New York City: the 51st State
Encyclopedia
New York City: the 51st State was the platform of the Norman Mailer
-Jimmy Breslin
candidacy in the 1969 New York City
Democratic Mayoral Primary election. Mailer, a novelist, journalist, and filmmaker, and Breslin, an author and at the time a New York City newspaper columnist, proposed that the five New York City boroughs should secede from New York State, and become the 51st State
of the U.S.
Mailer topped the ticket as candidate for Mayor
; his running mate, Breslin, sought the office of City Council President. Their platform featured placing city governmental control in the hands of the neighborhoods, and offered unique and creative – if impractical and even logistically impossible – solutions to air pollution, traffic congestion, school overcrowding, and crime.
After a strong grassroots campaign, the ticket entered the primary on 17 June 1969 as decided underdogs. They finished second to last, garnering a city-wide total of 41,288 votes, 5% of the total votes cast.
jobs that supported generations of uneducated immigrants were disappearing by deindustrialization
, millions of middle class residents were fleeing to the suburbs, and public sector workers had won the right to unionize
. All the candidates in the 1969 Democratic mayoralty primary race – three-time mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
, long-time party worker and City Comptroller Mario Procaccino
, Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo
, and Congressman James H. Scheuer
– were familiar, uninspiring mainstream politicians who offered few new or novel ideas on how to solve the city's problems.
Enter Mailer and Breslin. Mailer’s vociferous candidacy ("New York Gets an Imagination – or It Dies!") convinced opinionated Queens newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin to abandon his own mayoral quest and join the higher profile Mailer as his City Council President running mate. In a Time Magazine interview published four days before the primary, Mailer called himself a "left conservative" — left because he believed the city's problems demanded radical answers, conservative because he had little faith in centralized government
. Mailer said that, if he were to win the primary and be elected in November, "a small miracle would have happened. At that moment the city would have declared that it had lost faith in the old ways of solving political problems and that it wished to embark on a new conception of politics."
Giving authority to local residents banded together by history, interests, or ethnicity, would create "some real power to the neighborhoods... such as power with their local boards of education, power to decide about the style and quality and number of the police force they want and are willing to pay for, power over the Department of Sanitation, power over their parks."
More dramatically, Mailer wanted to restore the sense of small-town identity that had become lost in the anonymity of city life. "The energies of the people of New York at present have no purchase on their own natural wit and intelligence," he said. "They have no purpose other than to watch with a certain gallows humor the progressive deterioration of their city." Under Mailer's plan for independent neighborhoods, however, "those energies could begin to work for their deepest and most private and most passionate ideas about the nature of government, the nature of man's relation to his own immediate society."
The planks of the Mailer-Breslin platform included:
Perhaps the most significant outcome of the Mailer-Breslin campaign was that they did not finish last. That dubious honor belonged to James H. Scheuer
, who finished 1,878 votes behind Mailer. Mailer garnered over 10,000 more votes than Scheuer in Manhattan, and also outpolled him on Staten Island.
As the result of the fragmented, five-candidate field, the 1969 Democratic Primary made for one of the most unusual elections since the conglomeration of greater New York. The incumbent Republican Mayor (John V. Lindsay) and a former Democratic incumbent (Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
) both lost their parties' primaries. Mario Procaccino won with less than 33% of the vote against Mailer and three other opponents, which inspired the use of runoffs in future primaries. The complete Democratic Primary results:
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
-Jimmy Breslin
Jimmy Breslin
Jimmy Breslin is an American journalist and author. He currently writes a column for the New York Daily News' Sunday edition. He has written numerous novels, and columns of his have appeared regularly in various newspapers in his hometown of New York City...
candidacy in the 1969 New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
Democratic Mayoral Primary election. Mailer, a novelist, journalist, and filmmaker, and Breslin, an author and at the time a New York City newspaper columnist, proposed that the five New York City boroughs should secede from New York State, and become the 51st State
51st state
The 51st state, in United States political discourse, is a phrase that refers to areas either seriously or derisively considered candidates for addition to the 50 states already part of the United States. Before 1959, when Alaska and Hawaii joined the U.S., the term "the 49th state" was used...
of the U.S.
Mailer topped the ticket as candidate for Mayor
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...
