Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20130304

From our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose Grand Central terminal celebrate its 100th birthday this month. It is a new new york icon with 750,000 people passing through every day. Tom wolf once wrote, every big city has a railroad station with the grand, to the point of glorious, classical architecture, but the grandest, mauve glorious of all by far was Grand Central station. In the 1970s, it was threatened with destruction. In the 1980s, it fell into disrepair. Now Grand Central is stronger than ever. He were is a look behind the scenes. Grand central is a place with a lot of secrets. One of them is hidden in plain sight its room behind tiffany clock, which overlooks park avenue. Today we go to places the public is never allowed to see, and we meet the characters who make sure the trains run on time. Our first stop takes us from the highest point in Grand Central to the lowest. N42 is the teenest basement in manhattan, and it provides the direct current which powers the trains. We meet with tradition ernie korkin. We are standing in the middle rotary converters. This is what they are used back in the day toeators convert ac to dc. Why is electricity so important to Grand Central . Because thats what powers everything. I help people get to and from work. Get back home to their families. It takes more than just electricity to get people to and from home safely. Here, in another of Grand Centrals secret rooms, we neat jim fagan. I am the assistant chief in the operation control center, and i watch serve, every move its nerveracking. Its your Blood Pressure goes up 10 point going through the door. I can look here right now, and i can look at seven and eight. Why do you do you put yourself through it . The adrenaline. Like jumping out of an airplane sometimes. Grand central has had its share of ups and downs over the years, and one person who has seen them from a unique perspective is alex. He has worked here at the oyster bar since 1976. Not only working here, but you feel like this place doesnt belong one person. It belongs to the people who come through the station, and they are associated with so many memories, so many memories. You feel almost like a guardian of all these memories. Everyone working here at Grand Central, its obviously so much more than just a day job. We asked dan bracker why that might be . Working here at Grand Central for 25 years, handling their press, handling document aryan shoots, i told people its like being a talent agent for the worlds largest, greatest, most magnificent piece of talent, but the talent doesnt do anything. I have to do it for it. I have to make it big. Whereleswhere else on this planet do you see the largest, greatest, most magnificent edifice built for the normal, everyday worker, and this was. Now, as people come through here today, knowing that this place was going to be destroyed, torn down, knowing it was black and uglow, it is an object lesson to everyone walking through here that even though your days may be dark and dreary, maybe you feel on the edge of destruction, that, like this terminal that youre walking through, you, too, can be regenerated, renewed. Its a big charge to them. Every morning as i go to work, every evening as i come home. Rose credit for that goes to oge malocean who did a remarkable job of capturing the people. This is your book, Grand Central, how a train station transformed america. How did it transform america. When i started working on the book i wondered if i could live up to the subtitle. I think it was vind cape towned and validate as i went along. When you go anywhere in the entire world and say, is this place is like Grand Central, Everybody Knows what you mean. Its choreographed chaos. When you think of the famous trains, the way its threaded its way into american culture, from mad men to madagascar, north by northwest. Standard time began at Grand Central. The Civil Rights Movement began there. And from an urban development standpoint air rights and laker preservation really got their start there. Rose you said its almost a universally recognizable place, right . Yeah, its its it takes the word iconography, icon graphic to a new level. In some of the films ive written about, youll just see a tiny piece of this, and all youll see is this serif lettering and this arch, and you know its Grand Central. And i said what other building could you see a little bit of and know where you are. Rose you see this picture and you clearly know what it is. I think it was who said it was almost a religious experience i did say that. That was interesting about that. After we removed the kodak pictures from the terminal and cleaned the windows, and the next day we waited and as people came in they knew something was different and they couldnt figure it out but the light was streaming in the windows from the east. It really was sort of rose an awakening. It really was. It was very exciting. Rose what does it mean to new york . Well, Grand Central is really the transit heart of new york. More people, two or three times as many people, at least, pass through Grand Central every day as passed through the Busiest Airport in the world, and its only 48ation, at most pup know, whereas the atlanta airport, ohare, those are gigantic places rose 40 acres. 48, i think, Something Like that. Its not a whole lot, but the number of people. And to think of the Different Levels the trains, the cars, the subways. All of this intersecting and yet people get through it with relative ease and feel a sense of joy and friendor at the same time. Rose opening them up to new york. I would think going through this crowd would be an awful experience, but i think most people who go through it dont feel that at all. They feel something else. Rose and by 2019 or what year is it . It will be coming in 140 feel below the surface. Rose how did it begin . Well, it began in 1871 as a depot for the new York Central Railroad. The trains went to 42nd street. At one point they went even further south, and then they were banned because of the coalburping locomotives. Horses and carriages took people beyond that, all the way downtown. And then in 1902, there was a fatal accident involving a train coming out of the park avenue tunnel. The engineer could not see. There was smoke, there was soot, snow, fog, and he crashe crashed into another train killing ultimately about two dozen people and the railroad was scared stiff they would be held criminally libel because they knew it was a hazard. The chief engineer came up with the idea of electrifying the railroad, get rid of all the coalburning locomotives. That will allow us to build a twolevel terminal, departures and ariervlings and it will allow us to deck over park avenue creating this incredible gold mine of real estate. People forget from almost lexington to madison avenue to 57th, 59th street were open train yards. Rose the air rights was crucial . The air rights was crucial. In part because they wanted to a build a skyscraper originally, and make it produce revenue for the railroad but then created this property out of thin air on 59th street on both sides of what became park avenue. Rose what was the most difficult part of the transformation from being what it began to what became, you know, its essence. I think, charlie, again, you go back to this engineer, wilgus, one of the Unsung Heroes of thissistic he kept the railroad and the terminal functioning while it was both rebuilt. They decide to tear down the old depot station, build a new terminal, and they had to keep all these trains running at the same time. To be able to do that was a Monumental Task in terms of it engineering. Thats why it took 10 years. Rose give me a sense of the architectural evolution. Well, there were a number of architects involved. And really wilgus, though, you have to give him credit with this leap of imagination. Electfication meant they could take down the enormous train shed and suddenly rethink the entire composition. They brought in a groom of architects, first reid and stem, and then warren retmore. And they created what i think remains to this day, 100 years later, the most advanced threedimensional rethinking of what a city could be, and cap it with this extraordinary classical building the terminal itself and wetmores idea, which was a civil of simple powerful idea, in roman cities there had been agreement triumphal arches, with the three arches, and in the american city, the gateway was not at the edge of the city, as in rome, but in the center of the city, and it was now a railroad station. He picked up the idea of the Triple Arches of the roman gate and made that the architectural motif of the terminal. One of the things i felt so striking when it was originally built inine 71, the New York Times said this place was neither grand nor central. Why did they build the terminal so far out of town. The vanderbilts in effect brought midtown to their doorstep, changed the whole center of gravity of manhattan. Rose you call it the great town square. I do. Part of the idea you asked about the air rights this would be more than just a station. It would be more than a place where people were getting on and off the train. It was be an urban center, with hotels, apartment buildings, and shops called a city within a city, which it was, pouring through those passages and into the finally the main concourse, which became kind of a well, the great urban well, and the new york town square. Not outdoors, indoors, this fantastic crossing place and gathering place. Rose it almost became a Terminal City. Thats what he envisioned, a Terminal City going up park avenue flock flocked boy an opera house and other public buildings and some versiones of that came to be. Rose does the history of Grand Central station parallel in terms of its ups and downs the history of railroads in america . Can you well, ill take a quick stab at it. Clearly, the United States at the turn of the century when Grand Central was more or less being transformed, this was at that moment a leading railroad country in the world. Even though it was a british invention in the 1820s, its america that takes it and runs with it. Then our railroads declined through the 20th search row. Not so much Grand Central until world war ii. But Grand Central is going to go into its own kind of relative decline after the big war. And it continues as american passenger Railroad Traffic declines, but unlike the rest of the United States, whats amazing about Grand Central and metronorth is that not only is the decline stopped, but now its in the 21st century, its up. Rose why is it that people want to tear down penn station, and Grand Central station . Money. Rose money. They wanted to make money. The railroad was bankrupt. And they wanted to put Office Towers over it that would produce revenue. And the idea of preserving a landmark did not resonate anywhere as much as it does today. The good news is it did not die in vain. Well, a bit of it is the price of its own success. You have this extraordinary railroad which is pouring people in from the suburbs and all over. Of course, it makes that land the most valuable land in the world. People can just get on an escalator and go to the building. And indeed the building of the cruel irony of the pan am building. We forget that it was the Panamerican Airlines company stomping down in 1962, 63, on Grand Central, but for the