of politics. They're they're very dominating, and they're intolerant
• 35:25
  Speaker 13: of people who disagree with them, Absolutely intolerant.
• 35:29
  Speaker 10: For Rudy Giuliani to urge them on, as it were,
• 35:33
  Speaker 10: demonstrates an irresponsibility on his behalf.
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: Can't you just deal with the secession thing when you're
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: at these debates?
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: You got to turn a wedding into a secession debate?
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Did you think of it when you when January sixth happened?
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: Absolutely? There was much chatter among the Dinkins alumni about
• 35:52
  Speaker 8: three parents.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: We've seen this before.
• 35:54
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: The Staten Island Problem is written and reported by me
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: Ben Mattapaffrey. It was produced by Lucy Sullivan with Nina
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Bird Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Schakerjee. Our executive producer
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: is Jacob Smith. Fact checking by Sam Russick, Sound design
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and mastering by Jake Gorsky. Original music by Stellwagon, Symfinet,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Luis Gara and Jake Gorsky. Special thanks to Todd Reynolds
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: for his track The Solution from the album Powder Burrow,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and to the College of Staten Island and the New
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: York City Municipal Archives for all of the amazing tape.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: And thanks of course to Malcolm Gladwell. I'm Ben Mattaphaffrey,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: suit of