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And now W. N.Y.C. present's City closer each week at this time Seymour and SIEGEL interviews city officials on the work of their departments today Mr Siegel's guest is Mrs Randolph Guggenheim or member of the New York City Planning Commission Mr Siegel. How do you do ladies and gentlemen and welcome the silly close up it's a great pleasure and privilege for us to have as our guest on this edition so we close up Mrs Randolph going to Hama member of the New York City Planning Commission now Mrs Guggenheim are we going to start out with a very very simple question Why should there be a woman member of the New York City Planning Commission that's a fine simple question to start with as a matter of fact I got in trouble answering that one day a couple of years ago and I've been being teased by Robert Moses for a number of years since because I claim that it was a natural function of the woman to be and in planning and since he feels that one should have a great deal of engineering skill in order to be involved in planning commission he's had a bit of a field day at my expense but I do think that there's a very special contribution a woman has to make to planning and perhaps it's in her background which means that she has been a housewife she's been in the neighborhood she knows about the problems of neighborhood shopping she knows what it is like to have her child perhaps go to an overcrowded school or to a school is in conveniently placed She has the problem if she's been a mother with a small baby of knowing what it would be like to walk five six seven eight blocks to a neighborhood park all of these kinds of problems really make up the roster of city planning. I think a woman has a very special contribution to make and I'm grateful for the fact that I lead on the Planning Commission may also say that this isn't just a matter of being a housewife I have had some of the basic courses and planning and I have gone to Pratt Institute and I've known a little bit beyond. The importance of having a shopping center next I would take you up on the engineering to well as matter of fact I majored in mathematics and did take some engineering courses back in college but I don't want you to ask me any questions on Calculus I want now in your view what was the obstacle you call push my little so the Planning Commission in the West yourself and your questions really are simple. I don't think we have an individual accomplishment that I could point to perhaps a few years ago if you'd asked me that question I would have said the passing of a new zoning resolution because that was a single major accomplishment I think this past year has been made up of a series of accomplishments if you made me answer that question I might say the recent rehabilitation study. That is very new kind of hot off the grid all we haven't acted on it yet but Community Renewal staff working with the Planning Commission has produced a study that was running late over Towson's Well it's going to point the way at least for us if we develop the tools there are some ifs in this still but at least for the first time we've taken a look at five different neighborhoods in the city and we've come up with a plan that proposes rehabilitation of existing buildings we know perfectly well we've learnt this lesson perhaps the hard way over great many years that we are going to have to find new tools to save the housing stock the city of New York we can't possibly ever produce enough in new housing to meet all the needs so this is going to be our first major step as a city in a in a pretty widespread rehabilitation program we're going to be trying to bring old buildings up to at least minimal to good standards for this is a concept which is in direct opposition to the bulldozer approaches I don't know where you just don't like that. May I say why I don't like it it's been used very glibly and misused a bulldozer approach if you mean taking down a whole neighborhood has been deader than what is dead a Kiwi bird I know something's no job or doubled over here as this is a very dead kind of approach and certainly back in the forty's when we were beginning to learn and even perhaps into the fifty's we felt that the way to handle a bad area slum area was to take down as many of the buildings as possible I don't think this is been a concept in city planning for a considerable length of time but it's a very glib kind of phrase that's used to fight and people the bulldozer approach there are going to be some areas still in New York where buildings are going to have to be taken down because they're so deteriorated and they've gone so far that it isn't financially fee. Usable it isn't even physically feasible to rehabilitate them but where it's possible today we are talking in terms of rehabilitation now there are many problems around rehabilitation It isn't just a simple as coming in of all teller so it is probably some of the problems are going to come in financing we have no tools at the present time for rehabilitating in an area particularly where where there are not where in a an area where there are not a great many houses with mortgages that can be refunded we're going to have some problems in finding out how to subsidize the rehabilitation so that families can remain in these homes without a sizable increase in rent We're also going to have to have tools actual physical tools learning how to do some of the rehabilitation how to bring some of these old buildings and there is enough housing stock that similar throughout the city so that we are going to be able to learn from experience in one area how to work in other areas how do you. Go from becoming a small. Well this is not city planning now this is me I think we're going to have to have still another tool that we haven't thought of yet and that is maintenance. Even rehabilitation of buildings isn't enough somewhere along the line we're going to have to learn how as a city to do the Year by year keeping up of buildings and that's going to require enormous amount of citizen education perhaps a volunteer corps perhaps of using the skills of of people who've retired or want to volunteer in spare time but the total maintenance of the city's housing supply is going to be a problem that I think our city planning commission will be facing in the future at the present time we have moved fairly far in this direction with this current rehabilitation program which is just in the very beginning I think people are only beginning to look at what we in the city planning commission of just begun to look at the rehabilitation program well now you're basically. As of cultural recreational pot you would you want to tell us a little bit about well there was some of your group was about what the needs are love very strong interest I will say their basic I've become in the last three years extremely interested in trance that does your parks and a great many other college by those areas told what I have been exposed extremely interested in recreation not on any kind of frivolous level you know recreation is part of the meat and fiber of life with the increase in leisure time it isn't a question of it be pleasant to play we can't exist as a city unless we provide reasonable recreational activities and our families can't exist as families unless they have opportunities to play together. Therefore I have been very much interested in the development of small neighborhood parks in the development of large recreational areas for what I call the excursion type of. Recreation the kind of thing that you do with your whole family on a summer day as well as the small readily available recreation that has to be in neighborhood community centers playgrounds. The use of school playgrounds the whole gamut of recreational and cultural activities that that make up a city and make it possible for people to exist in a in the crowded environment that is a city. To do with the silly put information but I think you personally have some. Indication that you fly with a separate recreation department or so the government is as well and that is correct and that has rotational activities away from the individual the problem oh I don't think it was so much a question of taking anything away it's a question of the fact that the present time recreation is scattered through so many different departments so the park department remarkable island is our major Recreation Department and perhaps it isn't so much of a separate recreation department as that many of the recreational activities could be brought under the park department the housing authority is charged with providing a good many recreational facilities community centers and playground space in housing projects infrequently yet we asked the housing authority to provide far more than what is necessary for the residents of a project we ask them when they're coming in to look at the whole neighborhood and provide recreational facilities in some ways for an entire neighborhood that sound I'm about to get off on another subject so I don't get back to two. Recreation but our hospitals have recreation programs schools are recreation programs the police department has recreation program on its way through the P.A. our. Sometimes it's it's difficult to see whether what we are doing is saturating one neighborhood or completely infecting another because there hasn't been the opportunity to coordinate debil soundly together I think it's important this take place yes has a rally money to do with city planning on about has this. Publicly yes has been you know yes it's been very much a spouse by United Neighborhood houses the community council a variety of social agencies that have been trouble too about the need to bring the various city agencies together that are providing recreation as I I want to underline that again that you see this is an operating function and planning is not operational we can suggest we can propose and sometimes we have to go perhaps a little far afield in an effort to build a sound community but we really do not get into the administration. Well let's get back to silly playing them for a moment you mentioned just a moment ago the concept of industrial parks one is an industrial park well industrial park this is I don't know if an hour is the correct word but it's been a development all across the country we've been wooing industry every city across the country has been and not only city suburban rural areas that we're going industry by making possible the development of industry on a tract of land where facilities transportation water may be readily available some water for instance has proved a major obstacle in some upstate communities that have been trying to attract industry we have a fairly good supply of that for industry and we have been planning we have been proposing in the Planning Commission the development of a number of industrial areas which would welcome industry which would provide facilities and manatees that would be. Set up that is necessary and important for industry. I believe that there are so many advantages for industry locating in this city and we there's so many advantages the city to course in having major industries welcome here that the city planning commission is taking this very seriously you don't do anything overnight and we're moving forward I think rapidly the mayor has this is part of mayors in the administration program very strong party in Missouri losing industrial parks block a very there are several different ones proposed Kali's point has been ones. Yes one in Staten Island. There have been just trying to think there's one in Manhattan and triangle has been proposed somewhat different than their ordinary park that well. We hear a great deal about open space. Well I don't think you're responsible for it but I mean you have a spouse the notion of an open space but. You want to tell us about an open space or a limb by a well a mayor has a program of land bank we are beginning to try to set aside land when we are able to foresee the development of an area so that in the future a school a public place. A few will a court house whatever may become necessary often in the future will be available you will not discover that we have allowed us guys scraper to go up where or in maybe then to sorry to build something for the public good. Open space I'm going to deviate a little bit here too is a very important concept and it's probably not had all the consideration in the building of cities up until recently but it should have had people simply cannot live as jammed in together as. Our previous zoning resolution made possible and we're beginning to think of open space in a variety of different ways open space for the future for whatever our needs are going to be become evident as the city bills and progress is open space for today parks and playgrounds open space in industrial areas because people who work also need during the lunch hour cetera to be able to get out perhaps have smaller sitting areas open space on main thoroughfares. Squares. Of the kind of Times Square except along Broadway where you have AIDS. But which of course feeling of being able to breathe all of this is part of the concept of having a space that is open in cities varied. You personally or despite a great deal of interest in the Cooper Square. I have wanted to tell us a bit about. Well it's controversial you now are controversial oddly. I think I'm going to say at the risk of having my head chopped off some time later on minutia and not on main issues. The cooper square community some time ago and I think this is marvelous Believe me I want to start by paying every kind of tribute Cooper Square a neighborhood groups who got together and themselves produced a plan they engage world with sabot who is a very skillful city planner and who developed what they call the old the plan it was a plan not a plan the city already had a plan which was discarded this all of the plan was developed since that time the Community Renewal staff of our office has been working very closely with the community attempting to develop an urban renewal plan that will conform quite closely to the Cooper squares or plan that I I believe has been achieved now there are many things that need to be are in doubt the Cooper square plan called for rehabilitation some some clearance it had a very strong rehabilitation concept conservation of commercial areas there are many kinds of problems that dish may need to be solved in Cooper square squares are Skid Row You know that's the Bowery little homeless man problem sent is there and this is a mammoth problem with which most New Yorkers are far less familiar than you would think was possible considering the size the problem for them fifteen thousand homeless men that have this is their focal point their center of activity and this is a problem it also has to be Hanna before you can rehabilitate and develop an area and there is a operation Barrie going forward right now which the welfare department is very much concerned which because this is their problem basically which we hope will give us some answers but I am very much involved right now in meeting with the community and I'm going to continue to meet with the community I have meeting scheduled almost daily. With various groups in the community to try to find out what it is that they see as important for their area what it is that we can do because sometimes you know a city agency has its limitations we have laws we have regulations we have methods in which we must operate and you can't look at any one neighborhood the advantage of a city wide planning commission is that they can be deeply concerned about the desires and wishes of one neighborhood but that they also can see this neighborhood in the context of every other neighborhood in the city where you wouldn't write closely with. The eventual clearly Playboys origin as closely as we can and we will be working much more closely that's part of the new charter we will be working extremely closely in the future with neighborhood planning boards but it's been part of the again the administration program and the mayor I believe stated in his. Inaugural Address at the start of this particular term that the policy of his administration would be to consult with work with and be close to neighborhood groups now occasionally they don't think that we're as close as we ought to be and I can understand that anything that happens in my particular neighborhood. I find myself shaking my fist at the city about you know but nevertheless even though every neighborhood doesn't believe so our policy is to work with the neighborhood groups this gives you a great deal of grassroots opinion as to I'm very much a grassroots girl I've worked all my I've worked all my life outside of being a housewife that walk to the neighborhood store I also worked with a neighbor groups I found of the Association of neighbor councils in this city and as Russia was open deeply concerned with daycare switch has centers one hundred sixteen different areas and therefore I have known the community groups and I have no much respect for the knowledge that anybody living in and they would have about their neighborhood and therefore. Let's go into the subject here for a moment what about the whole question to undergo. The proper cause made several proposals in this regard what's your view of underground garage Well that that's another one of your simple questions. I don't have a kind of an omnibus view about underground garages I have some question about one that's been proposed because it threatens the destruction of some very fine trees and I am of the woodman spare that tree. Yes I think we have to be extremely careful park is so precious in the York and well even the garage necessarily No not necessarily not necessarily that's that's why I'm saying it's not a simple answer I don't have an overall answer for first of all you have to view each one of them separately we do have a policy in relation to the development of a municipal part of any kind of parking in the core area. Of Manhattan in a way that carries over into Cory's of the other boroughs. The entire problem of the use of the automobile in a congested city like New York has been a matter of continual concern and study and it's where it would go and how it would affect the area and what it would do to not just traffic but in the sense of of automobile traffic but pedestrian traffic. That's important and therefore at this particular moment at least I don't catch speak for every other member of the commission couldn't possibly give an overall point of view about underground garages here again there's a great deal of glibness mean people will say the answer to all parking is to put everything underground I keep worrying about what's going to happen when they dig us up like they've dug up Troy you know when they find us a city with so many different levels were about to put apartments on top of schools I don't know what's going to eventually I think playgrounds on top of apartments and really someday when we sometime I'll never understand whether we were seventeen cities or. When I. Just knew children but you've also displayed. Those And you know so with regard to how. People graduate on from children I was about to show you the pictures of my grandchildren but I talk about elderly citizens. Because I am very deeply concerned about what is happening perhaps to our society in relation to elderly citizens I think a great many people are concerned what kind of housing and where we should develop but. Our federal government's been very much concerned last year I. Was relatively unhappy about the development of Seaview although it became extremely necessary do that out in Staten Island. And I think that our. Hospital our hospital department has enunciated a policy which I hope can go into effect of placing nursing homes near hospitals because they do need medical medical affiliation but throughout the city and in various boroughs so that families have access so that OPI people won't be so isolated there are you know I seem to be be hitting action for simple questions but what you've opened up is a six hour to visitation I don't even know how to begin to get into the multitude of kinds of community problems that are going to face us in providing. Good housing good care for elderly citizens the clinics how they would need for those local look kind of housing that is situated in such a way and such a place that it can keep people in the community and the variety of housing some old people want to live with other all people in some isolation from the community for others being part of the community life and being with younger people is important only people are very much like young people you know they have a variety of different kinds of tastes you have some people who want quiet and some people want no ways and everybody doesn't want the same kind of housing everybody doesn't want the same kind of facilities and we're going to have to learn as a community to develop a great many different types of we are learning there's been some fascinating developments and I wish you'd give me a whole hour of it tell you about as I like to have you come back and talk about solutions we've had a just recently they came through the planning commission a a brand new kind of a of a a housing. Combination a housing a medical facility nursing home combination that would enable people to stay where they live for a considerably longer period of time I'm I'm terribly troubled. At the possibility that the times we were we move an older person from the community before it would be absolutely necessary that various kinds of of Meals on Wheels programs and visiting programs would enable us to keep people we are developing them but I don't think there has been yet in this city the comprehensive program for the aging the packaging of these various programs that's going to be necessary one of your other areas of interest has to bill would present the problem of the corrections to women's prison I sound like a little less. I am. I guess I am interested in the only right. My interest in prisons actually stems from the fact that each Planning Commission is given certain number of areas to work with as far as the capital budgets concerned really when I die I'm still yes you are and I have a person usually after this you and I can get into a corner and discuss your forthcoming capitalism to help. But. I became interested in correction actually because this was my assignment I've spent a good some time at least I would say a good bit of time not half enough time visiting our prisons here and actually visiting them in other states and other communities. Connecticut Colorado and California and various other areas where I think they've been doing some forward looking jobs particularly with women in prison I think we've got a way to go there we have a very very I hope people with City know it far sighted commissioner of correction who has done a a fine job against one against another crass against great odds. Because there are odd. In this alone in the fact that people are they don't want to know too much about it it isn't very popular or something like close the door on forget about and yet a very costly thing for the taxpayer to forget about and she has a concept of rehabilitation we see beyond a rehabilitation that day but she does really care very much about trying to break through the merry go round of returns. And she has instituted a number of psychiatric programmes training programs. She's fought desperately hard for schools and in the prisons and for all the things that may keep us from having what I call the prison merry go around. We only have a moment or so left on this particular program but we would use our lives up to a concept of social planning we would spend those were telling us what your views or with regard to how social pluming for a child or some people. I'd like to again I'd like to spend an hour on that one. You can't have physical planning and we know it today with our social planning but the word social planning is a rough one I'm not even sure I know what it means. I used to think that your social planning meant what you put on a day care center here and a health center and a welfare program and that was it but are almost everything it takes place in the neighborhood whether it's the bus schedule or a. Park if you will has to do with the way a neighborhood develops and the way people behave I think in a neighborhood for instance I'll give you a silly cut example if the bus schedule is perfectly excruciating and daddy gets home very late every night. You have a family situation well I'll never know and I'm afraid one of the brothers program will close it's been a great publish to have lessons when I go there home I remember the looks of the Planning Commission as I guessed on this edition something close up with helpful combos are with us again real soon we'll see you again next week. City close a weekly series of interviews. With Government series is conducted by Seymour and Siegel with his guest was Mrs Randolph Guggenheim or member of the New York City Planning Commission. City close up was directed by Don.