very good economic reason, the old baggage room, which had been there of course not an economical use of the space and here you could build a build that would sit right on top of the railroad, so incredibly valuable, and true to a lesser degree at penn station. Rose what role did Jackie Kennedy play . She saved it, i think. One could make that argument. There was a landmarks law on the books but one of the things i i discovered doing this book which i didnt know, when the judge ruled against the city in the landmarks preservation suit, the city was probably not going to appeal the decision. It was in the middle of the fiscal crisis. The city was worried it would be meld liable have to pay tens of medicine of dollars in damages. It wasnt until jackie onassis, ed koch, philip johnston, galvanized a movement saying we cant afford to lose this thing anymore that the momentum began that carried the case all the way up to the Supreme Court and established landmarks preservation. A consortium of organizations got together, including the Municipal Art Society, and they said we have to make our stand here. The feeling was at the time, actually, Grand Central was a Good Building to make your stand on. If this idea of landmarks if preservation was going to go to the Supreme Court, better it be Grand Central than some tiny little place somewhere. So they justed to make this the big push. Rose so, peter, you were chairman of metronorth . I was president of metronorth froms 8391, and i was carol of the m. T. A. , from 91 to 95. I was graduate brawt in to give some advice to the m. T. A. At that time, and conrail was operating the passenger service, and they were permitted by congress to get out of operating commuter service. So the question was do you contract it out to amtrak or create your own railroad . We created our own railroad, which was metronorth and we fortunately had some Capital Investment money that we began to put into the infrastructure cars, right of way, signals, and that sort of stuff. Hoping it was a question of when, not if, we would get to Grand Central because obviously the terminal was in terrible shape. Not just what you saw but what you couldnt see behind the rose so what did you do . Well, the first thing we did was spend 5 million to fix the roof because we wanted to make sure if were going to spend any money inside woe didnt want it lacked on. And the second thing we did was we put out a contract for an architectural firm, byer blindenbell, and woe they ended up gilletteing the contract. And they were charged with putting together a master plan, and they were told that the first and foremost, the purpose has to be to maintain it and restore it as a Great Railroad station. Secondly, to restore the architectural integrity of the terminal. And the third thing was to james point before make it or remake it to into a destination in and of itself. Rose right, exactly. Through commercial development and retail and that sort of stuff. We restored the vanderbilt hall, restored the chandeliers. Central arteried to clean the ceiling, and the whole purpose, charlie my purpose, at least was trying to demonstrate our credibility in getting it done and build constituencies because none of us stay around these things forever, to make sure that the momentum could not be reversed. And we were successful in doing that by putting some money into it and building to the constituencies. The real estate people around the terminal were wonderful. I think one of the interesting question is why Grand Central had a much more positive impact on its neighborhood than pennsylvania station had on its. Not that pennsylvaniaostation was a bad neighborhood. But Grand Central, the neighborhood around it became not just a leading Business District of new york, replacing lower mont, certainly, boy the depression, and probably before that, the leading Business District in the world. Rose pulled butt could that have happened to penn station with skilled hands and with some resources . You had penn stakes. You had the post office building, and you had the possibility in principle, but in in fact as ive argued, want architecture of pennsylvania station which you cant say a bad word about anymore there were some real problems with it. It stood alone its station it was was brilliantly like Grand Central, the traction brilliantly conceived and directed. But the station of a standalone object, very different in conception from Grand Central which was understood from the beginning, and almost uniquely as a constellation of intersected buildings, three leveles, really, astonishing. The cars going above, pedestrian traffic at street level and these underground concourses. And it was kind of a tightly knit kind of spiderlike construction woven into the fabric. Woven into the fabric rose who are the heroes of the restitration project . I would say peter stangl, john bell, and jackie onassis. The Municipal Art Society played a major role. Rose a friend of mine said the preservation was a sex change. He said, grand strstles built 83 years ago as a temple to the manly cult of work, hustle, bustle, buttondown colathe highpowered rhythm of the 95. Iis that fair . The one thing Grand Central was not was a kind of utilitarian place that you came in and out of of. What everybody comment on from 1915 and so on, this city was in the city where you could have all the needs and comforts from a a shoe shine to a hospital this was the first multiuse project. You could live your whole life there. With all due respect to mr. Misham, i disagree. There was a time when people would come in more at rush hour and go back, whereas i think one of the great transformations of Grand Central in last quarter century, 30 years, its much busier. Its much busier during the day, and in the evening. And its not just a place where people come in, in the morning and go out at the night. They stay. And its true of everything in the city, but you see it at Grand Central. There are a lot of things in there to slow people down coming through. You know about the marketplace. Theres fast food downstairs but its great fast food. You have restaurants. You have just the ability to look around and be in wonderment of the place. Those things slow people down, make them pause. They stop, they enjoy it, i think. Rose once the restoration was under way were there giant conflicts and battles . Was it easy . Its never easy doing anything big in this city, charlie, anymore. But i think it was it was easy in this cbs it was a labor of love for a lot of people. And getting the financing was not easy. But the trick to that was some of the commercial space spun off some revenue, the additional commercial space spun off revenue we could use for that. He had built up the constituency. And there were lots of constituency groups that helped us. The preservation people, the press the press loved what we were doing. We dont always bless press. So it wasnt easy, but it was fun. And once we got to the point where we thought it couldnt be reversed, we were really it was really it was more fun than hard work. It really was. I would say we take it for granted it worked out right but there were a million ways for it to go wrong. Youre dealing with one of the great architectural landmarks of the world, and the intervention, the idea of having dining up on the mezzanine, the adding of the new staircase of case on the other side, perfectly matched. The stone, perfectly i defy you to tell the difference between the two staircases. Except the new one confirms with the americans with disabilities act. David dunlap said, is preservation best served by rigorous replication of historic features or new construction sympathetic in support sometimes involves will the demolition of existing architectural fabric . Well, we lost the kodak sign. In any other case that might have been considered a landmark, and building the east staircase in the middle of the main concourse, that was not there originally. They decide why do we need it . Nobody will be going to the east side. Its just tenements and cow pasturees, so you had to created a create a new landmark, one that was envisioned but never built. These people know better than i do, a lot of it came from subtraction subtract the kodak line. Take down these big, ewingly clocks. All of this can i say crap here. Rose and more. All of this crap that was around the terminal. We took that out. There were no big arguments about that. The only argument i had about the kodak sign and Merrill Lynch booth was money. As soon as i took it out, fuji comes in and they want to take the space. And we said no were not going to do that. It was a financial issue in certain respects but i think it paid for itself over time. Rose Paul Goldberger wrote the real brilliance of the place is the way in which it confirms of the virtues of the urban ensemble. Penn station was built mainly to send a message about the spleppeddor or arrival, Grand Central was to make clear the choreography of connection. Does that resonate with you . I think absolutely. From buying food at the food market, to buying pens to write with, to bookstores because you can even though the train hurries you up for a schedule, it also slows you down. The train is not leaving for 30 minutes. Of course one of the great things about Grand Central that hasnt been remarked on, the new penn station and the the old one didnt have as many traction. There are 40something tracks on one level, and another 20, so there are 60someodd railroad traction. At penn station, you have to stand in the main lobby and look up to see when your train is leaving and then run for it. In Grand Central, you can go 20, 30 minutes early and silt on the train and relax. Thats the difference between a terminal and a station. Thats a huge difference. Rose will we ever have Rapid Transit between and highspeed trains between boston and miami, between boston and washington . You know, i you have them between boston and washington. They call them that, anyway, the acela. But the stuff you see in japan or in china now and europe and coreya. Rose whats the problem . Im tell watt problem is. The problem is that we put our National Priorities on a highway system before we put it on highspeed rail, passenger rail. Europeans did it in the opposite direction. And what you see now is youve got amtrak, which is our national railroad. And its underfunded, and every time its about to go under, they pull it up, they stick a few dollars in its mouth, and they send it on its way. So they dont make the vementz necessary, charlie, to have, you know, firstclass highspeed rail service. So given the congress, given whats going on, im not optimistic about it in my lifetime, ill tell you that. Rose would you have made a different decision than eisenhower made in the 50s . Probably not. I dont know. Im not going to second guess ike. But i think building a National Defense highway system was probably useful and i dont think most people saw the impact it would have on railroads and on peoples lives, many of which were positive. Even without the improvements in highspeed rails, Something Like twothird and threefourths of the people moving between new york and boston are using the train which was a reverse from 30 years ago. Rose Grand Central is a visual landmark for movies. You want me to jump off a moving plane . Thank you so much. Goodbye. Attention, please. The new York Central Railroad train number 25 never going to find her in this crowd. Shes like clockwork, jack. She comes through here at the same time every day. Shes late. Its had so many meanings, and when i wrote celluloid skyline i reveled in all the different kinds of ways its been shown. What i argue is films, the sort of movie new york, goes dope. It plumbs dope than just the ordinary kinds of wonderful things weve been talking about. It goes to the sort of emotional rezinances, the narratives that are in the place. When in the fisher king the place turns into a giant ballroom, i write, whats so strange is not how odd it looks but how normal it looks. If you imagined that in an Airline Terminal you would go, that would be odd. But it looks right because it understands the architecture of that space is basically a playeral architecture, just where balls were held, and blown up to a public scale. Again and again i found examples, really quite moving in many cases the scene in the bandwagon wall street where fred astair whose career is over and sings forgot know walks down the long aisle the 20th century, down the ramp, and coming into the terminal where hes welcomed by his friends just two of them. But the idea that the terminal was about just changes of place, changes of time, changes of life, ways in which it sort of embodied human experience, really, and Grand Central, you know, you talk about the fact that it appears again and again in dreams, in peoples dreams all around the world, and the films understood that. They understood that this was more than just a place, another place. It had a kind of deep psychic resonance. And that stays true in things like madagascar and more recent things, the inherent theatericality of it. And of course as we talked about the sheer recognition factor, always a key thing for films. They dont want to have to take time to explain where you are. They can say Grand Central or show Grand Central and be pretty confident people all over the world know what were talking about. Even befores before the movies, as joe didion recalled, she heard Grand Central every morning, the soap opera and thats how she got her vision of new york. And conjudd up all sorts of mythology for people all over want country. Rose tell me what are the four, five, most brilliant buildings in new york city . Just list three or four. Well i would say Grand Central. Woolworths, chrysler, empire state, and leiber house. Rose thats a good selection. Are we seeing those kinds of buildings being built anymore . Frank ghery had a place downtown, that got some attention. You have the sony building, which now belongs to somebody else. I mean, Rockefeller Center but the Rockefeller Center and Grand Central sort of set the bar for urban development in the 20th century which almost has never been well, i would say has never been achieved. Whats happening down at the trade center site has many things to recommend it. They were reaching for many something as good as Rockefeller Center. Grand central is it beyond us. We cant reconceiving the urban fabric in three dimensions plastically, vision of the future in 1910 the street grid, too. For all the advances weve had, i dont know of any development in the world thats done something quite as sophisticated. Rose let me try this idea out because im not sure i can prove it, but for a long, long time, Grand Central also represented central park, represented new york looking inward. And what weve seen recently is the beginning of the development of the riverfront so that you see the appreciation of the new york river front of way we never had it before. That may be redefined after hurricane sandy. Rose indeed, as they look at the potential threat. And that brings us back to Grand Central where it did better than penn station. Not only was it architecturally distinguished, but the elite was moving up the central spine of the island. 5th avenue. The waterfront was never considered attractive in new york. It was the busiest harbor in the world so youre looking at steamers and oil and stuff like this. Whose happened in the last 30, 40 years is, first of all, the industry and warehouses that use to dominate Lower West Side and neighbors that were quiet and almost ugly at night, those areas were redeveloped. You looked at it in the 1940s, everything was coming up towards the middle, and now of course its williamsburg, meat packing district west 42nd street. Were seeing a different city, but the new city tend to be on the edges. Rose go ahead. Going back to something we take for granted. When you go to european cities in the biggest european cities railroads come in from the edges and stop. Theyre located on the periphery. Its often a big pain to get to them because you have to sort of go out of town to get to them. The innovations we with had was pen station and new york ran the trains underground and into the effort city. We joke about Grand Central not being Grand Central, but within 20, 30 years it was the center of new york. And it made itself the center. Marvelously hidden. No open trenches, and it emphasize the the core against the edges in a way that was very uneuropean. Very american, very new york. Rose im prejudiced on this question, but what really this story does of Grand Central and what this conversation does it reminds us of how lucky we are to live here in this city. Very lucky. Rose and have these monument monuments and these placeplaces that somehow are iconic, not only for us, but for america. Un, and internationally. They represent these buildings and these places represent, you know, this remarkable urban experience thats called new york. And everybody, everybody has some association with Grand Central, no matter how intense or brief it was, everybody that you know has had some experience. And