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Doors on some trains do not open, owing to a policy of "deferred maintenance," meaning no maintenance. Among New York wits there is a continuous competition to find the precisely right metaphor for the feeling of riding in the company of one's fellow citizens at rush hour on a summer day. "We could fix up the trains and the tracks," explains Richard Ravitch, head of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. "We could clean up the subways, buy new air-conditioned cars. We could get a lot more transit patrolmen down into the subways and cut crime. We could do all those things and make the M.T.A. the most efficient public transportation system in the country. All it would take is money."
Square one.
Naturally, the mayor has lots of things to say about the city's problems—all of them said at tenor pitch in a New York-Newark nasal that at odd times seems to swoop into Texas. Koch, who has the Big Bird look, is at his best in a fracas, but he is also a thoughtful politician who appreciates the dignity of his office. He is in his job to stay, he feels; for two more terms, he hopes. On the evening of Aug. 3, before making an address to the annual convention of the National Urban League, he sat on the porch of Gracie Mansion, his official residence, sipping wine, sweating up a storm and discussing his domain. "I think we're doing all right," he said, as if supplying the desired answer to his own trademark question. "New York has come a long way since 1976. We've got an up-to-date accounting system. We've got a fully balanced budget a year ahead of time. We've still got problems, of course. But I think we can deal with them."
On the subject of hospital closings, specifically that of Metropolitan Hospital in Spanish Harlem, he insisted that no one would receive worse or less health care as a result of the shutdown, because "a better hospital" will be put up in place of the old. On unemployment, he spoke of the necessity of creating the right climate for jobs, but added that "New York cannot become the employer of last resort. That's a federal responsibility." On housing costs, he acknowledged the madness in Manhattan, but recommended the boroughs.
A practical man himself, Koch can understand intellectually how some others might forgo practicality. But the mayor cannot see why either he or the city should be blamed for the consequences.