Being that my classmates and I were so young when September 11th happened, it was interesting to read this excerpt and look back at the effects of that tragic day on our city. It seems strange to me that there would be individuals that oppose a modern New Deal for New York, especially at such a fragile time in the nation’s history.
Wallace made sure to emphasize the positive effect that WPA workers had on New York, and I don’t see how implementing a similar program wouldn’t be a desirable task. WPA workers contributed greatly to maintaining and beautifying our city while simultaneously stimulating our economy by providing over 200,000 “destitute” civilians with employment. Not only did these workers build build Coney Island’s boardwalk (which I can’t imagine Brooklyn’s famous beach without), but they also repaired over 2,000 miles of streets and highways. The government wasn’t just looking to give these WPA workers meaningless jobs for the sake of allowing them to bring home a paycheck, the government gave them necessary jobs that improved the community.
With much of our city’s infrastructure and roads aging, I believe that post-9/11 New York City would greatly benefit from program’s similar to the New Deal’s WPA. The reading even states that the “WPA employed more people than any private corporation in town, more people than the War Department.” After reading a statement like that, it becomes blatant that the WPA was not only successful, but necessary because without it, hundreds of thousands of individuals would have been out of work. When contextualized with the 1.2 million people who lost jobs after the attack on the Twin Towers, it is baffling that this precedence was not mimicked to re-stimulate New York’s economy.