i dont think any building nonetheless city epitomizes that concept more than Grand Central. People now, theyre using Grand Central i think of Grand Central now, i think of the arrival of the whereas 30, 40, 50 years ago people were using it to get out, to go to their summer or weekend places. People were leaving the city. Now, in our time, people are coming back to the city. And you talk about the terminal conjures up ends, when in fact Grand Central is really a place of new begins, not the least of which its very own. 15, 16 years ago people wanted to get out of Grand Central terminal as a matter of fact they could. The terminal didnt say, come on in. Were a nice place to be. Youre welcome here. It said, stay want hell out because it wasnt a nice place. And now people want to be in the terminal. Going to the city is an exciting things to do now. Up to the take your grandchildren whatever and when you come into the great hall it uplifts you. And people you can see them. We may be. Suburbaniles. People are smiling. And you have to say its part of new yorks brand, if you will that there are all these wonderful newer cities but they dont have anything like that and probably never would. Theyll have different things. And in their own way wonderful things but Grand Central is something which i could not build today and we have it and we need to celebrate it. Rose thank you, peter, thank you ken, thank you, james. Thank you, sam. Sams book again if you listened to this conversation you will want to read this book Grand Central how train stations transformed america by sam roberts, and a forward by our great friend pete hamill. Its the story of america. Thank you for joining us. You more than half of the worlds population lives in urban areas, making the study of cities. New York University Just Announced the creation of the Marron Institute on cities and urban environment. The new institute will help cities aroundlet world become more lival and sustainable. Joining me donald marron, the chairman of the lightyear capital. Richard revesz, the dean of nyu law school, and will lead the new Marron Institute. And paul romer, the director of nyu sterns organization project. And our old friend mitchell moss, professor at Wagner School of public service. Many of you know in the audience how much i love cities and how much i love thinking about the future of cities. But we want to talk about this idea of a new institute with donald marron. So why did you do this and why did you put it at nyu . Two words john sexton. laughter rose the president of nyu. The president of nyu. He invited me on the board and we have had many lunches over the last five years figuring out what i would do. And at one lunch about a year and a half ago he said i have this idea. The world needs a school, an institute that studies cities from all aspects. Nyu has many of the piece but i want to start that kind of an institute and i would like you to be heavily involved in it. I thought about it and thought i owe a lot to cities. I grew up in the city. The opportunities i had came from there and i thought this is a very good thing. What really made for me is im an entrepreneur. Im on my fifth business now. I start need of them. And this is a startup. Were going to start a new thing combine resources. It was perfect. It was a Teaching Institute that was going to do more than teaching. It had great leadership, john sexton and ricky revesz, here today, and it had a faculty, both established and new that knew the most about this. I thought here we are. Lets go. One thing i hope this institute will do is there are three big things for cities. One is capital. 10 trillion a year its estimated over the next 10 years by makepsy. The second thing is resources from infrastructure to water. The biggest thing for me is we dont teach people how to manage cities. A mayor gets in and out in four years, usually makes decisions in his term that are then impacted the next term. I hope this institute, among other things, will grow leaders to lead what is maybe the most important impact in the world in the next 10 years. Rose clearly it will have worldwide implications and that will be your focus, cities around the expworld what are their dismedz their issues and their challenges and the big issues of life sustainability. But will this become kind of a think tank for new york city . Well have several pieces. Yes, it will do research. John and ricky are working on want things it will do. It will teach and eventually graduate students. But since nyu is in new york and is kind of a model place of an integrated new york, and im hoping it will be a big part of new york. Rose what do you think its agenda ought to be, paul . One of the first things it can do is learn from the many aspects that new york has done well, and then take some of those lessons and help spread them around the world. New york is a very wellrun city, and theres a lot to be learned and a lot to be copied from here. But the big issues that excite me are the massive wave of urbanization were going to see independent developing world. And this intersects with this question of finance because the rich countries face this problem of insufficient investment demand. This is our big challenge macroeconomic low. But the developing world has this enormous investment demand for urban infrastructure. So theres a deal that can be done here between want places that have a lot of investment capacityity and financing capacity, and the parts of the world that really could use that product glifl whats been the most important accomplishment of the urbanization project . I think one of the first things was selling nyu and john and don and everyone on the enormous opportunity for this, not just to influence the world but to innovate on university campuses. I think the last examples like this were when harvard invented the Business School because were going to study the business. And m. I. T. Created chemical engineer. This is the first time a University Says were going to study cities, not as a side effect of other things but cities in their own rights. Rose theres an interesting thing thats happening. I love this idea and im not sure it will apply here because some people worry about too many silos in so much of education and theyre not collaborating. Here is an idea where you have a variety of disciplines a university campus, all of which can somehow be focused on the future of cityes, whether its culture, environment, institutions, justice, a whole range of things. Is that part of what you hope will happen here . That is a hugely important part of it. At the medical school they are experts in urban epidemiology. People die every year from if there are people at the Wagner School who worry about urban planning. There are people at the Business School who worry about many of the things that paul has mentioned. There are people at the tisch, of school. And there are lots of works on the humanitie humanities and social sciences and Natural Sciences but the problem at nyu and every university is people dont tend to talk to other people outside of their units or departments or buildings ear whatever. And one of the central goals of this to get all these people together to talk and take advantage of the synergies of that were made possible. Rose your expertise is environmental. Environmental regulation, environmental promise. Rose you know a bit about cities. You know, we live in the best one. Rose we do. There are many agreement cities. Some have come into our focus, like istanbul and other places weve seen. Im always fascinated by the top 10 list of greatest cities in the world. What does it tell you cities need . I think the most important thing we have learned from new york over the past decade is having strong executive leadership. We get flooded with information about congress and the presidency, but most people spend their time where they work and play, in cities. I think thats what people identify with day to day. If theres one thing we know and paul pointed out new york works weve now learned that you can make a city so attractive, people want to come here from around the world and all around rural areas, people want to go to cities. I think this has been a Great Success story because people want to live close to where they work environmentally. They also want to be able to have many more experience than just going to work. One of the rare successes over the past 20 years that weve taken Old Industrial property that almost everyone mayor was afraid to touch and made them into places where people want to work and play. The City Commission has done more to put land lawyers out of business because they rezoned it all. Under Michael Bloomberg the entire waterfront is going to be a place where you can live and do things. Rose the thing that excite meas about this, don, is the idea i talked to a lot of government types. It is in city wheres you find the laboratory to do things and test things because its such a direct connection between the governors of the place and the people. Thats right. A city is a place that generates ideas, creativity, but most important, it attraction talent. One of the things i think about the cities will of the future is the percentage of people who are anything to come who are very poor and how you structure a city so the smart poor will have an opportunity to do things and move up. And thats a floor. All the new cities are the same. This is still a major problem. That you dont have rose the gap between middle class and poor, the gap between rich and the middle class, and the gap between the rich and the poor. And the way to bridge a gap. Were sitting here in midtown manhattan, my haven in the bronx is the poorest Congressional District in america. To me that just isnt right. The resources of the city should be able to extend all through want city to all the observer the boroughs and well take people with ideas about cities and make them work. Rose is it hard tore make cities work in a time of budget crisis and economic challenge . I think ybut. I think yes in the sense, but a budget challenge forced a wellmanaged city to set priorities and those priorities emerge as the ones were talking about here that are the most important education, ideas, building institutions. Rose let me just understand, whats coming out of the institute . In other words, the business of the institute is to study cities. Is it also to give degrees because its funded at a university. It may well be. I defer to ricky for how soon and what kind. I hope the business is to create and Research Ideas and to build a class of people that can manage cities, can manage you talk about all these issues, how you manage them. New york city partly is built because of all the little neighborhoods we have. Now, how do you do that in a new city . How do you create an environment that builds families, sustains family, and allows people with talent to find a path to get things did glypt you to speak to that, richard, but also there is an issue you see from people who come to this table, they do very, very, very good studies and they give you an analysis of the problem bct no solutions. We have a great ambition to be relevant to the problems of cities, both in the United States but also across the world. One of the distinctive parts of the institute is we plan to take advantage of the nyus global footprint. Ny has on the Ground Resources in 16 cities around the world, some of most