Latest / Revisionist History / Coming Soon: The Staten Island Problem

Transcript

Coming Soon: The Staten Island Problem · Revisionist History

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Five miles off the shore of Manhattan, there is
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: a place called Staten Island. We don't live in the
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: glitter of Broadways. We don't live in Yankee Stadium.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Where we live is in every day Staten Island. We
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: weren't sophisticated. We were not you know, East side of
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Manhattan or West Side of Manhattan liberals. We were country people.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And thirty years ago Staten Island decided it didn't want
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to be part of New York City anymore.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Who will you trust your friends and neighbors and the
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: people in Staten Island?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Who are you trust the people five miles overseas? Staten
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Island was trying to secede from New York City, but
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: not without a fight.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: See, if nothing else, I hope that I can convey
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: to the people of Staten Island that I deeply care
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: about them and about all of them. If this were
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: a political visit, Wine Blazes, would I come. It's a
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: pipe dream. It's just not going to happen. People are
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: not facing the reality. My god, what are they thinking?
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: What unfolded over the span of the next four years
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: was a battle for the soul of the city, which
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I as a person living in the city had never
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: heard about. And the more I researched, the more I realized,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: this is exactly what's happening in the country right now.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: This is what happens when a group who feels like
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: they've been ignored and forgotten for decades decides that they've
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: had enough.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: All of you who are in favor of seceding from
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: the City of New York, would you please raise your hands.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: This is a story about a democracy falling apart. It's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: about neighbors turning on each other in a very specific
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: strain of resentment that started in the outer boroughs of
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: New York City and then went national with people like
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: We reached for a feeling that exists in this city,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: but we're not stopping. Harley and the Paul's generally speaking
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: national Enquiry did a Paul that's unbelievable. This is a
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: win that you beat everybody right right into the White House.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I'm been that of Haffrey and I have done a deep,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: deep dive into this overlooked and misunderstood moment from thirty
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: years ago when New York City almost tore itself apart.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Because I think it anticipated everything about how our country
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: is tearing itself apart. Right now this summer, we're celebrating
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: our two hundred and fiftieth birthday as a country. It's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the anniversary of an act of secession. This is who
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: we are, this is what we do. So it's time
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to ask a big question, how do you solve the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Staten Island problem? The Forgotten Borough? I don't know. I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: think we just might get rid of that nickname.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: My position was to ask yourself what close freedom?
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: The Staten Island problem is coming July ninth from Pushkin Industries.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Listen on the Revisionist History Feed wherever you get your podcasts.