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In the city of New York Vincent Darren Pelletier A acting mayor. In cooperation with W.P.R.O. X. presents. At the mayor's desk. Every other Thursday at this time we bring you a program of informal discussion between acting mayor impelling tell me and members of the city government now ladies and gentlemen here is your Mayor Vincent impellor tell. Consumers ladies and gentlemen run the city of New York is a complex problem which requires an experienced and understanding approach to the many and varied problems that consign the welfare of every person in the city of New York tonight I am very happy to have the opportunity once again to Gus some of our administrators problems with members of my official family so that you may have an opportunity of listening in on these conferences. Tonight I have brought to all of our outstanding public officials of this city in fact the gentleman on my right you will recognize as the nation's number one public service career ma'am Commissioner Robert Moses our city construction coordinator and by the way I think that if I remember correctly Bob as about fifteen other titles that I haven't mentioned him the fellow who I think knows more about city planning and public improvements than any other man in the entire world. On my left is Police Commissioner Thomas F. Murphy who's vigorous the administration of the police department is being applauded by everyone everywhere and particularly by the people who love the city of New York and want to see it kept foreign decent and clean. But I am at the moment as the new mayor of the city of New York most concerned with the city's traffic and poppy problem I realize of course that there is no overnight cure all solution to this perplexing problem but I want to make sure that all that can possibly be done to alleviate this condition is done not what you tell a public something about that. First place I think that. The laws of most serious problem the size and scope of it somewhat exaggerated. But I mean that. Here in the city of New off. The problem exists in the exaggerated form over only about ten percent of the acreage of the city in other words ninety percent of the city isn't in bad shape from the point of view of traffic of that ten percent that's left over it includes of course the very congested areas of midtown Manhattan and the civic center as nation part of the Bronx around for tomorrow. As those sections of Queens flushing Jamaica and up to recently the. Congested waterfront that's a judge's instep not. By the front of the who writes down through the garment center they certainly complains a lot about hockey is there any immediate solution or is it a long range planning. It's largely a long range job and I would say so far as parking is sinking Parky double parking. Difficulty lies in the fact that we have an enormous number of automobiles proportionately not as many as well California but it's a very large number and it's growing very rapidly and the use of trucks is growing fast and many people automobiles who simply don't have the means to garage their cars. In the face of present high prices or try and private garages so maybe it was the cheapest and easiest method which is to park on the street and that's what Jeff's our screens. If we had more buildings like the Port Authority building the fifteenth Street and I knew that would be of considerable help well. There are such buildings being constructed for example as the great big new or I found early United Nations. Port Authority garages the big Iraj that the Triborough Bridge authority is building down in the at the foot of Manhattan. At the new tunnel in the battery and there's the Columbus Coliseum which is on paper but very we'll get to it before long. There are private garages but they're inadequate the prices are too high and what you have to bear in mind is that somehow or other we have to get public off street parking. Garages at fairly low rates now those won't be economical in the OP Mary sense where they must be some subsidy there's got to be a Santa Clause in the picture and in the case of the public garages we figure that the best Santa Clause consists of installing parking meters and using the. News for those meters there was sweet and what would otherwise be a pretty sour but actual picture where the parking meter program is already underway and experimental basis is it not well first meters haven't been installed but what will really what's really required is the functioning of this no authority whose members you just pointed out. You know lived in Newark New York City part of writing that no parking authority was authorized by the legislature at the last session and you got three first straight man what you say was authorized but the authority was never ever actually actually implemented by the appointment of the members all the members have just been appointed missional often the. National shall have them commissioner while two of them are bankers two of them are from the police commissioners and two of them I have had a great deal of experience on public authorities going on the housing authority and the other on the driver bridge authority when I was very happy to appoint those three distinguished New Yorkers on your recommendation Mr Moses will you tell me how does the federal state and city arterial program for the fed into this poppy and in traffic picture if it does it oh well that is a very important phase of it because it takes me it separates the through traffic from the local private. I don't know that most people understand want to Expressway is or throw away part ways or understood because we've had them for years but the expressway is open to all kinds of traffic mix traffic trucks buses as well as. As of passenger vehicles and S. six express lanes three in each direction and two service roads one on each side. Those expressways and thruways are being constructed on the enormous scale. There are a few small sections open but a great deal of work is on the way that work is federal state and city federal and state governments pay for construction generally the city of the state government share of the cost of land the immediate program is about fifty million dollars for land of about two hundred fifty million dollars for construction that doesn't include work that the city is doing by itself with its own funds presenter like the East River Drive and the extension lead connection between the east and west sides down of the battery but that program is going to make a tremendous impression on this problem when it's all carried out. By the same token it would seem to me that this program would have a definite bearing on the mobility required in the event that something happened and with reference to our civil defense program would it not yesterday might take that view a bit there's no doubt that the worst problem that we have to face I'm sure the commission Murphy will substantiate this is the problem of street congestion in the event of a sneak bomb attack or something that the congestion is bad. That the tough peak hours now it would be simply intolerable in the event that people got frightened and you had any kind of panic would you Kelly listening audience something about the from endless amount of arterial Hi where you worked it's actually under way here in the city of New York well it's the biggest program of its kind in the world. We can't do any more than we're doing today because in the first place the program involves moving a tremendous number of people these are very wide rights of way they go right through the congested parts and time out and out we run into buildings of all kinds of martial buildings. Residue. Natural means we have to move the tenants before we can ten buildings down and we have ten buildings down before we struck the ark and it's our policy not to throw people out on the street. And that's all yes there's a lot of talk about. Sadistic. Removal of tenants but that's all rubbish that is that we've moved buildings with people in the people out of the buildings but the people then again we put the people in public housing we've put them in place side of the house and now we've got down to pay them a certain amount of money a flat sum to find other orders for themselves we always make certain that the people in these buildings are taken care of and some other type of housing before the improvement goes through that's right and we build in sections in order not to disrupt too many people but I'm going to tell me how the tunnels and bridges fit into this picture of the same thing the tunnel are of rage is an integral part as a strategic place and you know not Ariel system the authorities the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel already in the part of the office already contributed a great deal to of the building of bridges and tunnels and their approaches they get their funds from the sale of their bonds to probe and investors and don't tap the treasury of the city or the state of the federal government they're a very important part of this picture and they they work in very close and harmonious cooperation with the city got all of it working but no friction between the federal state and city authorities whatever in spite of political differences now on a number of occasions we have discussed the other phases of the traffic problem which concerns itself principally with hockey. Course I know that in the limited time we have available we can't go into the details but suppose you give us a brief resume of the main points about our parking problem. Well and the. Main solution lies in the stablish fund off street parking facilities by this new parking authority which will have to issue at least one hundred million dollars worth of bonds supported in part by parking meters and now have to be a wholesale installation of parking meters that. Course has the effect of. Not only controlling the streets but it has the effect of driving the all day of the all night park or into the public garage without those meters the financing of these off street facilities would be impossible there are a lot of other things that ought to be OK We ought to jack up our our Sony standards where over building the central sections we tear down a perfectly good building that has a life of a hundred years in front of it because it's become obsolescent of become obsolescent because people want to build up to the limit they want to build on every square foot of land and they want to use every possible device to get more right now that kind of building has to be held down as otherwise never solve the problem of the particularly not in midtown Manhattan and we also must need elevated expressways across town east and west distinguished and off. Of course I realize and so does everybody else listening in on this program. Any of these programs necessarily have headaches and I know that you have headaches I have headaches commish number three has headaches one to let the listening audience in and some of these headaches that concerns you myself with this parking Brown. Well at a certain movie the people as I said before finding places for them to go being a utilities we have the most complicated system of underground utilities and we ought to be involved in any city in the world they have to be told that service has to be kept going people have to be able to live with them over that they happen to be able to do business while all these things are going on in addition to that. There's no getting around the fact that the solution of these problems involve a lot of drastic action and in the course of that drastic action a lot of very offputting told us are going to be stepped on. A lot of vested interests are going to be interfered with and. The public the elected officials will support the officials who are in charge of the program and particularly the members of the new parking authority I think those things can all be. Barbara. You know from your long service with the city through a great number of administrations that one of the most important the jobs that the city official has to perform and particularly the mare the city is to train the close coordination of the various cities the puppets since commissioner Murphy is here and I suppose you tell him of some suggestions that that he might be able to help with and carrying out a program to immediately provide some temporary traffic relief well first thing for us to force the existing laws and regulations the second thing is to improve on those regulations but I'm one of the people who believe that whether or not you have. Any other agencies of government working on this thing. That the police department in the last analysis is the agency that you've got to depend on the village. Because it's the policeman on the beat that has to enforce these things of Parking Authority can do a great deal of parking authority and install a watch its meters but in the last analysis this is going to be a police problem no matter how you dress it up you can transfer the police commissioner's responsibility to any traffic commissioner in my face and accomplish anything in the process. Now do you remember any other proposals that I can pass on to other city departments to help in this traffic relief program nothing but to. Back up as I know you well the people that are going to tackle this problem and they are going to tackle it in earnest this time. Are sure you that all of these officials will have my complete cooperation my complete backing just as you have and Justice Commissioner Murphy would you tell me. How you would conclude on this very vital subject of every New Yorkers asking questions about they are after day and believe me when I tell you that most of the letters I received at my desk at City Hall concerns itself with the traffic problem. Well the only thing that I what I asked of the press and the general public is to support these drastic steps that have to be taken day and day out I've not asked for them on Monday and then complain about among Tuesday asked to have a lot of people have their for the principle but they're against his application to take him away in the individual cases that it will never work on that basis this thing is a he is a here around. And you can't let down. The minute you make exceptions your laws I've got to be tackled it in a very ball of off right away and especially in the light of the Defense civilian defense preparation it requires a lot of independent thinking and independent action and so. I thank you very much Bob I know that. One of the key members of my cabinet I'm always happy to have a man with your experience around it's given me a great deal of confidence giving me a great deal of help in the five years that I've been at City Hall and I'm certain that the intimate knowledge you display in discussing our public improvement program should be most reassuring to the people of the city of New York on this nonpolitical program of course as I've told the public be formed. I'm proud to tell him again I'm happy that you have continued with me in my cabinet and city hall. And now I want to turn attention to some other important problems which concern the protection and safety of our people. Commissioner Murphy you were been police commissioner since September twenty sixth when I appointed you and I think that the people of the city of New York if I may say so I pleased with the job that you have been doing in weeding out a very very small percentage of policemen who didn't measure up and that today they feel it under your guidance we have a wonderful police force again when you tell us what you think of your new job well I like. That sums it up that's something that I think you're doing this well job. Well I was present of the challenge most of my. Columns that I'm happy to accept. And also entails a great many long hours. Of work but I thought some experience along those lines. When you appointed me. I had the problem of the person out of the box. And I think that I. Did it and of quickly so as to what accomplishment desired result you certainly did and I want to publicly then I express my appreciation now say this to you Commissioner Murphy you know when next Tuesday more than two million Some might hundred thousand people will go to the polls to elect candidates for high public office. And I'd like to Europe to report at this time just what steps are being taken by you to make certain that the people of the city of New York have an orderly election free of any political intimidation or coercion or violence must Mayor I have a meeting call for sati with every member of my command from the precinct captains up including the effect of squad. Right up to one including the chief inspector. I propose to all those men. Next Tuesday will be in the election by the people for the candidates of that choice. I want and one for. A rule that nobody. Will be intimidated or coworkers or threat. Of exercising the right to vote it's a God given right now our Constitution says that we have it and I'm here to protect it we have nineteen thousand men and we got to enforce the law allows nineteen thousand men being on duty on election day everyone except those in bed say. Right that's a good percentage how many MANY we expect to have actually on the job on election day over nineteen thousand. Ladies and gentlemen. Frankly I would like to have much more time to come in here home and tell you about the problems that confront OS seven tonight. I was privileged to have on this program with me Commissioner Bob Moses and Commissioner Tom Murphy I'm certain that what they have related to you in the case that in the city of New York we have top flight public officials doing a conscientious job three hundred sixty five days and the interests of all the people of the city these programs will continue we will bring you the city of New York's problems its advantage is exactly what we planned and what we are doing I want to thank you tonight as the acting man for permitting me to come into your home to freely discuss these problems with you thank you very much. At the mayor's desk is presented every other Thursday evening at this time the next program will be November the sixteenth. Time.