Between the Bridges: A Pox on Both Their Houses
Once upon a time there was an ice skating rink in Central Park that could no longer make ice. Neither the Mayor nor all his politician friends could figure out how to fix the skating rink. Years went by and millions of dollars were spent and still no ice. One day a businessman wearing a bright red tie showed up and said: “Let there be ice!” Four months later there was ice. When asked by the press why the politicians had been unable to fix the rink themselves the businessman said “They’re very nice people and I like them very much but they’re all idiots!” And everyone lived happily ever after.
Back in 1980 the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park, an iconic amenity for both native New Yorkers and tourists alike, was a disgrace having fallen into a complete state of disrepair as a result of mismanagement and neglect. Mayor Koch and his Parks Department announced that they would undertake a two-year project to restore the iconic facility to its former glory but, to no one’s surprise, six long years and 13 million wasted dollars later, the skating rink was still a disaster! The city admitted its failure and stated that it would have to start all over again and, to add insult to injury, indicated that it would take another two years to fix the rink.
In May of 1986 Donald Trump stepped in and offered to repair the Wollman Rink for no more than 3 million dollars and have it up and running in less than six months, in time for the Christmas holiday season later that year. Trump finally got the go ahead and many of our city politicians gleefully anticipated his failure to repair the skating rink as promised to be accompanied by lots of media coverage with which to divert attention from their own six-year boondoggle. Much to the dismay of the city politicos, the Parks Department and the elites of the Central Park Conservancy, Trump finished the project in four months and 25 percent under budget! According to Trump…”It wasn’t rocket science, just common sense and good management.” The Wollman Rink remains to this day a New York City landmark of which we can all be proud.
Speaking with many of my friends and neighbors in the Channel I find a pervasive sentiment among both those who like Trump as well as those who don’t, that his involvement in this election just might be a good thing in the long run. Having dominated the nation’s entire political agenda and its airwaves, Trump has created a new language of bluntness, upended political correctness, freely criticized mainstream media and brought new life a moribund citizenry. Regardless of the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump has created a crisis in American politics which has laid bare a festering boil of anger within the country’s long suffering citizenry and just might help to bring about a lessening of long-standing governmental dysfunction fueled by a less-than-objective media, well-heeled special interest groups, lobbyists, PACs, Super PACs and an elite group of large money donors who have, for far too long, set the political and legislative agendas for our country while viewing the people of this nation solely as a cash cow!
God knows a heaping dose of “common sense and good management” would be a welcome change across the entire political spectrum, from Washington D,C. right down to the local level regardless of who delivers it! If our politicians on both sides of the aisle fail to recognize this one simple fact, a pox on both their houses.
Broad Channel, why would anyone want to live anywhere else?
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