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