compelling sees shanghai, london. And we plan to use those respowrpss we plan to be in those cities, not as a Foreign Institution that sends some students to spends their junior year but as an active participant in the intellectual debates around urban issues. We plan to focus our attention on different themes in different cities. For example, we probably will focus on pollution in shanghai, and probably do some of the social justice topic in some city in the global south. Rose and what role are you going to play . Thats up to ricky and john. Rose at the same time, youre giving 40 million, is that correct . Thats what it tase of says. Rose are you going to try to add to that, not just from your own funds but in terms of rallying other people to make the possibilities of the Marron Institute at large . Yes, and the short answer john is asking. Gluft send me your money, is that it . No, this is a great idea. John sextons and rickys idea. This is an idea if we do it right that could porch into something much bigger around the world. Rose let me talk about two issues. One is sustainability. Where are we on sustainability on the urban agenda of every major city . Its an important issue but not as parents ought to be. As pauls work shows, a large proportion of the cities that will be around at the end of the century have not dont exist yet. And theyre going to have to be built and theyre going to consume resources and if we do it well well be a lot better off than if we do it baldly. Its now an issue on our agenda. We worry about it. We talk about it. Its taught in schools. But its not as prominent an issue as it ought to be and probably will have to be unless we end up on a matt way to a pretty grim future. There is a lot at stake and super storm sandy has brought some of these issues. The experts believe well get 100year floods every 25 years or so, and well have to focus on all these issues. And if weep dont, well be not in very good shape by later in the century. Rose what are we learning from what to do about the income gap in urban america between the poor and the wealthy . In education, the principal skills. I think industries always provided this way up. I mean, thats the Great Success of cities. We attract the poor who want to move up. Its not because theyre stuck here. The idea is you want to have mobility and movum. If you ever walk around new york this place is filled with lowincome entrepreneurs. At the farmers market, there are people rose this is the reason the mayor is always talking about immigration. Because immigrants come in to be entrepreneurs. Whoever can predict where the umbrella steals people come when it rains in new york at 5 00. This is a mump more orrial city. What makes new york individual the wealthy in new york pay most of the income taxes because they get benefits and providing the services for the low income. Rose but the gap is increasing. The gap is increasing for loss of reasons at the federal level, because of tax policies. I dont think the kea of cities have caused that. Rose it raises another question, the relationship between cities and states and the federal government. Yes, thats right. Thats a big difference there, and you have a great difference in the psychology and the politics of various places. I think its safe to say that you cant build these great cities without the help of the government now, particularly an education of one sort or another. What you have to have again is the recognition that the poor are not going to make it unless you give them some path ways. Rose the skills. The skills, but also the path, the way to do it. Neighborhoods nurture people, build families, and give them at least a base. Rose and some sense of security in their neighborhoods. That thing. Now, government can help somewhat with that but i think we all would agree too much government is counterproductive. Rose youre a cultural leader of this city. Whats the cultural component of this . Im hoping theres going to be a lot. Rose because culture attracts talent. Culture not only attracts talent. It enriches what youre doing. I found hanging contemporary works in an aggressive business, theyre a reflection of the society in which theyre created. And if theyre really great, they may even anticipate things. Im hoping all kinds of culture, people can be exposed to it in this structure. Rose so when does all this start joy hope very soon. Ricky and i are meeting next week inspect of. The one thing we sort of getting off the ground immediately is to create a vibrant, intellectua intellectual Community Across the university. As i mentioned earlier, people dont know that interesting people are there and small groups think that they are the sort of urban effort of nyu. But there are about 10 different groups that actually think that, most of which dont know much about the others. And one of the efforts will be to create a common calendar, to create a common intellectual life, and bring ph. D. Es and postdocs. Were tracking all these things. But then beer going to put out proposals for joint research where there will be funds given out to units who want to collaborate with other units, and it will be up and running in a month or two. Rose thank you. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org hi, im ed slott. Well, congress has gone and done it again and changed the tax laws that affect each and every one of us. Im here to explain what it means to you, your family, and your Retirement Savings and show you how you can rescue your retirement. Stay tuned to find out how you can get an updated package of gifts for 2013 that will help you and will help support this great Public Television station. Thanks. 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