NYC-WTC_000230575

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

this city, to the economy, to an awful lot of people who’s jobs would just disappear if people can’t get to work. And my hope is, as I say, that they will all come together.

Gambling: You got involved with the Radio City Music Hall musicians. Will you jump in here between the MT A and the workers?

Mayor: Well with the Radio City musicians it’s a private company, private union. I did volunteer to provide a venue and a moderator or a mediator. They for a while said, ‘Thank you but no.’ They thought they could do it themselves. They did set a deadline with us of, if they didn’t get it done by a certain date then they would accept. I called Frank Macchiarola, the former Schools Chancellor and president of St. Francis College.

Gambling: He knows what he’s doing.

Mayor: He knows what he’s doing. The first time he came in and he helped me as a mediator in the- the price for that was I had to go to a Wagner-St. Francis basketball on Staten Island, which was a lot of fun, but from Frank’s point of view it wasn’t good because Wagner crushed St. Francis that night. This time the cost of getting him to volunteer a couple of days of his time, and he really does a spectacular job of getting everybody together was I had to welcome to City Hall the St. Francis water polo team. You have no idea how tall water polo players are.

Gambling: They try to touch the bottom of the pool.

Mayor: But anyways, he got everybody together and we still- now we have live music again for the holiday season. It’s great for the musicians, it’s great for the Rockettes, and Cablevision, who owns Radio City Music Hall, and for the public so I’m glad that worked out. In the case of the MTA that’s not a dispute that the City really can get involved in. They have plenty of professionals at the table and you know, all I can do is make sure the City’s as prepared as it can be and it will still be chaos, make no mistake about it. You just can’t replace the mass transit system with anything else. The roads will be terrible, the...

Gambling: You’ll have people walking everywhere...

Mayor: Yeah, but if you live a decent- you know this city is big. You can drive 30 or 40 miles in this city and not be outside the city limits. You can’t walk that. When there was the blackout people did walk home, but some only walked part way and stayed with friends or whatever.

Gambling: Or don’t come to work.

Mayor: Or don’t come to work.

Gambling: Don’t go to school.

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