Volume 49, Number 4 · March 14, 2002
The Story Behind the Towers
By Michael Tomasky
Empire on the Hudson: Entrepreneurial Vision and Political Power at the Port of New York Authority
by Jameson W. Doig
Columbia University Press, 582 pp., $49.50
On an early spring day in 1961, David Rockefeller, a grandson of John D., the president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and the founder of a potent organization called the Downtown– Lower Manhattan Association, attended a meeting for which he, over the previous three years, had laid considerable groundwork. His brother Nelson, who fancied the presidency not of the family bank but of the country, and to that end had been elected governor of New York in 1958, was there; also Robert B. Meyner, the Democratic governor of New Jersey. But neither the world's most important bank president nor the two powerful governors led the discussion. That favor fell to Austin Tobin, the executive director of the Port of New York Authority—publicly less well known than David Rockefeller or the governors, but within his sphere a towering figure.
Review, 3853 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |