BOOK REVIEW: AMERICA'S MAYOR JOHN V. LINDSAY AND THE REINVENTION OF NEW YORK -- PART 2

BOOK REVIEW: AMERICA'S MAYOR
JOHN V. LINDSAY AND THE REINVENTION OF NEW YORK

By Steve Wright

Lindsay, the consummate reformer, scored huge victories in the area of empowering blacks and Hispanics -- greatly rising the number of minorities in the upper, middle and lower ranks of New York government.

He also created mini City Halls throughout the boroughs and neighborhoods to give a voice to millions who were previously ignored by their government.

Perhaps Lindsay's most courageous act in 1968 when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. A shirt-sleeved Lindsay walked the streets of Harlem well into the night, mingling with tens of thousands of justifiable outraged people, and simply repeating the words "I'm sorry" while pleading for calm.

In an era of the 60s when Watts, Newark and dozens of other cities burned and rioted, Lindsay succeeded in keeping the most densely-populated city in America from erupting in violence -- because the people knew he cared and because it wasn't the first time the WASP mayor had walked the streets passionately listening to the protests and concerns of poor and minority neighborhoods.

While many cities responded to downtrodden neighborhoods by simply bulldozing dozens of city blocks in the misguided urban renewal programs of the times, Lindsay worked to preserve and invigorate the urban fabric of historic, yet crumbling neighborhoods far beyond the influential reaches of Manhattan.

In an era when many believed the solution to America's big cities was basically abandoning them for the suburbs, Lindsay's charisma kept alive the passion for urban living.

Though the press chided him at the time for a comment that New York was "Fun City" at a time of so much economic, labor, racial and political strife, Lindsay was one of the very few big city mayors who were visionary enough to see cities as great repositories of wealth in the form of diversity, cultural offerings, public transit, density and walkability.

While Robert Moses had spent decades tearing down affordable housing, turning parks into sterile places and pushing superhighways through livable neighborhoods -- idolized Jane Jacobs fought and defeated the Power Broker over his plans to destroy parts of Greenwich Village with freeways -- Wagner put the brakes on wholesale block clearing of New York's neighborhoods rich and poor.

TOMORROW PART 3 -- LINDSAY THE URBAN VISIONARY

Wright is the author of 5,000 published articles on urban life, architecture, public policy, planning and design. He is active in working to make sure universal design, which provides barrier-free access to people with disabilities, is incorporated to the essential and rapidly-evolving practice of sustainability.

RESOURCES

http://www.cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15260-0/americas-mayor

http://lindsay.mcny.org

http://www.thirteen.org/lindsay/video/full-program/fun-city-revisited