Sources of Political Control:
Chapter 11 introduces four cases where Greenpoint-Willaimsburg’s decision making was in the hands of political self interests and alliances that were above local government. Among New York City government, MAC, the Municipal Assistance Corporation controlled city wide budgets due to their connection to influential banks.
MAC set up several important financial alterations to New York City including the increase of transit fare and laying off city workers. For the first time, tuition was instituted in CUNY’s. The city’s financial issues grew deeper and deeper which brought the rise of the Emergency Financial Control board in order to keep control over the budget but in fact only lead to the continuation of financial influence over politics. This lead to the fiscal crisis of 1975 with the prioritization of profits over living conditions. Four different cases were described in this chapter that showed local officials, more concerned with their own well being, attempting to control elections and political influence.
1. Propaganda- used to ensure the election of Senator Thomas Bartosiewicz whom never held an office prior to nomination. He was an inexperienced public speaker but Democrats and Republicans as well as bank reps joined together to ensure that Greenpoint remained influential through his victory. Racism was used against his opponents making a point that they were from Bedford-Stuyvesant and thus making Thomas one of the only prominent candidate in newspapers.
2. The UFT, which had the ability to influence election result, distributed leaflets and campaigned that its candidates were all racially tolerant in a growingly discriminative society against European immigrants. Non-UFT sponsored candidates were thought of as radicals making the campaign targeted to Caucasian voters, while minorities, African Americans and those impoverished were not represented fairly. Education problems were dismissed and UFT used its money and enhanced propaganda to ensure that their desired candidates were elected.
3. Members of Greenpoint’s Democratic Club and local officials banded together in order to oppose establishing unsubsidized housing for low income residents. Although the public was clearly against this, they were able to combine political influence to maintain control of the area and prevent more of these low incomes residents from gaining residency on the Greenpoint area.
4. Many local officials based their alliances on connections with members of the American Legion formed to prevent dissent restarting to racism and other drastic measures. Most of these local officials were members or connected to influential people who were members of The Legion and thus many of the policies established was under the influence of this alliance.