; his running mate, Breslin, sought the office of City Council President. Their platform featured placing city governmental control in the hands of the neighborhoods, and offered unique and creative – if impractical and even logistically impossible – solutions to air pollution, traffic congestion, school overcrowding, and crime.
After a strong grassroots campaign, the ticket entered the primary on 17 June 1969 as decided underdogs. They finished second to last, garnering a city-wide total of 41,288 votes, 5% of the total votes cast.
History of the campaign
In the 1960s, New York City suffered from economic problems and rising crime rates, which continued a steep uphill climb through the decade. The old manufacturingManufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
jobs that supported generations of uneducated immigrants were disappearing by deindustrialization
Deindustrialization
Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially heavy industry or manufacturing industry. It is an opposite of industrialization.- Multiple interpretations :There are multiple...
, millions of middle class residents were fleeing to the suburbs, and public sector workers had won the right to unionize
Public-sector trade union
A public-sector trade union is a trade union which primarily represents the interests of employees within public sector organizations...
. All the candidates in the 1969 Democratic mayoralty primary race – three-time mayor Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Robert Ferdinand Wagner II, usually known as Robert F. Wagner, Jr. served three terms as the mayor of New York City, from 1954 through 1965.-Biography:...
, long-time party worker and City Comptroller Mario Procaccino
Mario Procaccino
Mario Angelo Procaccino was a lawyer, comptroller, and candidate for mayor of New York City.Procaccino was born in Bisaccia, Italy. When he was nine years old, his family relocated to the United States, and despite poverty, he graduated from City College and Fordham Law School, becoming a lawyer...
, Bronx Borough President Herman Badillo
Herman Badillo
Herman Badillo is a Bronx, New York politician who has been a borough president, United States Representative, and candidate for Mayor of New York City. He was the first Puerto Rican to be elected to these posts and be a mayoral candidate in the continental United States.-Early years:Badillo was...
, and Congressman James H. Scheuer
James H. Scheuer
James Haas Scheuer was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. He was also affiliated with the Liberal Party of New York.-Family and education:...
– were familiar, uninspiring mainstream politicians who offered few new or novel ideas on how to solve the city's problems.
Enter Mailer and Breslin. Mailer’s vociferous candidacy ("New York Gets an Imagination – or It Dies!") convinced opinionated Queens newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin to abandon his own mayoral quest and join the higher profile Mailer as his City Council President running mate. In a Time Magazine interview published four days before the primary, Mailer called himself a "left conservative" — left because he believed the city's problems demanded radical answers, conservative because he had little faith in centralized government
Centralized government
A centralized or centralised government is one in which power or legal authority is exerted or coordinated by a de facto political executive to which federal states, local authorities, and smaller units are considered subject...
. Mailer said that, if he were to win the primary and be elected in November, "a small miracle would have happened. At that moment the city would have declared that it had lost faith in the old ways of solving political problems and that it wished to embark on a new conception of politics."
Giving authority to local residents banded together by history, interests, or ethnicity, would create "some real power to the neighborhoods... such as power with their local boards of education, power to decide about the style and quality and number of the police force they want and are willing to pay for, power over the Department of Sanitation, power over their parks."
More dramatically, Mailer wanted to restore the sense of small-town identity that had become lost in the anonymity of city life. "The energies of the people of New York at present have no purchase on their own natural wit and intelligence," he said. "They have no purpose other than to watch with a certain gallows humor the progressive deterioration of their city." Under Mailer's plan for independent neighborhoods, however, "those energies could begin to work for their deepest and most private and most passionate ideas about the nature of government, the nature of man's relation to his own immediate society."
Platform
(The contents of this section are adapted from the Mailer-Breslin campaign literature.)The planks of the Mailer-Breslin platform included:
- Statehood – New York City would split off from the rest of New York State and secede from the union, thus becoming the 51st State of the U.S. For a new state to be carved out of one already in existence requires approval of both the old state legislature and the U.S. Congress. New states have been created from the territory of older states before. For example, in 1792, Kentucky was formed from part of Virginia, and West VirginiaWest VirginiaWest Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
broke away from Virginia and became a state in 1863. Mailer proposed that the first step, following his election, should be a city-wide referendum on the question of statehood for the city.
- Taxes – In 1969, New York City taxpayers paid the state and federal governments $14 billion ($86.4 billion in 2011 dollars), and got only $3 billion back ($18.5 billion in 2011 dollars). The creation of the 51st State would help correct this imbalance, and bring about $2 billion ($12.3 billion in 2011 dollars) in additional revenue to the city. In addition, a casino would be built on either Randall%27s Island, Roosevelt IslandRoosevelt IslandRoosevelt Island, known as Welfare Island from 1921 to 1973, and before that Blackwell's Island, is a narrow island in the East River of New York City. It lies between the island of Manhattan to its west and the borough of Queens to its east...
, or Coney IslandConey IslandConey Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
, with tax revenues going directly to the City-State.
- Transportation – All private cars would be banned from Manhattan Island. Buses and taxicabs would be permitted, with the number of cabs increased. Parking lots would be built outside Manhattan at strategic locations. A monorail, built around the circumference of Manhattan, would service these lots, stopping also at rail stations and water ferry terminals. A free bus and jitneyDollar VanA dollar van is a privately owned type of bus service used to carry passengers in the United States of America. Dollar vans typically operate in neighborhoods within urban areas that are under-served by public mass transit or taxis. Some of the dollar vans are licensed and regulated, while others...
service would operate in MidtownMidtown ManhattanMidtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...
, the city's most congested area. Publicly owned bicycles would be available to all at no cost.
- Pollution – The elimination of private cars from Manhattan Island would reduce pollution there by 60%. All vehicles and incinerators in the city would be required to have pollution control devices. Sweet Sunday (q.v.) would give the city breathing room once a month.
- Education – The neighborhoods would have complete control over their school systems, including which teachers to hire, what curricula to teach, and what grading and testing methods would be used. Autonomy could include, for example, "vest-pocket campuses built by students in abandoned buildings, restoring a sense of personal involvement that is lost in the large university campuses."
- Housing – Neighborhoods would manage all rent-controlled housing. The City-State would fund programs of rehabilitation – not demolition – of existing buildings, along with programs to aid in eventual home ownership for tenants. On-the-job trainees would restore good buildings which would otherwise be razed.
- Welfare – Since welfare is a national problem, every effort would be made to have the Federal government absorb 90% of the cost of welfare. All welfare programs would be administered by the neighborhoods, eliminating the 15% of welfare funds spent on welfare case investigations, the thinking being that neighbors know best which neighbors need/deserve public assistance. The City-State would fund the neighborhoods to employ residents in local daycare centers, housing rehabilitation, and recreational programs, thus keeping thousands off the welfare rolls.
- Crime – Local neighborhoods would know best how to control crime in their communities by employing policemen who have the respect of the community because they live there. The City-State would fund neighborhoods to administer their own crime prevention programs, and would aid them only if they so desired.
- Sweet Sundays – One Sunday per month would be designated "Sweet Sunday," when every form of mechanical transportation — including elevators — would be halted. Mailer's idea was to clear the air of pollution and provide a carefree day during which citizens could gather and decompress. As Sam Smith, editor of The Progressive Review put it, Sweet Sundays would allow "human beings to rest and talk to each other and the air can purify itself. Mailer and Breslin understood that real politics is not just a matter of management but a collective expression of a community’s soul."
Primary Election results
James H. Scheuer
James Haas Scheuer was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York. He was also affiliated with the Liberal Party of New York.-Family and education:...
, who finished 1,878 votes behind Mailer. Mailer garnered over 10,000 more votes than Scheuer in Manhattan, and also outpolled him on Staten Island.
As the result of the fragmented, five-candidate field, the 1969 Democratic Primary made for one of the most unusual elections since the conglomeration of greater New York. The incumbent Republican Mayor (John V. Lindsay) and a former Democratic incumbent (Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Robert Ferdinand Wagner II, usually known as Robert F. Wagner, Jr. served three terms as the mayor of New York City, from 1954 through 1965.-Biography:...
) both lost their parties' primaries. Mario Procaccino won with less than 33% of the vote against Mailer and three other opponents, which inspired the use of runoffs in future primaries. The complete Democratic Primary results: