Talk Bronx New York

NY Sees Promise In New Governor David Paterson 

ALBANY — Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson ascended to New York’s highest office on Monday, pledging civility and unity in government to an ecstatic and palpably relieved gathering of state lawmakers and officials.

Mr. Paterson was sworn in as the state’s 55th governor almost exactly a week after revelations emerged that his predecessor, Gov. Eliot Spitzer, had patronized a prostitute and faced federal investigation.

In a relatively brief speech lasting about half an hour, Mr. Paterson offered soothing rhetoric to an audience that clearly ached to move beyond what has been an unusually sordid ordeal even for Albany, a capital well-acquainted with political scandal.

Speaking to a joint session of the state Assembly and Senate, with senior officials from at least three states in attendance, Mr. Paterson alluded briefly to the Mr. Spitzer’s difficulties over the past year in working with the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Republican-controlled state Senate.

“What we are going to do from now on is what we always should have done: We are going to work together, Mr. Paterson said. “With conviction in our brains and compassion in our hearts and the love for New York on our sleeves, we will dedicate ourselves to principle but always maintain the ability to listen.”

But Mr. Paterson’s inaugural remarks were most striking for what was absent from them.

In a speech with so many nods to other elected officials that even a former lieutenant governor made the cut, Mr. Paterson made no mention of Mr. Spitzer, who plucked him from virtual obscurity to join the ticket for statewide office in 2006, and whose powerful and at times overbearing personality were the central fact of political life here for nearly a year and a half.

Mr. Paterson alluded only vaguely to Mr. Spitzer’s resignation, noting that New York had experienced “a very difficult week.” And though he and his staff have sent signals in recent years that continuity would be a key theme of the transition between administrations, Mr. Paterson made no suggestion that the Mr. Spitzer’s core agenda items deserved to survive even if the former governor’s career did not.

Indeed, Mr. Paterson offered almost no specific policy proposals or promises, though an aide said that the new governor would lay out a more a specific agenda in the days ahead. He hewed closely to the theme of partnership, describing himself as Brooklyn-born, Long-Island-educated, and Harlem-residing, to rousing cheers from elected officials who hailed from each of those areas.

Unlike Mr. Spitzer, who in his inaugural address fifteen months ago fired shot after shot across the bow of Albany’s political establishment, Mr. Paterson warmly embraced the capital’s two other major powers, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

“Let us grab the unusual opportunities that circumstance has handed us today and put personal politics, party advantage and power struggles aside, in favor of service, in the interests of the people,” Mr. Paterson said.

Only when his speech turned to the worsening economic downturn and its likely effect on the state budget gap did Mr. Paterson offer a hint of challenge.

“We are looking at an economy that is reeling and I must say to all of you in government and all of you in business that you must meet with me in the next couple of weeks and adjust our budget accordingly,” Mr. Paterson said, suggesting that budget austerity may be needed.

Mr. Paterson, the state’s first blind governor as well as the first black one, also nodded to the historic nature of his swearing-in.

“I have confronted the prejudice of race, and challenged the issues of my own disability,” he said. “I have served in government for over two decades. I stand willing and able to lead this state to a brighter future and a better tomorrow.”

In a news conference following the address, Mr. Bruno seemed open to a détente.

“I think it’s great relief,” said Mr. Bruno, the state’s top Republican. “It’s like a new day. The sun is shining.”

At times, the event felt more like something of a coronation for Mr. Paterson, the scion of a Harlem political fraternity that remains powerful and well-connected in New York politics. His father, Basil A. Paterson, a former state senator and secretary of state, stood behind Mr. Paterson when he first ascended the dais, as did his mother, his wife, and his two children. They remained there as Mr. Paterson, a well-liked veteran of Albany, was greeted by exultant cheers and whistles, and a lengthy standing ovation.

“It’s a great day for New York, and for those of us from Harlem, it’s an even greater day,” said Senator Bill Perkins, a Democratic senator from Manhattan, who replaced Mr. Paterson when he was elected lieutenant governor.

New York’s United States senators, Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, were in attendance, along with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, former New York governors Hugh L. Carey and George E. Pataki, and the current governors of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

An initial draft of Mr. Paterson’s speech was prepared by aides, his advisers said, and he spent significant time editing, memorizing, and practicing the final speech.

Whereas Mr. Spitzer favored a sermon-on-the-mount style of oratory, Mr. Paterson at times sounded more like the announcer at a Las Vegas boxing match. At least a third of his speech was devoted to name-checking the legislative leaders and other officials in attendance, each of whom was introduced with a flourish and a backslapping joke.

Praising Mr. Bruno, for example, Mr. Paterson recalled how the Senate leader had once invited him to his upstate horse farm for dinner.

“I’ll go,” Mr. Paterson recalled replying. “But I’m going to take my taster with me.”

Other Senate Republicans, following Mr. Bruno’s lead, appeared receptive to Mr. Paterson’s overtures, at least for now. Asked whether Senate Republicans would give Mr. Paterson any breathing room on contentious matters like the state budget, John J. Bonacic, an upstate Republican, smiled broadly.

“For a day,” he promised.

In tone and affect, Mr. Paterson’s speech seemed did not really seemed to be aimed at the broader public. Rather, it felt more narrowly addressed to the lawmakers gathered before him, whom he has known for years as a colleague and peer, but must now lead as governor.

“Let me reintroduce myself,” he said at one moment, hinting at the transformation-in-progress. “I am David Paterson, and I am the governor of New York State.”

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The Bronx Library Center is a popular branch of the expanding New York Public Library system.

 An area designated for children at the Bronx Library Center.

NY Public Library Announces $1 Billion Expansion 

Last week, when the New York Public Library announced a $1 billion expansion, including a transformation of its flagship building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street using a $100 million donation by the Wall Street financier Stephen A. Schwarzman, it signaled both a great opportunity and a great temptation.

It is a great opportunity because with such resources, what might not be possible? The library’s “main branch” (as I still refer to it), with its famed reading room, has become ever more alluring in recent years, but there is so much to be done to expand its majestic promise outward.

Not too long ago I stumbled away from a small branch library in high-minded despair; it seemed to specialize in stained paperback best sellers while shelves of classic fiction were stocked with scarcely more than “Oliver Twist.” Barnes & Noble, I thought, offered better browsing possibilities, and maybe that was why its stores seemed to be supplanting libraries as gathering places where books were read and conversations begun.

It seemed as if neighborhood libraries, like those that are part of the New York Public Library as well as the Brooklyn and Queens library systems, were doomed to become less compelling than a retail chain.

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Bronx Courthouse Problems Are “Crystal Clear” 

The recently opened Bronx County Hall of Justice may be an “architect’s dream,” but the $421-million design marvel that made its debut two years behind schedule is giving its workers and visitors nagging headaches.

The glass building doesn’t have enough private booths for attorney-client conferences in either the area designated for the Department of Correction, where prisoners are temporarily held, or in the courtrooms.

One of the courthouse’s main entrance doors is boarded up after its glass facade was shattered by a strong wind shortly after the courthouse opened on Jan. 28.

Two of its staircases and a parking garage are closed because of safety issues, there was a leak in the jury room and attorneys sometimes have to hoof it the entire length of the courthouse — the equivalent of two city blocks — between courtrooms.

“This building is an architect’s dream,” said Giovanni Rosania, 26, a defense attorney in the Bronx, “but it’s not a practical contribution.”

Designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, the 775,000-square-foot courthouse, which extends over two city blocks, was supposed to open in 2005 at a cost of around $300 million.

Two years and an additional $121 million later, the courthouse and its 47 courtrooms are now open, but a lot of work remains to be done.

“The building as designed and constructed is state-of-the-art and meets the needs of the criminal justice system as well as those of the immediate Bronx community,” Jay Bargmann, the firm’s senior vice president, said in a statement sent to a reporter Friday.

A large public plaza with a garage beneath it both remain closed due to safety concerns. Recent published reports have said that inspectors deemed the two-level, 240-space subterranean garage unsafe after they discovered that its ceiling was sagging.

A rock garden and patio directly above the two-story jury assembly room also has been closed off to the public because of security concerns.

One court employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there were reports of water leaking from the rock garden into the jurors’ room, nicknamed “Madison Square Garden” because of its dome-like resemblance to the famous arena. The leak has since been repaired, the court employee said.

A staircase close to the main entrance, between the second and third floors, has been closed, too, since the building’s opening because there is no protective barrier above the handrail, leaving an exposed space large enough for someone to accidentally fall two stories to the ground floor.

On the opposite side of the building, a staircase between the second and third floors has been closed since March 12, when a pane of glass mysteriously shattered, spraying shards of glass everywhere.

Near that broken glass, two cracks can be seen forming on the building’s glass facade.

Some defense attorneys seem at odds with the new courthouse. There’s the limited availability of interview booths — which some lawyers see as a cause for litigation.

The lone copy machine costs too much, they say, and then there’s that long, long walk between courtrooms.

“We’re going back and forth like yo-yos,” says Lynn Calvacca, 47, a private lawyer from Queens.

SOURCE: NewsDay.com

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