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Washington Square Village Dedication

Washington Square Village (Greenwich Village) in New York City, Dec. 10, 1957.

Radio and Television star Ben Grauer emcees the dedication of the Washington Square Village Apartments. Robert Moses, Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack, and New York City Comptroller Lawrence Gerosa speak on the development, while Morton Wolf and Paul Tishman, the developers of the apartment complexes to come, talk about the upcoming project.

Ben Grauer introduces begins the program by eschewing lengthy preambles and introduces Robert Moses.

Moses recalls a joke by Jimmy Walker that had accompanied the 100th anniversary of Erie Canal. He talks about the complications that went into the development, in this coming from artists and New York University. He feels that any reasonable people will be happy with the improvement.

Grauer reiterates the importance of brevity and introduces Manhattan Borough President Hulan Jack.

Jack thanks the attendees. He talks about the importance of private enterprise in Washington Square Village in bringing middle income housing. He talks about the slums that are in the spot that Washington Square Village will be located. He talks about the employment that incoming businesses will bring. He talks about other potential boons the project will bring.

Grauer introduces Lawrence Gerosa, New York City's comptroller. Gerosa thanks the attendees. Gerosa is pleased that the project will bring the City money. He talks about some of the specific numbers behind the city budget.

Grauer introduces a pair of descendants of George Washington, Martha Washington and George Lafayette Washington, meant to tie in the historical aspect of the Washington Square development.

Grauer mentions "sand on the rails" of New York City's transit problems. It is the reason why Mayor Wagner cannot attend the dedication. Grauer reads a speech from Wagner. We talks about business expansion and how the march of business brings on slums. Washington Square was one such area. He goes into the storied history of Washington Square and the Village. The buildings in the area were dilapidated and the new ones will bring in 10 times the income to the City. He talks about the necessity of change. He reviews Morton Wolf's and Paul Tishman's taking on the mantle of rebuilding the area

Grauer introduces Wolf and Tishman, the developers of Washington Square Village. Wolf thanks everyone for attending and Moses and Jack, Gerosa and others for help in getting the project off the ground. Tishman also thanks the architects and designers. Tishman talks about the physical environment and the difficulties they bring, along with the ingenuity of his designers in working around them.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection

WNYC archives id: 150431
Municipal archives id: LT7838

This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.

Thank you very much. I don't think I need to. Indulge in any ceremonies as a master of ceremonies for a distinguished audience of people like yourselves you're all busy here all acutely in tune with our city and with the glorious and happy occasion which we're celebrating here this afternoon in other words it needs no decoration or pulling our anecdotes from your MC but I do have a very pleasant duty to introduce a group of distinguished citizens to you and then bring to you an official word from our chief executive so without further to do may I introduce to you probably the best known of the most job Laden and most skillful administrators of those jobs of all of our city officials. Among the many titles he holds the chairman of the city's commission for slum clearance it's an honor always introduce Commissioner Bob Moses to me. Oh I have to ask him for ducks in a band growlers reminds me of a terrible luncheon the Port Authority gave years ago on one hundred thousand a very street of the opening of the Erie Canal and. Somebody went out to rob Buffalo and branched out. A lawyer there would been SO CA did with the original people. Who built the canal a hundred years before he came down he certainly had figured out that this was the last speech he was ever going to make on any great public education so he took about fifty minutes and then they had the counsel for the Port Authority who is now on their way as a rock god rest his soul and he spoke another fifty minutes and then came Jimmie Walker and Jimmy looked at the clock and fixed that handkerchief that he always had in this pocket and he says You're awfully busy people this meeting is adjourned for one hundred years and. I don't have much of anything to say we have been working here on somewhat difficult conditions man asked me this morning in the connection with the signing of the. By Mr Rockefeller or rather the transfer of the check by Mr Rockefeller to the manfully Performing Arts up at Lincoln Square he was a lawyer one of Mr Brock fellows lawyers not familiar with this kind of procedure and he said these things always take so long only always so complicated and I said they always are invariably because it's a big town it's an old town I a bounder step on some toes as you go along whether they're the towers of. Of the artists in the neighborhood or the New York University people wherever it may be people are going to just come out and they have to some extent they're fair I don't think they're hurt in the long run though I certainly inconvenienced and we have to live through this period all of us officials and we're glad in this instance to be associated with people who've made the progress that has been made here and I think that when we're all finished that everybody in the neighborhood ever a reasonable person will be happy with this improvement thank you. Added with dispatch and incisiveness is everything to Krishna Moses does. One of our distinguished city officials is here and if the briskness of my introductions indicates any lack of want it's a mistake I don't mean it at all but I know what I schedules on all of the. Problems that we all have and making things fit in a not tightly complex city and I said. To that sort of a fish and see that this magnificent development rises here on the south and of Washington Square of Washington will have a word in a moment but since this is so entirely a part of the center of our city of Manhattan Island let's have a word from the borough president of the borough of Manhattan feeling Jack. Thank you Mr Prout and mission emeritus to Mr Rolfe and controller controller to rouse sir and Solomon and I saw the chairman of the City fan information not too long ago and to the descendants of George Washington what I saw on this occasion to all of the Distinguished ladies and gentlemen here and said I am. Happy to be here dissipate in the formal dedication next sizes of Washington Square village far off it represents another step in the future a necessary development of Madeleine from housing in Manhattan Washington Square village also reflects an increased interest by private capital working together with government in the overall picture of middle income housing and the area where as scarcity has existed for too many yes they can play sion of Washington Square village when replaced a business slum neighborhood they physical and economic deterioration of which became more acute with the passing of time there are several such Civic I saw as an existence on the fringes. Of local communities in Manhattan to permit their continuance does not allow for the kind of remarkable progress and growth we're witnessing alarm the Cinderellas street we know as Third Avenue but we cannot transform. Neighborhoods into modern residential and commercial communities by the waving of a magic wand to private capital to test great and planning the future of Manhattan is not enough government must deliberately invite private capital to actively engage and conferences for the purpose of planning for only by such citizen cooperation can we achieve the goals we seek for the common betterment of the public surveys have shown that numerous potential site facilities for middle income housing a problem in their relationship to the future growth of Manhattan they evidence is all around us whether it is in Washington Square village or the quarter of a billion dollar construction program in the financial district or the contemplated billion dollar commercial and residential plans for building in midtown Manhattan and new structure in any neighborhood also encourages new retail business to locate wherever new buildings are constructed these changes bring increased employment to thousands adds to the economic benefits of the surrounding neighborhoods and their residents and reach out to other areas outside of New York City where production lines are the mainstay of a community in other ways new construction has a chain reaction that maintains a high level of prosperity it also contributes to the best interests of family life and community activities including additional governmental facilities such as better highways where our schools find our hospitals and other. The public service is essential to the well being comfort and safety of the people thank you. Thank you Bob president Jack you spoke of the Chain Reaction one of the other city officials to side with striking the match or lighting the fuse train certainly involved in setting up that chain reaction of the dead and I'd like to introduce to you now it's always a pleasure to have him on our as all of you who have distinguished city offices on the N.B.C. T.V. program Citizens Union such tight on Sunday which you may say and whatever we have larger Also than asking the facts about the city's finances we get them and they're big and they're facts and they're big lad you're also the controller if you will. Thank you then. Our ladies and gentlemen. MISSION OF MOSES my. Friend and human Jack and a vote of vestment my colleague the bankers. I'm on pink head first time I saw this was last Sunday I saw a hose being dug around here and things going on but I voted for the project nevertheless and right makes me happy this is one project that's going to give the city some money cities are going to get money to bankers are going to get money and they're going to have a fine Washington Square so room for perpetuate the family of George Washington fighting with nice buildings it seems to me that we only collect a nest part of the Russian spread about fifty five thousand dollars a year in taxes seventy five million dollars project eighty percent as we would assess it would give us two million four hundred thousand ladies and gentlemen I'm always welcome and money I must have a two billion dollar budget. My job is to. Defeat a fiscal officer and to work on it many hours a day not only two billion of budget but eight billion dollars. To two billion as I budget over two billion is my duty to see that the time and money of a round flurries of be safe and reinvest every day and we are actually almost four billion dollars and that grows every day Nevertheless I'm happy to see a project at this type this is a full tax project I'm for right I'm for the middle income I'm for anything that will save and make the city better than it has been in many areas and city that we can all live in a very happy thank you very much. I told you those numbers would be big if we got a big man handling them. Washington Square village. Larger I was and others have spoken of Washington Square and the inevitable historical associations it has I'm glad that marking will. And Paul Tishman as two imaginative men in the world of real estate have the imagination to sense the a stark Link's of the land that we're standing on now in its new and exciting face that it has of the twentieth century with the eighteenth century with the founding of our city and I'd like introduce now to collateral descendants of our nation's first father of our nation's father and first president and I asked them if they would just come here and just say one or two informal words with us so we have a chance to censor them the historic links which our great city has and this area has with the past may introduce then this lady and gentleman want to step up please Mr Mr Mrs Mr Washington and good luck on this side and I'm going to ask you to introduce yourselves brace this is my life Martha Washington and you are how many great great great away from the George Washington. And you're his great great great great great great grand niece when you come from West West Plains Missouri which was the wildest of will to miss you and your five great grand uncle was alive and you said your name George life yet Washington and you are related dumbly to the president his wife and house of what great nephew. My. Grandmother and grandfather comes my father. And two brothers and of the King of the road you come from Philadelphia so if you want to say a word to our audience. Would like to go ahead if you will thank you and will have a word from mouth this is certainly a wonderful occasion in which we are actually didn't think the words hurry change I'm happy that I could even have a small part in this sorry but I am especially delighted. But the name of Russians once more being adapted. With Dignity and purpose Good luck to all connected with the marvelous Washington Square the latest thank you thank you. And now Martha Washington it's an honor for me to be. Washington Square this is my first visit to New York and I'm very delighted that George preceded me here giving me this wonderful opportunity many many thanks to everyone. Thank you very much and thank you for recreating by your very presence here the great traditions of our country and the glorious era of gracious living of which Washington Square has always been the exemplar this is a tough day for people who want to get around our city it's the fact that it's tough is underlined today for us because it usually started by a magnificent transit system which has a slight bit of sand on its rail. How slight it is the evidence by the fact that the mayor can't be here for that very reason he's busy tousling out the complicated jurisdictional problems that underlie this transit breakdown and sorrow in his honor has asked me to convey to you by these the manuscript pages which been put in my hand which will total four minutes his regrets that he can't be here and to bring you the words which would be uttered by him if he were here Mayor Wagner then says a great city begins very simply with a little call of business activity surrounded by the houses of those who lead to work at that business themselves or who provide the necessities of life for those who do this is the way in which New York City thought it down on the tip of Manhattan Island as the business of the city grows it pushes out into the residential areas and the drilling places are in turn pushed further and further out from the Koran at the outer fringe of the business zone we develop our so-called slum areas in which all residential buildings have been outmoded and made obsolete by the fall of much of Commerce and Industry the property owner in such an area has little or no motivation and perhaps not even the financial ability to maintain or improve his building economically his one hope is to wait until the march of business reaches him and then sellers land for a price high enough to compensate him for the loss of the belief this pattern has happened not just once but many times in the off and here and there we find a little spot squeezed in on all sides by the advance of several business Corps slums on their fringes yet themselves never quite succumbing fully to the rolling top one such spot is Washington Square and the sight of Washington Square village. In the early eighty's hundreds of was a mixture of low Billick some swamp land Meadow Brook abounding in trout passed through it on its way to the Hudson beer a bear and deer and wolves take the grouse quail of geese ducks and many other forms of wildlife made it their habitat but even in Peter's Stuyvesant day a few houses had been built they are clustered together in the little village which the Indians call the seppuku Khan five to eight hundred twenty six when the city formally dedicated as the Washington parade ground the square had been a part of the field in the prison execution ground in the eight hundred thirty S. the famous overall of mention and the face of New York University's buildings were built this was the beginning of the emergence of Washington Square as a seat of culture in a residential affluence from there on through the turn of the century many of our most distinguished American families came to work and to live here Professor Samuel F. B. Morse Professor John William Draper Benjamin Button the Samuel cone ROBERT RANDALL the Deland the stewards the ghouls the bendable the defile ists want to make us many others too numerous to mention I have reverence for the old the most especially when it has this power to me but an old part of a city that is unsightly and without purpose or not used for its most good should never be allowed to impede the growth and improvement of the city this site was modern scarred by scores of buildings badly deteriorated and hazardous the three fine buildings that will replace them will bring many fringe benefits to the area and the progress of you to the entire city and without meaning to inject a commercial note into these proceedings I might point out that this property upgraded will bring more than ten times the income to the city that informally did yes I have an intelligent regard for the old but only when it has meaning for the future a precept shared by the representative dynamic men behind this project. They are in fact most conscious of the past glory that this section once knew their special guests Miss Martha Washington and Mr George laughing at Washington the namesake descendants of our first president and other members of the Washington family I hear today as an embodiment of that past remind us of the time that living here was gracious and the citizenry illustrious their announced aim is to recapture its spirit five putting it in modern dress in wraps of the future through Washington Square a village they hope to embody the graciousness of that bygone period this to me is the right kind of progress and city development keeping the best of what has been to add to it to strengthen the new but changing and improving at the dynamics of life demand the men who have spearheaded this project men like Martin Wolf and Paul Tishman a civic minded man with a love of New York and are a god in concern for the way people live here for their contentment with their surroundings for that subtle indefinable and use of quality known as happiness so they took on an area that had once known Christie but I've long since fallen into sad disrepair and total disuse as residential and they saw it as a challenge to prove their conviction that this could be potentially one of the finest residential sections in New York to the area's credit stands a great educational institution New York University and now today marks the beginning of a rejuvenation of the section as construction of Washington Square village proceeds we are proud to count far sighted men in our community and of their enterprise in creating Washington Square building that for us as mayor of the city of New York I thank you. And not since we have referred so warmly to you gentlemen then since the Mamselle has officially asked you to take a bow I wonder if politician and lucky Wolf would step forward so they get away with that. Just a little. Now you have to decide who's going to speak first you know. I just want to thank everybody for coming. And I think I. Got appreciative of that and thank Mr MO for what happened if you have this with Jack and his associates the other half I've given us Mr GERACI for other help out given this. But I must be mindful of the Urban Trust Company because they gave us real how. I also think best friend of the I J H I H H F eight should be thanked for the help they have given us the rest of us thank my associates for the ingenuity and the vision and the planning that he. Exercised in this judgment and experience and planning such a tremendous a wonderful job that's going to be a new concept of lobbying in Washington Square. Now we're all Tishman. Montanus Thank you everybody I'm one of the nine. Our I do believe that our that in some recognition at this point should be given to our design of our lest of Reno's standing over there and to whom and with whom I've worked very closely and to whom much of this design is has been brought about Unfortunately the architects and engineers are not here today I want to say I've been looking well that is fine and I also want to thank you very much from outcast right and his father one of the great engine is in the of the country for write down about a very complicated and difficult structure here. Francis just indicate the difficulties that we had to overcome but crossing streets here with this building this building these three buildings each of them the five hundred fifty feet long and passed over the original streets which with now become the interior pottery for us to cover those three so they had to design special steel trusses which will support sixteen stories of the structure at that point. Our engineers and architects not designers deserve the greatest credit for what I believe to be a pace set up for redevelopment in the United States thank you very much. Thank you Mr world boxing back to late just to cast us to Reno and I just I just said he would like to have one of those special steel prices for the city budget thank you so much for being here I'm going to have to do.

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