Q: Today is October 4th, 2024, and this is Sarah Dziedzic interviewing Ethel Sheffer for the New York Preservation Archive Project. Can you start by saying your name, and giving yourself a brief introduction? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah. My name is Ethel Sheffer, and Sheffer, I got married early enough that I took the name of my husband, so it’s S-H-E-F-F-E-R. And he was Isaiah Sheffer, with a major reputation of his own, and with a sub-work that I did collaborate on at a number of points in my life. And I’m a New Yorker, I like New York a lot, and I think I realized maybe late in life that maybe as a kid or young that I think I might have always been interested in buildings, looking at buildings, but I didn’t know that I was that. But I was brought up in Brooklyn, and in the neighborhood of East New York, which is adjacent to Brownsville, which was a very poor, tough neighborhood, home for some of Murder, Inc., and gangsters and other things. East New York was also very mixed and generally poor or lower income.

 

My family lived in a four-story tenement on New Jersey Avenue, in which that building, I think, the tenements were mostly Jewish apartments, but the block, of course, was a mixture of two or three four-story tenements. And then the rest of the block, because the street was New Jersey Avenue, between Glenmore and I forget what—Liberty or—anyway, the rest was two-story or one-story private houses on each side. And so I think of the private houses—although I think we used to say private houses—on the rest of the block and on the other side was occupied by Italians, Jews here. But there were also some Jewish families on my side of the block as well. So we lived there in a two-bedroom apartment. However, my brother was born—what is it—nine years, ten years before me. So I had a big brother, whom I adored a good part of my life, but who, as he was older, and later, he then—I skip ahead—he did say, “How could you go move and live in Manhattan and do that? Why did you do that?” 

 

But I was, as a kid or later, I guess at the age of eight or nine, I guess, my father and big brother, which was unusual, I think–– took me to join the public library. I must have asked that I wanted to do that. So I was a kid, and they shockingly, surprisingly came with me—and I remember this always on many levels—one of the Carnegie branches of the Brooklyn Public Library, you know, there being many, many Carnegie branches. And they took me—it’s an early memory—to the children’s room, and it was to Arlington Avenue, the Arlington Branch in East New York. And it was close enough in the walking—or I don’t even know if there was an old car—that the library was on the border of Brooklyn and Queens. So where we lived was like ten, twelve, thirteen blocks, whatever. 

 

Anyway, the earliest memory was of the two of them and me being asked some questions in the children’s branch in order for me to get a library card. [00:05:00] And it’s a major memory. I do remember a gray-haired Irish librarian. I was very frightened. I thought she was very tough. And the fact that they were with me—I think that maybe it was only my brother—but it was very good that I was very pleased to get a library card at an early age. Another important library memory is of me then alone. Was I twelve? Was it an age like that? But, also, a big walk that I did frequently to the Arlington branch of the library. I did that over time, and began to find a way to tell the librarian in the children’s library, “My mother’s sick, and I have to bring her books from the adult library,” which enabled me to—because I didn’t want to be, after a while, I didn’t want to be in the children’s library for a long time. So I think—I don’t know—it coincides with either some strike, some winter thing, but I started to go to the adult library. 

 

Another memory of that kind of thing, I was walking home from the library with, I think, six books that I’m carrying because I took out the maximum. And this was really early. It had to be, you know, [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt—not his—I wasn’t born in his first [administration] but— I’m so old now. But I’m walking back, and I get to a block from my house, and I’m carrying the books. And some kids, whom I was sure were Irish—the Irish kids is what I thought—began throwing either stones or something at me, and shouting, “Dirty Jew,” which was a shock, and those were Irish kids, “Ha, ha,” and throwing [unclear] [00:07:39]. I was just absolutely amazed. And also maybe anti-FDR, I mean, that kind of thing.

 

But the early childhood, my brother, being much older, also got out of the house. Now, the two of us slept in what was a living room. There wasn’t a living room. My parents were in one bedroom, and my mother had three or four sisters and a brother. Two of them were maybe maiden aunts. And my mother insisted that the one named Diana live with us, which meant that she lived in there. And I could wake up during the night, hearing my parents argue, with my father furious that this aunt was there. 

 

So my brother—it’s another story of his life, which my mother and father were very upset, and they thought this little girl didn’t know, but I did know. But, in any case, he, much older, he graduates from Brooklyn Polytech. He becomes an engineer. He gets married and—I forget what—and they move to, at the time, the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a defense thing. And they marry there, and they have their first child, Barry, and then, eventually, four or five years later, the second child, Fern [phonetic] [00:09:19]. I quickly can tell you that I think, in the family—this is, I mean, whatever—the men die in their sixties, young, not good. None of this is good—I think. I liked all the men. I liked my father and brother. The women—my mother, the sisters—live into their nineties. So I am very old, getting close to that, and I’m amazed, although I’ve had a heart ablation, I’ve been this, other things. [00:10:05] And then my brother died in his late sixties, and his oldest son, whom I began to talk to in later years on the phone—because he was very conservative, he lived, and was a pilot. The men become pilots, they want to be, and they’re all Jewish, and they’re not supposed to be interested in that, but they do. 

 

One of the things that I just found out, [00:10:35] that my brother––becoming an engineer, getting a major defense job, living in Aberdeen, a defense job, then coming back and starting a business, and becoming prosperous in Levittown, here, coming back––he secretly, evidently, on his fiftieth birthday, took flying lessons because his oldest son had been in the Army, was in Vietnam, and was a pilot, and brought a small Piper Cub plane, flying it back, [unclear] [00:11:16], across the country. His father secretly takes flying lessons and determines at the age of fifty that he is flying the Piper Cub across the country—and did. 

 

So the women live a long time. I think I was very partial to my father and brother. But then my brother, you know, when I had a baby, Susannah, and we didn’t have money, whatever. And Isaiah was an actor, whom I married young. I can be specific about that. But, after a few years, have a baby, Susannah, who was quite premature. She was due June 18th, and then I am walking in the street on April 29th and thinking, “Oh, I don’t know.” So I then called the whatever, and he says, “Come to the hospital,” puts me in a private room, and I said, “I cannot—we don’t have the money for that.” And he said, “No. I want you to stay here for a very long time because you shouldn’t give birth.” But it was, I think, it was two days or two nights or whatever. I have pains. I manage. This is my minor—I sort of like that, that I think I can still do it, and that is I fake out a younger resident. And the resident says, “Why are you up?” And I said, “Oh, I just have some pains, and I’m really okay.” And he says, “Well, I am going to give you a sedative, and if you are going to be in labor, you’re not going to sleep.” And I said, “Oh no, I will sleep.” And of course I don’t, though I’m trying to tell him, “Yeah, yeah,” because I’m thinking, “No, this is no good. I better not.” So the result was I went into the hospital April 28th or 29th, she’s born May 2nd, and she’s okay. I wanted to breastfeed and all of that. But I listened to the doctor when she comes home, and says, “No, no.” Great. She turned out that she was a little bigger. Great, terrific. 

 

So, the other anecdote of that is, so then she comes home. Then we rent a house in, I think, Stony Point or something, from an actor we knew, who later becomes well-known in the long-time production of The Fantasticks, a very major off-Broadway thing. And so then Isaiah had––ah!–– gotten a job with somebody else, because he was unemployed, had been an actor, and was writing a series of television then. So I was in Stony Point with the baby each day as he was writing. I was learning and worrying about how do I take care of the baby, and sometimes would talk to myself and talk to her. And I felt very good that the neighbors were there, the actor and his wife, knowing that I could call them. [00:14:55] 

 

Anyway, one day—this is the last of the early memories that I remember with pain, that this was a premature baby—I’m away, and then my brother, my mother, and I think my father then—yes, of course—and their children hadn’t seen—so they decide to visit. That’s good.And so I think Isaiah comes back, and I’m very nervous about, oh, I have to serve them something, and the baby––I’m an uncertain mother in the woods. But they come and my memory is I—and Isaiah’s doing it too—we serve a picnic thing. Something happens that the oldest kid of my brother, who was Barry––they’re walking and running––and a dog, a German Shepherd of the neighbors, is coming, and allegedly bites Barry—and my brother has a fit, and they all create a terrible disturbance. It stays with me that these are the neighbors I [coughs] was relying on. And, I mean, they were yelling, and they’re going to get the neighbors. I mean, bizarre. And so that my brother, finally seeing me––and they leave.Okay.

 

Q: So a big clash between family and friends, it sounds like. 

 

Sheffer: But it was bizarre. When the time went on, and we then moved into––coming back––when we were there with the summer house, we might have been on 110th Street or something. And my father, of course, wanted me—first of all, they didn’t want me to live in Manhattan. Isaiah was born in The Bronx, and was a very premature baby, in the same way that Susannah was premature, only I think his parents put him in a dresser drawer, which I think is also a comic strip that they would show a baby in a dresser drawer.

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: But, anyway, but I know that my father is still there, because I’ve been there—it’s one of the studies I did—the ILGWU [International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union], the union. There’s housing in the [19]20s. And, of course, my father said, “I’m going to get you an apartment there,” and all the rest of it––but we wanted to live and got a place on 110th Street in Cathedral Parkway, wonderful. And then having the baby, I remember getting up in the night, listening to the radio, and hearing—because I was seeing the baby, is she okay—and hearing that, of course, there was the bust of—another one just happened now—of the students taking over the university.

 

Q: Oh, in 1968? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, exactly, and so we’re hearing that the cops came, you know. And, anyway, just to say where the moving from 110th Street––because Isaiah had been working with Eric Bentley, who was a very, very great, very important scholar, [Bertolt] Brecht scholar—he brought Bertolt Brecht to America—and an emeritus professor at Columbia, and his wife. He, when we moved here, Eric––while we’re living here––Eric, at his age of fifty, announces to Isaiah and others, and his wife, that he is coming out because he’s really gay. They have twins. And so we live with his wife, who was very, very fine indeed. They had a ten-room apartment, which is across the hall. And when you walk through here, where the chairs are, and the other apartment was also, years before, a ten-room apartment.

 

Q: [00:20:00] Wow. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: But, anyway, they helped get us an apartment so that we came here, and then Eric, you know, all that happened with him. And Isaiah, let’s say, must have been like twenty-seven, twenty-eight. They began to do projects. And Isaiah opened the cabaret on one of the bars here and, I mean, it was an incredible collaboration of Eric, which I can show you later. I mean, we still have half the shelves of Eric Bentley, very, very major, I mean, as a scholar, as all of that. Anyway. 

 

Q: But before we get into your life with Isaiah, I have a few more questions. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, I have enough on the, you know, living there.

 

Q: Can you tell me about what you know about your parents’ background? 

 

Sheffer: Yes. Unlike others’ parents––most people I knew––they actually did not come from Europe directly. My mother was born here, and I think was brought up with her family, the sisters and all. And then the grandfather married, so there was a stepmother, whom I then dubbed the wicked stepmother, like a stereotype, of them all hating her. Though I remember at age four, a grandfather knocking on the door. And I think there’s a picture, and I remember thinking, when I was four, that that was nice. And then my mother was a housewife, although, later in life, she then really wanted to work, and she did get a job. She knew how to type and whatever. As we got older, she got a job at an office. And the aunt in the building, I mean, who lived with me, she finds somebody, and does get married at the age of forty-five or fifty. Thereby, my brother and me—he said, “I’ve got a bedroom.” And I very much remember being able to look into the schoolyard from the bedroom, which I think I went to that school, P.S. 173, and then to P.S. 63, and then junior high school. So my mother was there, brought up, and the one aunt, I think, had dementia or something. I was very, very fond of her. And she was put in an institution, and died there. I think I liked her a lot. It was a big deal, you know. So my mother was born here, and later began to work, and I think she really wanted to, and did. She worked for the Housing Authority. She wanted to do that. And then my father died in ’68, I think. 

 

Anyway, my father, I think, came with his family–– but I have no sense, because I think he was just two years old, so that neither one had a relationship to—see, because unlike Isaiah’s, his mother was one of eight children, and seven of them came across from Russia. The grandfather came first. They settled on Broome Street. One, the eighth child, was born in America, and she then becomes a librarian here, and married, and so on. So, when I met Isaiah, it was very much that big family. But in my father and mother, there’s not a relation of the old country, necessarily, though my father loses his job in the later Depression—it wasn’t the Depression, because I’m after that a little bit—and then he begins working for the union, the ILGWU, as a business agent. So I’m very interested in everything that he does with that. And a couple of times, he gets me a summer job, so I’m—what am I—fifteen, sixteen. I can’t possibly be older. I mentioned this to Susannah the other day, and she roared as I made the gesture––that I got a summer job through, you know, could I get a job at an office? [00:25:02] So my father got me a job with the Beltmakers Union in some place, in the garment center. And I got this summer job, and I learned to operate a switchboard at Beltmakers, and so I liked that. I do remember the two regular girls, who were regular workers there, really resented that I got a summer job and I was doing that. 

 

And another memory, so my father was a business agent. I think he got into some questionable activities. I’m not sure. But the one thing––there were several years when somehow my parents got an old car, and we would take like a three-day journey, driving the whole way to Miami. And so it was a whole thing, and I remember going––one time when I went, I promptly got German measles, and so had to hide that from the hotel and from everybody. Another summer I went, and maybe it was just my father and me, and we were in the hotel. And he said he has to go on an errand to meet somebody. I should come with him. I said, “Yeah, okay.” And we drive up to Northern Miami, and we go meet this guy who—Johnny Dio is how I’m introduced. I then realized, though I’m sitting in the hotel room just vaguely listening—I later learned, Johnny Dio, I think Johnny Dioguardi, a major, major gangster crime guy––and I think my father went to see him because––I have no idea, that there was a strike, and Dio should help out with it. I don’t know.

 

Simultaneously,I was there with my father. I’m hanging around. There’s a woman at the same hotel. She’s blonde, good-looking, pretty. There’s me. She starts to talk to me. She has a pink—she’s driving a pink Cadillac convertible. And she says, “Would you like to come with me? I’m going to do some shopping on Lincoln Road.” I go and, whatever happens, the only thing I remember––all my life––is that she then says, “You think that you’re not so good-looking, and you’re thin and all.” She’s telling me this. And she says, “I just want to tell you that you’re okay, and you’re going to be okay.” And what I thought that meant, I’m going to have a pink Cadillac, and I’m going to be like her—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: I mean, I wanted to be her, which I never succeeded in being. 

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: So my father, I liked a lot. My father has an early heart attack when I’m sixteen, bad. He dies in ’68, terrible. My brother would have arguments with him all my life, whereas I liked him. My brother is devastated because it turned out he does like my father. I take care of—Isaiah and I arrange the whole funeral. We go. It was very—it was bad. Susannah was a little kid, and my father liked Susannah, and she liked him as a kid, so it was like me in a way. The other memory I have—was it the death of my father? Yes, I think. And so Isaiah’s sister, older sister, took Susannah, who was little, during the time of the burial. [00:30:07] I forget––but what I do remember is Isaiah helping, which was wonderful. We go out to Long Island––was it the unveiling? Was it the funeral? But I’d left Susannah with Isaiah’s sister’s family. She had had a third child, and therefore that child was the same age as Susannah. We just had on the phone the two cousins, just a Zoom of last night. So [00:30:43] was two weeks older than Susannah, and Susannah and Elinor managed, you know, I do remember going to pick up Susannah. And we’d go out into the ranch house, and all the Long Island stuff—all of this was, like, these were my stereotypes, and wonderful. And I remember—I guess I did again last night––Isaiah and I’d go, and then I’d walk in the backyard, and Susannah was with Elinor. They are on the swing, and they are playing. And I stand, not to startle her, and I wait, and I wait to see her. Later, she told me––she’s happily playing there—but in her little way—she was four years old—she said, because she seems to remember,she said she was quite sure that I had died, and that she was to be staying there, and she was behaving––and was on the swing, you know.

 

Q: Pretending that everything was okay—

 

Sheffer: Yeah—

 

Q: —and she was really worried.

 

Sheffer: —and being with her cousin. And, of course, Barbara [phonetic] [00:32:08] was good with her. 

 

Q: I want to ask about your decision to go to college, and how political science became something that you were interested in. 

 

Sheffer: Well, the high school was Thomas Jefferson High School, which I think was the regional high school. It wasn’t a special one. And at Thomas Jefferson,––I mean, it’s still there, but I remembered there was something called the classics class, a group. So I get into that. And the woman, Mrs. Kahn [00:33:07], very odd, very interesting, gives us things to read, to compare. I’m trying to remember. One was A Simple Soul byFlaubert, and the other was a story by Gertrude Stein. I remember thinking that this was a big deal. So I was smart, so I was definitely going to go to college. In the meantime, I think, I don’t remember the years, but my parents—my father pushing it––“Look, we can’t live anymore in East New York with her. She’s a growing girl.” And because African Americans were coming in, and they thought it’s not going to be safe. So I think that I was fourteen or fifteen or sixteen. And my father––there’s the electrical workers, which is still there, very important––big, big project near Queens College, and near a public housing––and my father manages to get an apartment in that, which is kind of middle class, and therefore good and safe. 

 

Now, Queens College was three or four blocks away. I have no idea why I said I’m not going to Queens College and I chose to go to Brooklyn College—so I did go there. [00:35:04] And I can’t remember the origins, but did get interested in political science classes. And I’m not sure. I know that one teacher who head it all was Al Gorvine [phonetic] [00:35:20], and the other was somebody [Kenneth] Organski, who said to me, “I know what’s going to happen with you,” I think when I was a graduating or whatever. He said, “You’re smart. You could do all this.” Then he said, “But I know what’s going to happen. You’ll get married, and then you won’t follow up, but you know that you’re smart.” He said that. He did. 

 

Q: What was your response to that? 

 

Sheffer: Well, I was quite surprised, because he was otherwise rather acerbic and so on. So I decided on Brooklyn College, and that’s where I met Isaiah, who lived in Manhattan, and was already an actor, and Sidney Lumet [sic] [00:36:25] got him into a Broadway show. But I got interested in political science, several different classes. And I think there was an organization called the Bureau of Government Research, a student organization. I think I became the president of it, of getting speakers. I mean, I don’t know. So I then had met John Simon. We used to call—he was the good John Simon, not the bad. For a very, very long time, up until the last eight or ten years, there was a John Simon who was a major critic, theater critic, and in many, many journals and magazines. There were two John Simons, for those in the know. And then there was John J. Simon, John Jacob Simon, who was a student with me in Brooklyn College, and had gone to Stuyvesant, and knew Isaiah, who was always an actor but––typical––he takes the test for Stuyvesant before I knew him. And, though he was an actor, whatever, I think he becomes the highest scorer of the entrance exam. The same thing happens when he decides to go to Brooklyn College, where there was his sister––much older, very, very smart indeed, wonderful. I don’t know if she went to Hunter or Brooklyn, but they lived on 16th Street. He went to Brooklyn College, and was traveling. So, in any case, I went to Brooklyn, made some friends there.

 

My criticism of myself––exaggerated––I think Susannah always observes it, and makes jokes that I don’t join women’s groups or whatever, I don’t. Or she will sometimes––even now, a woman at the Community Board—I mean, we’re all so old—she makes a comment to me. She says, “We all went to this concert, and you go with this man.” I mean, this is a friend. And she says to me, just recently, “I see that you sometimes go with men. What is this?” I looked at her with—basically hatred is what I felt,but it is probably accurate—because I’m feeling it now—I had women friends always but, you see, something would always happen. 

 

My best friend—I’ll show you because she did this wonderful pictureshe was very, very talented indeed, and we were very good friends, Harriet [phonetic] [00:39:53] and I, in college and all. [00:40:00] And then I had Susannah––and then the whole beginnings of Symphony Space. And I had a hysterectomy early, I’m not sure what, and I was in the hospital, and Harriet called or came. No, years later, we just stopped seeing each other. And we had something at the diner here,we were talking, and she said, “Oh!” She has pains, you know, she’s got something––but I don’t know what.” And I remember sitting there[00:40:39]. I looked at her, said nothing, because I had had a hysterectomy earlier, and she had come to visit me in the hospital, which, you know, it was not a good thing. But it had been that a couple of young men were after me, beforehand. They would make offers, or they were interested, or picked me up. And she liked one. I was in the bed in the hospital, and she came, either called me or,and began to say, “You are just terrible, impossible.” And I remembered I was just literally crying beyond belief. Years before, when Symphony Space started, she had done the poster for the first event. You have to look in the bathroom where the poster is, because she is really remarkable. And I remembered sitting in the diner––it came back to me now––[00:41:56], and she was sitting opposite me. And I remember sitting, a few years later, and I inwardly thought, “She has no memory of the way she talked to me when I was in there recovering from the hysterectomy.”” 

 

Sheffer: So John Simon was a kind of boyfriend when I was younger. And, also, his family lived in the Village and I would go there with him or whatever. Eventually, Harriet married him. And it did not last long. So there was the good John Simon. And then the John Simon I knew became an editor and a well-known person, and died only three years ago, and was major. Isaiah knew him from Stuyvesant. And when Isaiah met me, because his first thing he said when we were in college—I was sitting in the lounge—and he came walking in and said, “Would you like to see a play?” I looked at him, “What?” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And he said, “Yeah, in the Village, there’s this play, End as a Man. If you want to go, it’s a good thing to do.” So I went on a Friday night. But the big thing with Isaiah was, he then said, weeks later, “Look, do you want to go to a play? This is New York’s only interracial theater. And we’re doing a revival of All My Sons, by Arthur Miller.” So I thought, “Really?” So I schlepped out to Queens myself to that. And then I realized this was a community theater, and all African American actors, and Isaiah was the director. That’s what made it interracial. And that I realized across the way that that must be his mother, and that’s his sister, and that’s someone else. And I realized that they’re looking at another young woman, who was Naomi Lown [phonetic] [00:44:25], who was a dancer. That’s Sonny’s [Isaiah’s nickname] girlfriend. I still talk to her on the phone at this age. And they evidently whispered, “That’s Sonny’s [phonetic] [00:44:36] girlfriend,” and they were glad that it was her, and ignored—because, look, you know, you get the picture. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: So I’ll stop on all of that.

 

Q: Well, I was planning to ask how you met Isaiah. [00:44:59] So he came up to you in the hall, it sounds like. 

 

Sheffer: No, but it was also before that. I have a memory of sitting on the campus––because Brooklyn College had this nice campus. I think I may have been even sitting with Harriet, as we were first there. And I still have the image: he’s turning the corner. I’m sitting on a bench, maybe. And he’s, I think, wearing a corduroy shirt, but he’s also either whistling, or completely in another world, thinking. And I see him turn there, and [unclear] [00:45:43] walking, and thinking either to write something. I thought, “What is this?” He may have said hello, I don’t know. But then, see, at that time, Brooklyn College, there were two so-called lounges, the classical lounge, and the popular lounge. It meant what music was being played in each one. So I would hang out in the classical lounge. The popular lounge had all the greats, you know. He walked into the classical lounge, and he did say, “Do you want to go?” And I thought, “What?” So it was like that, and there were other people, and I liked John Simon. And then some weeks later, he simply walked up and said, “Get rid of John Simon,” and left. And I thought—

 

Q: He said that to you? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And I thought, “What? What are we talking about?”

 

Q: Wow. When did you start dating, I guess? When did it become a little bit more self-aware, apparent that that’s what was happening? 

 

Sheffer: Well, we were very, very young, because we married very young. So, I mean, I think I was ahead of him at Brooklyn College, and then he completed it. But he also began to work in the Yiddish Theatre at night. And then the great, great director,Sidney Lumet, cast him in a Broadway show. He used to kid–– he said, “I’ve got more union affiliations.” He says, “I’m on the radio. I got more of that than”—of course, it also failed. I guess, in our young twenties, and married too early, and then went to Michigan State in the first year because I got a scholarship when I graduated. And he said he’ll go. And I was supposed to go to the University of Wisconsin because I got a scholarship there. But then we went to Lansing, and it was ridiculous––I mean, he got a master’s degree there. But there were two professors––I had no idea––I was walking in the hall to the class, and one stopped me—tall, good-looking—and said, “I saw your application. Are you Ethel?” Each one then went after me. I didn’t know that professors were going––I didn’t know that. So that became a little complicated. So we continued and moved in, and it was, I think, five, six, seven years before we had a child, you know, that whole thing, and moved in here—

 

Q: When did you—?

 

Sheffer: —without it being this way. [laughs] 

 

Q: So you were in Michigan for one year?

 

Sheffer: Yeah. And I don’t know, Isaiah could’ve said it [00:48:58], or I could. I don’t know what. But I can remember there was a couple, a family––Joe Fiszman [00:49:04], who had been a Holocaust survivor, and he married an Italian woman, and somehow made his way to the United States, and had children. Anyway, he picked me up to take me to classes when I was teaching, and I always remember this. We were in so-called married housing, second floor up, and he’s picking me up to take me to the campus. And I’m walking down the steps. I’m walking off the second floor. I come in, and go to the car––I would always call him Fiszman, Fiszman –– and I’d walk in the car, and he says, “Ethel, Ethel, I don’t know, Ethel. You don’t belong here. What do you look like?” So I said, “What are you talking about?” [00:50:01] And he says, “Look at you as you’re walking down. Look at the black stockings.” He says, “Is anybody else wearing the black stockings?” It was hysterical. 

 

Q: So you were too chic for Lansing? [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, or too—many years later, some, you know, thing of—what do you call it when you have an anniversary of a class that you went to in high school? 

 

Q: A reunion. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, a reunion, I’m sorry. Anyway. And so not a lot of people attended, but it was at the museum––at the place in Queens. So I went to it, and there were like twenty—not many of my class—twenty, thirty, many years later––and I think a couple of the men there said, “Ethel, you were the original beatnik.” And I thought, they’re all off their rocker.. I mean, I just—

 

Q: That’s not how you thought about yourself?

 

Sheffer: Not at all, not ever. 

 

Q: How did—?

 

Sheffer: I mean, the thing with going with the theater and Isaiah and the off-Broadway stuff, and then much later he got a major, major scholarship to study the works of—and became a director of Michel de Ghelderode. And so I went with him and, you know, a lot of that stuff. And, of course, the beginnings––creating––Allan Miller lives across the hall, as the one with him. And Allan Miller said, “I got a deal with the Musicians Union,” and he came across and said, “Do you know any place in the neighborhood?” And I just said, “There’s an abandoned movie theater.” The two of us walked over. I mean, the whole Symphony Space thing is—

 

Q: Let’s hold off on that for—

 

Sheffer: Yeah, let me just look, okay. 

 

Q: —for a second. So how did you end up on the Upper West Side when you came back? Why this neighborhood? 

 

Sheffer: Well, because I don’t know how we got an apartment first, finding it on 110th Street––a one-bedroom. That was really interesting. I don’t know if Isaiah got the job then. I was, I think, going to graduate school, vaguely. No, you know what? I think I got a job initially teaching at Barnard, that was the first thing, and I taught political science, political theory. I have no idea. There were several students—I met them on the subway when they weren’t students––and they were saying, “Oh, it’s Ethel!” Somehow I don’t remember how I got it, but I taught at Barnard, yes. And it was just about when I did become pregnant, and then I had to hire somebody to take care of the baby—and so we got the place at 110th Street, and hired a woman who had been recommended, maybe by Eric Bentley and Joanne. 

 

Q: That’s his wife’s name.

 

Sheffer: Yeah, and those two—because we went to see A Raisin in the Sun. And, I mean, I was in awe of Eric because he was a major theater—and he whispered that Joanne was pregnant with twins, older. And then they helped us get an apartment here, which was remarkable. They also in the building offered a much better, bigger apartment. Big mistake. We thought we could never afford it. We should have taken it because it would have had three bathrooms or whatever. It would have been better. 

 

Q: So what was the neighborhood like at the time? You said you lived over on Cathedral Parkway first, right? 

 

Sheffer: Well, it was mixed. I mean, the students had the rebellion. Isaiah started the––he called it the DMZ, a cabaret. And I can remember the bar, which is still there, I think 110th and Broadway. It was called the Gold Rail Tavern [phonetic] [00:54:46], and he organized and then I helped to have the cabaret, and he managed to—see, it was mixed. Robert Lowell , the great, great poet, and he came, and we were in this bar. [00:55:04] And I was saying to the guy who ran the bar, who didn’t know what he was getting, and I said something, “It’s Robert Lowell.. Will somebody get him something to eat?”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And it was the first time that he read a poem that he’d written that night. The image was of the—I always remember—of the police horses feeding off the Broadway median green. Well, the neighborhood—I can’t remember the years—which I feel now in a funny way because I now go out, and I think it’s not going to be good because it is dangerous at night, and somebody’s 

going to follow me. And, remember, I established the famous—Isaiah gave the name—Blocks for a Better Broadway. It was very dangerous. And if you came from Broadway, coming out of the subway—if you walked down 92nd Street, or whatever Street—it was the Ridgefield Hotel 

then, filled with prostitutes. What I did, and others—and with a minister of what is the West Park Presbyterian Church, on 86th Street, which now was to be demolished—it’s all very major for me, I mean, and it’s a big part of my life, and very, very unexpected. I mean, why was I doing this? 

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: But there were the SROs [single-room occupancy]. It was dangerous. There was crime. When Susannah was little, we were on Broadway and I was crossing with her––I know I was holding her hand––and cars were stopping me, and coming out. And it was cars from New Jersey. They’re always from New Jersey, looking for the hookers, and I’m standing there. I remember what I said. I think Susannah may remember. She said, “Mother, what are they doing? What is it?” I said, “I don’t know. They’re just asking––” “No, no. What are they doing?” I would always answer, “Well, they’re looking for women.” And I said, “They pay money.” And she, as a kid, said, “What do you mean? They pay money to make love?” I said, “Yeah, that’s what happens.” And, of course, it had been the big time of the great Supreme Court decision of emptying all the hotels—the asylums where people and the homeless [were living]—so hundreds, thousands came to the Upper West Side, to Long Beach. The Ridgefield was a place that was major. 

 

Q: So they came to the Upper West Side because there was more housing that was—?

 

Sheffer: Yes, to rent. Also, and all the buildings here, there were hotels—of the gorgeous buildings, which now got reconverted––this is a very major thing that I can show you. But how I did—but I did it with like five or six other people, and we were very unlikely. One was a lawyer for a major law firm, living on 93rd Street. The other was a super, a superintendent, she was, where I figured out, if I remember—because this is the big analysis—94th and 95th Street. The Ridgefield’s on 92nd, as an exception. I believe there were eight SROs that had been—so—

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: I was holding Susannah’s hand, I think, also–– or was I alone? I’m crossing the street on Broadway, and I see a woman has lifted her skirt, and is peeing, and so this is distasteful. But something came to me—this is no good––where is this happening? [00:59:56] So I took out a couple of things which, some of the original studies that I did. It’s the only time I ever worked for state government. So I could just show you, if you like. 

 

Q: Yeah. But, essentially, your involvement in the community started with you walking home from teaching at Barnard, back to your apartment? 

 

Sheffer: Well, in many other ways, I did—I got involved tremendously. And, you see, this minister, this is very bizarre, of West Park—because he was very influential for me––Bob [Robert Davidson], he was the minister, and he was one hell of a progressive. I don’t know how I met him. We did because we were just upset [01:00:52]. And the two of us joined together in ways––and he was a radical. And he would say to me, “Okay, Ethel, you and I are going to go down to invade the government offices.” I would never do that. But also I began—it’s very complicated. I have no idea. Very major and elected officials, Jerrold Nadler, you know, Carl McCall––very important––and these were the elected officials. And I was then organizing Blocks for a Better Broadway, and then they got money. I mean, this is a major, major story, never to be believed. And they finally said, “We got to have this study done.” I began to do it with a whole bunch of people. And then they got money, and I got an office in the old World Trade Center. I hated all of it. The first bombing of the World Trade Center, first one, I mean, not the one that knocked it down. 

 

Q: [19]93, right?

 

Sheffer: Hmm?

 

Q: 1993?

 

Sheffer: Yeah, yeah. And, of course, you know 2001, which by then I was president of the American Pla…you know, all of that stuff. Let me just show you. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

[END OF SESSION 1]

 

Sheffer: I have a couple of other—what I picked out—just some other studies and paper on the table there. But, I mean mostly, if you look at the résumé, there’s a lot of this stuff. 

 

Q: Yes. Okay, great. Thanks. We’ll see if we need to consult some of that.

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: This is Sarah Dziedzic interviewing Ethel Sheffer on October 11th, 2024, picking up from our session last week. We’re going to start where we left off last time, where you were describing some of the outcomes of the Blocks for a Better Broadway—

 

Sheffer: Oh yes.

 

Q: —or the focus of that study. I wanted to ask what it was like for that to become a formal project. You said you’d worked for the city. How did that all come about? 

 

Sheffer: That comes later, yes. Well, the whole impetus for Blocks for a Better Broadway came—I’m just trying to think whether we still lived at 110th Street, because we did for a while. And then having Susannah, the baby, we moved here because Eric Bentley, a wonderful scholar, became—and Isaiah was very close with him. There’s an article in The New Yorker magazine of the two of them, and all that. Eric at the time lived in this building with his wife. And then at some point, she had twins. Then later, as he began to nag Isaiah—I mean, Isaiah loved—nag him to begin to do things at Symphony Space when Isaiah was creating Symphony Space. And after actually Allan [phonetic] [00:02:06], who lives across the hall, who worked with him there until 1990, it was—there was a great concern about the neighborhood. And some of the concerns are perhaps those that are the impetus in many groups, in that, at the time, we didn’t know what it was. But nationally and with the Supreme Court after a number of years, there was a case in which—and then there had to be deinstitutionalization. That is, there were hundreds of thousands of people in [psychiatric] institutions. And New York, first of all, it was in—they were in Long Island, but they just threw them out. They were supposed to provide housing. 

 

The Upper West Side was a big area of—hundreds of thousands came because, first of all, the architecture was there, although it wasn’t seen as something as, you know, that the architecture remains interesting here. But the buildings, which were once apartments, and much later become apartments again, were SROs. And SROs, the Upper West Side had—I no longer remember all in the study—had hundreds of apartments in SROs. And, of course, what didn’t happen, though there were social workers and city workers, was really providing enough services, though there were professionals. But there were a lot. And here in this neighborhood, particularly, as I think when you and I were walking up to Broadway, I pointed out on 92nd Street what was the Ridgefield Hotel, a small apartment house. But that one really became a place in which—it was a guy named Jerry Dick and others—that it became a place for prostitutes. And there were SRO owners or others who engaged in flagging down cars. It was a joke when other people were miserable of—that the Jersey license plates would be coming down Broadway, coming off the George Washington Bridge. 

 

[00:04:58] However, what was much more important—though clearly the fact that they were prostitutes at all was very upsetting—what was much more important was that hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people were released by law from the institutions to take care of them. And they were provided with housing, but extremely inadequately. And the Upper West Side had the housing of buildings that were converted to SROs. I mean, interestingly, I remember in Long Island, many of the sort of resorts there became a huge destination, and also maybe in the [19]20s and so on. And one fact, I guess—I mean, it’s probably all in the study—here we were, living on Riverside Drive, and supposedly elegant and all, and the building is terrific, and was built in 1903, and was a building of apartments. But, for example, 94th and 95th Streets, interestingly, between Broadway, West End, and Riverside Drive—I used to know this—there were on each block, let’s say of the two blocks, hundreds of people in the SROs. I use the word dumped there. 

 

Now, actually, a bit of history before that, and there’s a whole story about it. I mean, the great philosopher Hannah Arendt lived there before, you know, when she left World War II. And there were many who did live there because, for many, SROs were, in a way, a potential place, I mean, of a place to live. And I assume in saying this, I don’t have to define SROs. There’s a certain movement again—not so real—to permit SROs again, given that a little bit of it is in the gigantic Getting to Yes thing, this big new zoning thing, which—this will be part [laughs] of another matter. 

 

But, anyway, so the fact that there were—I think there were eight, twelve, fourteen buildings on even just the two blocks there, and hundreds of people. And I, having then—we had a small child—then got acquainted. And I think the group, I think it was wonderful. And how it happened, I now forget. I notified people or something. One was a woman—I can’t remember her name—but who was a superintendent on one of the blocks of 93rd Street. The other was a lawyer. Now I remember where he lived. I think the law firm was White & Case or something, a well-known—in the apartment building at the corner of 94th Street. I’ve got to find it, but I really have pictures. The fourth eventually was a couple who, to this day, remain friends with me, I mean, with us: Ray and Donna, Ray Schwartz and Donna Tapper. Ray eventually, from that work, actually, as years went by, he became the head of a major welfare organization. And she worked, and they are friends [00:09:25]. But it was a small—we were like a—I don’t know how, or I asked them things. And we, these four or five or six, began to talk about, “Well, what’s going on in the streets, and isn’t it”—and I should really remember better. But that we began to—as this group, maybe there were two or three more—to say, “Wait, we have to do something with the police.” [00:09:55] Because I think I may have mentioned this to you that also, the little anecdotes, Susannah was little, and the two of us are crossing Broadway, and they’re stopping me. And I tell Susannah [unclear [00:10:11]. 

 

But the other thing, I still have it—it’s come back to me—I still keep that image of a woman picking up her skirt and defecating. I don’t remember all the history. But it was remarkable that the four or five or six or eight or ten began to just get very upset about this. And different ones, I mean, the lawyer was an upper-middle—he was great. And we just decided this is unbearable. I think I talked to the cops. I made friends with the cops. I don’t know how and why. And one of them then told me that there was this particular anti-crime unit, and that it was located on the Upper East Side, which I wasn’t going to go there. But this guy Joe or somebody said to me, “Go, just go in, and walk there, and tell my sergeant.” I remember thinking that one of the cops, who was extremely interesting, I think that he got interested in me. I think I almost got interested in him because he would then say, “What are you doing?” And he would let me know. 

 

And so we began to organize ourselves. But then there was the point of—in an amateur way—getting to the elected officials. And I think it began to be the time of Jerry Nadler becoming an assembly person. And the one I truly loved and who seemed—I mean, I liked Jerry—was Carl McCall. Very important, also African. And then there were others, other electeds. And we began to get to them, and how dare you in the neighborhood, and destruction, and the famous thing and all. But also it was, I guess, the big, well, the name Blocks for a Better Broadway was Isaiah, typical of it, I mean. Somehow we developed, in ways that were very complicated, 86 to 96. That’s where it was. And then we would go and lobby the electeds, and went to the Political Club. And he came up with the name, which was absolutely terrific. 

 

And the other major thing—I don’t remember how it happened, but it was exceptionally important—was, when you think of what’s going on now, another whole big story, of West Park Presbyterian Church. You know where it is? 

 

Q: No, I don’t.

 

Sheffer: Okay. And there’s a big thing been happening with it. When you go out, if you pass it—West Park Presbyterian Church on 86th and Amsterdam was 100 years old and a landmark. It was a Presbyterian church, needing work, whatever. How this began to happen—I probably wrote this or I have it someplace—but there was a minister, Bob, Robert [Davidson], I mean, I got to get—I mean, the name—he is so important. He was a minister there, and a very—a political one. I met him, he met me, and he raged, politically. He raged that it was also—it was Vietnam, the [19]80s, or whatever. Then he raged against—it was AIDS, and he was sympathetic, and then also the politics of it all, of the SROs. And he and I, the most unlikely couple of this group, which was very important, and the electeds, I mean, he would say, “Okay, we are going to go downtown, you and I, and we’re going to go into the Department of Social Services, and we’re going to do it ourselves.” So, I mean, I was stunned from that, although I was articulate, I was this. [00:14:59] He, like me, I mean, I thought, this guy, I mean, you could just—he was a wonder of militancy, and a good Presbyterian.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And, in fact, we did such things. And then we formed, the two of us, with others—he was the leader in militant, and with this group, and then going from door to door—we formed this West Side—what was the name of it—SRO Task Force or something like that. And I think the big first deal was we announced a big meeting, and rage, and I think he let us have it in the nave, the big nave of the church, which is a whole thing now. I mean, it’s major to save it, but a developer is—but the presbytery, actually now, has been trying to demolish, and sell it, and a big apartment house—I mean, that’s another matter—and with some movies stars. 

 

One tiny anecdote then was that, at some point during all of this, I became very focused, interested. I think I was teaching political science. Maybe it was a time when I was doing it at Barnard, because I did begin—and Susannah was a baby, and then later. Parenthesis. I always think that Susannah is rarely cold because I think I managed—I taught a course at Barnard, political science, political theory—and I managed to hire a Norwegian nanny for, like, three days. Her name was Mrs. Smazo [00:17:02], and she was Norwegian. It came to me recently that in the three days or whatever, as I was at Barnard, she would take the baby out. It was freezing weather. It didn’t matter how freezing, she’d walk that kid—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —that baby in the carriage. [laughs] And I always think that Susannah doesn’t complain about the cold. 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: But the big anecdote for me—there’s two, but it’s more than that. I don’t know the impetus. We had begun to have a meeting, so we were sort of beginning to be—and the electeds and Carl McCall, they began to do—and Jerry Nadler, to this day, would say that we created something. But I was walking—I walked on 94th or 95th. It was the middle of the day. I didn’t tell you this last time, did I? 

 

Q: I’m not sure. What’s the—?

 

Sheffer: Because this is like a—and that’s also the [unclear] [00:18:09] where there were—and you didn’t go, you know, you didn’t walk there necessarily. And I was walking just to look at the streets during the day, alone, myself. And I don’t remember if I was doing it for another reason, which I’ll get to. But in the middle of the street—and [laughs] I later said this was my high noon with Gary Cooper of walking down the street, and the villain [00:18:41] is walking toward me. But I’m walking on the sidewalk part, and then along comes Jerry Dick, whom Dick [unclear] [00:18:50] he also owned it, and he was the owner of many things. Also, I began to lose my head, because I thought I began to see who the owners were. And most of them—I don’t know about Dick—were all Jewish landlords, like the hotel on 94th Street, across the other way, which was the Monterey, and others. Anyway. And it was Jerry Dick, and it was like that, and I knew he carried a gun. I mean, that was the thing. 

 

Q: And he knew who you were?

 

Sheffer: Yeah, he knew me from either recognizing me, or from other things. And I don’t think I am dramatizing it now. I can’t remember. But we stopped in the middle of the street. [laughs]

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And he said to me, “What are you trying to do to me? You’re ruining me,” and this and that. I mean, I was terrified but I—you know. It may have been—I don’t know if—I can’t remember that he may have—I don’t know if he owned the Ridgefield. [00:20:00] And the second big thing, which is me beginning to learn—I, in making the—what did we call ourselves? The West Side Task Force on SROs. So there was this.

 

Q: I remember from your résumé a West Side Crime Prevention, or something like that. 

 

Sheffer: Yes, something—that’s right. Maybe it was that. 

 

Q: And it must have included the SROs.

 

Sheffer: Right. And I began through that, and then, with the Ridgefield, I somehow learned and I found out that maybe there could be a way to get to the city, and show that the place was housing the illegal prostitution thing. I don’t remember now. But through this, I became—I called, but they told me what to do, the electeds did, and I then got involved with the city agencies. I remember this guy, the Corporation Counsel. I can try to remember where I’ve got all this. And I became a plaintiff, and persuaded—but it had to do, you know, Nadler, the others, they were putting pressure to bring some suit against the Ridgefield of holding a nuisance. However, in order to do that, the thing was to show and to prove that crime, that something was going on there. Yes, there was another organization. West Side Crime Prevention was not me; it was another one, a woman who is a friend [Marjorie Cohen] who lives on 92nd Street now, all this time. And she and they sort of got in touch with the police about other things. In any case, I’m trying to remember the guy, the bureaucrat—but brought a suit by getting the police, or getting some way to show what was going on in the hotel. 

 

There was a reporter, I think. I don’t know if he was a reporter from The Daily Mirror or the News, or whether it was the local paper like The Westsider. But I do remember that he booked a room deliberately, and I knew he was doing it but didn’t—and so we had that. I was doing that. I do remember my talking to the Corporation Counsel, making them do this. I have, now that I’m talking to you, phone calls with some other people, either bureaucrats or something, saying, “What are you trying to do? Why? No, you don’t have it. Oh, what?” 

 

So there was a case brought against the Ridgefield, and it was about it being a nuisance because there were X numbers of—that got into The New York Times. It’s very, very terrible to be getting—I have two or three examples of, at the time, though years ago, legendary Times journalists, who were people that I knew, I thought, who’s this, even then. This guy is going to come back to me, but this guy interviewed me. And I think that the whole—that hotel or [unclear] [00:24:09]—I think it got into the front page. The other one, years later, years later indeed, which did get onto the front page—and I think I have it now, somebody said it—was years later,a very important experience for me,was that when I began to teach cops.I was just a teacher there, and then I became the director of it, the Liberal Studies Program for Police, I mean. That was beyond belief. 

 

And just going ahead, that it was years later, also crime. It was the [19]90s, yeah, something like that, and it was a time of high crime, anyway. [00:25:07] And I think there was a period of some weeks or months that there were maybe three incidents that were horrifying over many months. Two cops in a car, stopping a car for some illegal thing, getting out of the car, and those in the car get out and shoot them dead. There was something like three over a period. The one, when I began cops, my whole thing with doing cops and all that is major, and then veterans—very influential on me, but anyway. The one that did occur was on the Lower East Side, I believe, and the cop’s name—African-American—was in the program to get a degree, because they were together [00:26:16]. And he was driving his sergeant. And they were on the Lower East Side, and they stopped a car, and they got out. I don’t know if they didn’t do the right thing or they did do the right thing. But they got out and were shot dead. I mean, horrible. 

 

And so this very well-known, I mean, you got to see—I’ve got—because he is a legendary journalist for The Times. And he called me, and I was already like—because I was an avid reader, I think from high school. When nobody was doing it, I liked reading. I wanted to learn about The Times. And so he called me, and he said, “I hear something that you, you know, about what to do. Somebody told me or”—and I simply on the phone just said, “Yes.” And I have his application for entry into this Brooklyn College program. 

 

Q: One of the police officers who’d been shot?

 

Sheffer: Yeah. And he said, “What do you mean?” And I read to him on the phone that the guy, Andrew Glover, I read the following, and this is what I remember, a paragraph that he started to write: “If I live, and I get a degree, I want to go into teaching”—so, of course, it got to me, I had picked out his application. And then the journalist said, “What did you—what?” So I don’t think I’m making it up now because it’s already become legendary in my mind. But I read that to him. I believe that he made it like the first paragraph, or god knows what. And the last thing was that with the complexity, the Corporation Counsel brought a suit against the Ridgefield. So that was something.

 

I now am remembering that either an assemblyman or somebody kept calling me on the phone and berating me. “Why are you bringing the suit with the Corporation Counsel? They’ll never do it. They’ll never, you know, whatever.” Okay. But the other thing began to happen, the dumping of, the deinstitutionalization, the Supreme Court ruling, and the big places in New York—it was all over. The big ones were Long Island and Queens and the Upper West Side. The last thing I could say is that I—there’s a lot. But I did something that I look back and think, I don’t know whether it was before or after meeting Jerry Dick—I mean, I don’t even know—or why was I walking on that street? Was there a reason? I don’t know. But I decided—I wondered, wait a minute, there’s supposed to be case…there’s caseworkers in some of the [unclear] [00:29:57], you know, to find [00:30:00]. And I somehow decided to walk into the SRO, which—and this is the other memory I can tell you. I walked in, and I just went in a little bit. And I met a younger guy, and he said, “Do you want to come into the room?” And I took a shot, a chance, and went in. So he began to telling me about—so I don’t know what I—I really don’t know. But I thought—

 

Q: Well, in the report that you gave me last time, some of your recommendations mentioned that the SROs were not up to code. 

 

Sheffer: That’s right.

 

Q: They were not sufficiently upkept. And, also, as you said, there should’ve been social services provided for vocational and mental and physical—

 

Sheffer: Yeah, because that’s what was supposed to happen. I now think that I may have invited one or two to this apartment, which was not looking like that, but I said—which was another thing. But, yes, that—and so things happened to me upon going—because I would like everybody—the people [unclear] [00:31:18] said, “Hey, get the hell”—you know. What’s happening to this neighborhood? I mean, when the woman was defecating there, I had the middle class—we didn’t have much money, but I just thought—but then something outraged me, I don’t know what, which is why I got bought—not exactly. But then McCall, I don’t remember, because it was a big deal, I mean, there were a lot of politics. But Carl McCall and, to some degree, Jerry Nadler, they got money, and they allocated money, and to the commissioner of social services, Barbara Bloom, state commissioner. I knew nothing. And they managed to persuade that they hire me and not be—but for a year, and that I do this social service thing. 

 

And so I then get an office in the World Trade Center, the first bombing. [laughs] So I would go downtown, and I was on the 23rd floor or something. And then there were three or four people who were my staff. They had contempt for me, not one or two, because one particularly, an African American, said, “What kind of, I mean, you don’t know what you’re doing.” I mean, it was that kind of thing. He was a good civil servant. I had difficulty being—and then I would go to Albany. I didn’t like it. I mean, I didn’t know what I—and the other big thing created was this, among others, a developer’s task force or something put developers on it to write how to get rid of J-51, the big tax thing, which has come back, you see. But that was a big thing of then writing legislation. Franz Leichter, who died—wonderful, elected—a guy who’s a major lawyer, who became a friend over the years—I mean, it’s twenty-five, thirty years—relocation task force, wrote—and I began with others, you know—wrote legislation, and some of it got passed, like, on the—that you could use the J-51 for SROs, which I no longer remember. But then, I was good at it but not good, you know, I didn’t like it. So it was for a year, or maybe it ended earlier. I was okay, but I wasn’t good enough at it.

 

There was another woman who was a journalist, Marsha Witten, who was terribly—I’m glad that name came out quickly. She was very smart, and a good journalist, and she came—I think she was for a while in the government thing. That was like somewhat out of order, but she was very smart, and I liked that also. [00:34:59] The whole thing, though, I think, the other side of the coin for me in character, or I don’t know what, was that I was very interested, I was amazed at, “Wait a minute, how did this happen?” and doing this. But the community people, some of them then—I can still remember the names of some of them. Of course they’re always women. Something is the thing with me. But I don’t really think so. [laughs] And they then just said, “What the hell? What’s this business, Blocks for a Better Broadway? She’s gotten a job out of it. She’s this. She’s that.” 

 

And then I think Isaiah was starting Symphony Space, or later. I remember one woman, Eleanor-something—was it at the first Wall to Wall? I don’t know. And that woman, I remember her saying on the street, “Those Sheffers, they’re making plenty of money, aren’t they?” Because then the deal—I’m mixing up the times. When finally the deal occurred for there to be an apartment house at the Symphony Space case, that’s later, which was fourteen years of the world’s worst battle. But I remember her saying—and others from the neighborhood—“She’s making money from this.” These were the people who, I mean, people did make money. I got a salary from it, but I didn’t have the invest…this is me always wondering, really, you know. I wasn’t one of the community for a while, until the Community Board. Now, I have—

 

Q: Well, let me ask one question before the Community Board—

 

Sheffer: Yeah, because it’s too much. 

 

Q: —which is, ultimately, how was it that many of these SROs ended up being converted into residential buildings for middle- and upper-class residents? So if it wasn’t you, and your report, and your astute observations and recommendations, what was it that ended up shifting the composition of the housing? 

 

Sheffer: A whole bunch of other, I think, factors. In a way, I may be wrong. I got to think about this again. I should really ask Donna and Ray what they thought.

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: The fact is that there was architecture here. It had been a place where the middle class had lived. Of course, Central Park West, well, of course it has the park and all of that. But then there was—I’m not sure because I’m saying something over simple, and the whole thing was complicated—there was a great—things began to happen, a need for housing in Manhattan, and that housing could be converted. And also, there were good bones there. 

 

Q: Yes, and I think from—that’s what I saw in my research too, particularly in the Koch administration, there was a big push for housing, specifically for wealthier residents or for single residents, for luxury housing as well. 

 

Sheffer: It’s true that the Koch administration—the one guy, what’s his name, who was the deputy mayor [Kenneth Lipper], is very, very, very smart, good. I got to get this back to me because they were very important—trying the conversion. And there were developers, who saw—I do remember—this is not quite the same—but one of the developers who owned the Monterey and many, many of the SROs, I somehow learned—because he was a mogul of the SROs in a way, as did a number of them. And also some people would often say, “Every one of them, they’re Jewish owners. Who do you think is”—which—you know. [00:40:02] He owned this good hotel, the other one, a tourist hotel. I did something, I found out where he lived in New Jersey, and I arranged—I didn’t do it, but I arranged for some people to go and picket his house in New Jersey. He was—I don’t know. Also, I don’t know, at the same time with the cops, there was a liquor store, as there still is, maybe on the corner of Broadway and 94th, or something like that. And I remembered, again, that there was something bad about that store. And so I got my cops, the cops who loved me, or the guy who loved me, to go after—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —that liquor license…so, in other words, the cleaning up. I’m not sure of the dates now. But, in one way, a symptom, a good symptom—but I’m mixing up—is doing Symphony Space, because the block was owned. It was the Astors from the market. The day when Isaiah called me and said—he says, “I’m standing in the lobby, and a man in a Savile Row suit has just walked in, and he says that he’s the Duke of Astor.” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And I said, “What?” But what it turned out to be, these were—I knew all the names and the lawyers. And they went to Isaiah, who, by then, what, it was—this was the mid-1980s when this legal process started—were talking, let’s say, that Symphony Space is struggling. But getting there, people are coming, and so they, the owners, convinced Symphony Space and the lawyers, all pro bono, who, in this case, I mean, Isaiah did everything. But I got the lawyers—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —in each case, and to get them to petition to get rid of property taxes for the site of the theater. And, in fact, that was successful so, therefore, this is very big. By the way, there’s new people have moved in in the ten-room apartment. Both of them are lawyers at the law school. They’re extremely nice, indeed. I have learned that one of them is—she has an endowed chair, and she told me that her book is coming out, and she told me that, yes, it’s a book of state constitutional law about whatever. And I said, “Uh, wait a minute, there was the Symphony Space lawsuit.” She said, “Yeah, what was it about?” And I have to come out with, ““The Rule Against Perpetuities.”” She said, “Oh yeah, I have it all.” So they got the exemption. It then, in ways that I can’t explain now—it’s very important—spread to the block. They owned the rest of the block. Of course, then what they planned to do—what they did, which was the fight, to get rid of Symphony Space. But the big thing was Symphony Space, they did it to get an absence of property taxes. That was incredible. And you needed the theater to do it.

 

Q: So the owners were trying to have the theater be vacant so that they could get a tax break? Is that what was happening?

 

Sheffer: Well, what they wanted, yes, they wanted to take it over, to get it, but to show that that piece of property was a not-for-profit, so you could claim—

 

Q: Oh.

 

Sheffer: —you see, that you didn’t have to pay the property taxes. That was a very complicated case, involving the Rule Against Perpetuities.. I got to get it—I mean, I knew this, I knew it yesterday, the names of it, but I’ll get it—because it was very—I mean. [00:45:04] And, also, we were struggling. Isaiah was on unemployment. I was doing—I have an image of standing in the kitchen, which it didn’t even look at [unclear] [00:45:12]—I mean, and everybody—and there was a board, began to be a board at the Symph…and would often say to Isaiah, as the place was, I mean, they would begin to give him hell when Isaiah—it was already better after that, and it was when Philip Morris and others, Philip Morris cigarettes and all, would give a lot of money and all. And they were sending out to advertise that Symphony Space, and give a lot of money that’s probably—and Isaiah goes to the board. The place is doing better, a few years later. And everybody said, “Wow, this is great. You’re getting the money with this.” And Isaiah went to the board, and said, “I don’t want to take money from Philip Morris.” 

 

So the newer ones—because the older people who had been really the great people, like Steve Alden [phonetic] [00:46:14], the angel, I mean, he was good to me, god knows, also with Isaiah and I, in what I’ve had to go through with Symphony Space, and what I still go through. The board then said, “What do you mean you’re turning down?” And Isaiah said, “Yes.” And the board, who then began to be with younger moguls, and do good things, I mean, they were leaving this. But before that, the block—there was a famous architect—James Polshek, and some of the same store and all, and then they had gotten—they owned the whole block actually from before. And so they got the Symphony Space thing, which was, wow, a big deal. And I don’t know if it extended, I don’t know. And then they sued, to get rid of it all.

 

Q: What I know about Symphony Space and it’s, I guess, legal battles is that it was purchased by Isaiah and Allan, right, for a very small sum, and then somebody else wanted to null that sale, and they fought that.

 

Sheffer: Yes, I think that that’s the case. Also, I could tell you, Steve Al…and I’ve got that.

 

Q: Okay.

 

Sheffer: But it was also—

 

Q: But this is a separate issue?

 

Sheffer: This is the fact that they get the non-profit status.

 

Q: Symphony Space?

 

Sheffer: Yeah, right, and thereby they then could own it, in a sense, and then get rid of it [00:48:05], and it could extend to the rest of the block, I think. 

 

Q: So, rather than Isaiah and Allan owning it as individuals, it would be the non-profit entity that owns it?

 

Sheffer: Oh yeah, they never owned it as individuals, never.

 

Q: So what’s the battle? Who are the two owners that are fighting in this story that you’re telling me? 

 

Sheffer: I have to give you the names of it, and I could get it easily [Symphony Space vs. Pergola Properties, Inc.].

 

Q: How did it become no longer Symphony Space, that they were owning their own? 

 

Sheffer: Well, first of all, the Savile Row little anecdote, the Astors still owned the block, because look at the—they were one of the owners of it. Then there were two—

 

Q: But not the building that Symphony Space was in? They owned the rest of the block?

 

Sheffer: And, theoretically, they owned that because that had been a market.

 

Q: Huh.

 

Sheffer: Because, look, I’ll show it to you. Wait a minute.

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: No, I won’t do it yet, but I’ll show you the historical thing. I have even the short version of it. But, yes, the history of looking at the building on 95th and Broadway, originally, in the early 20th century, a market was built there by the Astors. Then the market didn’t work over time. And then what occurred in maybe the 1920s, I think, was it was converted to a skating rink, which if you’ve been in Symphony Space, you realize even now, though it’s changed, there’s the orchestra, and then the balcony goes around. [00:50:12] The people could look down at the skating rink. The Thalia becomes the—I’ll give you the name—the something café. Why am I forgetting it? It’ll come back to me in a mo…a restaurant, a major restaurant. Then into the—is it the [19]30s or ’40s—I mean, I’ve got this—that Thomas J. Healey—I got the name.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Thomas Healey was some guy around town. He liked theaters. He’d do bars, whatever. The story at least is—part of it—that he saw a play. He would go to the theater, did everything [unclear] [00:51:02], and he kind of liked the play but also the scenery. And it looked like—and then later, he built Pomander Walk, which is behind that. And Pomander Walk is a landmark. And they would have thrown down all that. But talking about the block, Broadway of merchants, and so a number of multi-factors occurred to make the block more valuable, the major big stuff of looking for housing, I mean, later the nature of the buildings, which many of them wonderful, in a way, redoing again what at the turn of the century had been a lot of middle-class housing. 

 

I remember the lawsuit, and I went to the court in this long lawsuit [Symphony Space vs. Pergola Properties, Inc.] of them trying to get back. And the person who was the lawyer—I’m going to get the name, it’s disgraceful, but you know it—he had been—we’re now talking about the end of—we’re talking close into the begin…the 20th—2001, I mean, and all, because the lawsuit was murder for quite some time. But the lawyer, I remember when I visited in the hearts [00:52:52] of the lawsuit, it was Bob. He had been the borough president of The Bronx, and a very good guy. Because now, as I’m talking to you [laughs], I remember that walking in there. And I just walked up to him. I was like a little bit beginning to be known as this community whatever. And I just looked at him, and I said, “What’s wrong with you? You are daring to do this? You’re such a good guy.” And he looks at me, and just—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And that, separately, the remarkable winning of that suit was, I mean, it was a lawsuit of about ten, eleven, twelve years. 

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: And then I remembered, years later, because already I became—I began to be interested in buildings and architecture, whatever, and the ones, I mean, everybody, every developer began to look at that avenue, that street, and the ones who got it. There was also the Astors, and then I forget who the others were, but I will remember the names. The developers are very famous and well known, and they were very honorable to begin with. But the thing was ten years. The lawsuit went on for years. When it finally got decided at the Court of Appeals, after this long lawsuit, which was remarkable, the famous woman—you have to—somebody asked me this yesterday, and it came right out of her lips [00:54:42]. She remembered that was the best Court of Appeals judge who did this. Because I said, “Yeah, I remember that she came walking into the theater, and I thought, oh my god.” And then she said to me, “Oh, look, you and I should have lunch.” 

 

[00:55:00] But that was a remarkable win. And Peter Norton, of course, of Norton, when that happened, the court case that it occurred, which was about a little after 9/11, I guess, 2001, I mean, I think that the phone call that came from Peter Norton, here to me while I was home, his secretary saying, “Is Mr. Sheffer there?” I said, “No. Who’s calling?” “Mr. Norton.” I knew nothing. I understood nothing. And I said, “Well, may I take your name?” And she said, “Please ask him to call, and tell him”—it was 2001 or ’02—“tell him that Mr. Norton listens to him on the radio regularly in California.” So I remember that’s one of the—I call Isaiah at the theater. I said, “This guy”—he said, “Who’s that?”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: “Somebody at the theater says what?” He then calls, and asks Isaiah to see him for dinner, whatever, and to go—first it was that he was going to Lincoln Center or something. And Isaiah was directing something there, and he says, “I can’t do this.” He says, “You have to go.” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: I said, “You’re out of your mind. I’m not going to do that.” But what Norton did was invite him and me to BAM, where Norton was going to be there. And at that night, I remember sitting opposite, and Norton constantly asking Isaiah questions. It was a whole thing that Norton was there, because also a benefactor. He asked, I think all [00:57:06]. And I think one of the questions was, “So I imagine you have one of your board members or something who would give you money. Name the theater,” or something. And Isaiah said, “Well, no, we don’t have.” Isaiah got the money, I mean, it was Isaiah. It was five million he gave, the biggest amount of anybody. The way they… But Isaiah was the one who got all the money. He could get the money once he—he used to call the diner across from the theater the Uptown Regency—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —you know, and say yes. So that’s what I mean, Norton, I mean, phenomenal. And then, much later, the story after he died, whatever, the person who was—the managing agents, the plan was to build a building on 95th Street next to it. That’s when he died, whenever. But I knew a lot then, or I had a lot of opinions. And I just said, “95th Street is not such a great street. You don’t want to necessarily build like that, whatever.” Anyway, they did get this developer for the building, which was a great, big, wonderful thing with a very, very good architect. But I hate the building anyway because it’s not distinguished. So it’s basically building above, which is—you know. And, of course, it saved everything, but not to be terrifically liked, particularly, if you’re somebody like me, but okay. 

 

Q: Well, let’s dive back—

 

Sheffer: Dive back.

 

Q: —dive back to where you were starting to talk about the Community Board service, and you said that’s when you started to really feel like you were part of the community, or for people to see you like you were part of the community. So how did you get involved officially, or unofficially, whatever the story is? [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: I don’t know. I don’t think that I was looking to join. I didn’t even know what was happening. I wasn’t interested. I think, also, I was at Barnard. I also was doing graduate studies, I think, and wasn’t great at it. I was good at it, and I got my master’s. [01:00:00] I got other things. But I sort of didn’t know. But I think subterranean—I think, in my life, I don’t even—I may be making a rationale when it doesn’t exist—that I think I always liked, even when I was a kid, maybe I liked buildings. I was interested in building, but I didn’t know that I was. But I have to think of knowing about the Community Board. The people on the Community Board ran things. That’s how it was. And the names are [01:00:46] important. These are the names I remember, and bad stuff emerges in me to this day.

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: Sally Goodgold, you know, this is a legendary figure.

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: That’s a plaque of Isaiah. Here’s Albert, who died. One of his many books, one of my favorites, The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America, and then under it is Socialist Thought, many books.

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: It was just his memorial, which is crummy. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Q: So the legendary figures of the neighborhood you were listing. 

 

Sheffer: I don’t know if I decided to apply or whether one of the elected officials said, you know, and I did. Well, I shouldn’t say or characterize myself that way. I think that I just thought, who are these people? I had an antipathy or something. 

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: I can’t remember now, because it might mean something, because I did get appointed. It was political. And the man was Leon Bogues, and I believe that he might have been chair of the board then, though the people running it—or maybe it’s after. I have to get there. But he put me on, and I’m a freshman. And somehow he said, “You and me, we’re going to set up a committee of uniformed services.” I knew nothing. I didn’t even understand what he was saying. But I’m a freshman, and he makes me a chair of that committee when I got on. So I’m mixed up about the, you know, was it because of the West Side Crime Prevention? I mean, that was really unusual. I don’t know. 

 

Q: I think from your résumé, I saw that, and maybe you didn’t list all of the things that you had chaired as part of the Community Board. But the Upper West Side Rezoning Task Force, I think that was the first one that you had listed as chairing. 

 

Sheffer: Oh yeah, because I considered that—that’s much later, and it’s not a real standing committee; it’s a task force.

 

Q: It’s a task force. 

 

Sheffer: By the way—

 

Q: So this is in the early ’80s, I believe. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, I believe. I say this now as there’s foolishness going on at the Community Board. [01:05:01] I think, if you look back, I have—I did say this—I have never been a co-chair on any committee. This task force, the other one, the major thing, I mean, the Upper West Side Zoning thing, that one, I think, was after so much trouble. That’s relatively recent that Shelly Fine—who was chair then. I think that’s in the ’80s or whatever. And it was the two huge buildings on either side of Broadway. They’re enormously tall. The community went crazy seeing these, and the political clubs got involved. This is, I think, post-Sally Goodgold or whatever, but the others are there. And they begin to demonstrate politically, and Jerry Nadler’s already an assemblyman, and everybody’s there. 

 

And I think Shelly, who is a very, very, very orthodox Jewish person, and a fine person, and has actually become a friend, he calls me and we talk every day. I think I had already been chair, but I wasn’t chair then with that, because it’s years later. And he then said, “I’m going to make a task force. I’m going to make you the head of it between”—and I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and then realized to do 96th to 110th, because in manage…I had been involved in getting zoning, rezoning. How did I do that? South, the Lincoln Square Special District. 

 

Q: Yes. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, but the 96th to 110th comes later, because this guy who’s a major developer, and is doing a lot now, Gary Barnett—the firm is Extel; biggest, biggest, biggest, biggest around. And so Shelly made me the chair. I didn’t even know, because I think I had been to the uniformed services. I didn’t know what I was doing, or I was doing other things. And then he said, “I think maybe you’ll know—don’t you know people at City Planning? See, and I did then, maybe because of the other zoning that I had done. And that was wild, because I was never a committee chair, but it was all—did you ever hear of Amanda Burden? 

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: Yeah, okay. Amanda Burden was the debutante, or whatever, but brilliant. She’d gone to become a planner. It was maybe Bloomberg then, and I think she was chair of the City Planning then, whatever, and she knew me. I’m mixing up, but there’s two anecdotes. I think—I don’t remember—was I president of the APA then? But I remember that Isaiah and I were in Paris for a short time, and in a taxi. And the phone rang, and it was Amanda Burden calling me.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: But here’s the thing. I must have been chair then. I must have been maybe the—I don’t know—of the task force maybe. She called me, and said, “Ethel”—she is a planner, but she would like to become an FAICP, which is the big thing, and she’s in the taxi. I’m dying that it’s Amanda Burden.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And she says, “Do you think that you could help recommend me for that?” I couldn’t believe it. 

 

Q: Wow. 

 

Sheffer: So I said, “Oh yeah, right.” So I became that thing doing that, the 96 to 110th. It was a big, big deal. The community, who had been demonstrating in the streets, because of the big buildings, I would get phone calls from them, as Shelly asked me to find them. I would get phone calls from them. “We know that you really are a person of the developers,” every one of them. I mean, that was what they felt about it. [01:10:01] I hated it. I still retain that. 

 

Q: You still retain that you’re not a person of the developers?

 

Sheffer: Right.

 

Q: But you’re probably a person of planning. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: But now I have worked a couple of times with developers, not really particularly, because, if so, I would have a lot more money.

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: But no. 

 

Q: You know what? I’m interested in that first or earlier Upper West Side Rezoning Task Force that involved, I think, I don’t know if it went the whole way down. I don’t know if that one also included Columbus Circle or not, but I’m interested in it because of the connections that you did make with City Planning at that time, so getting back to those earlier days of you doing plan work.

 

Sheffer: Well, it’s also, as you see, I will show you in the study there, another woman gave me a present, which is on the wall, of the puzzle. If I could show you, I mean, it’s a great, clever puzzle, and I believe that it’s depicting 96 to 110th. I have to look, because that was a big deal, because the other one had occurred earlier. Wait a minute, let’s just take a look for a second. Why am I forgetting? 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Q: I wrote down that you wanted to show me the puzzle, so we can look at it at the end. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, silly, okay. 

 

Q: What I know about that earlier case was that there was a push to change the zoning so that the buildings could be taller, and this is the rezoning task force where you were collectively learning about floor area ratio, the FAR.

 

Sheffer: Oh yeah, I knew that. I began to know that earlier.

 

Q: What I’m really curious about—the big question I guess I have—is, when you started to learn about planning through your work with the community.

 

Sheffer: Well, I’m trying to think what comes first. I come to the denouement, in one sense, that then later, when I began to teach planning—and you know I’m emerita now in the School of Planning.

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: [whispers] I have never taken a planning course. 

 

Q: Well, you’ve been doing the work in the city as a resident. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah. But what I didn’t do there—you have to take—there is a kind of license, a test. And I did take the test for the AICP, years later, and I just thought, none of this, it doesn’t matter, I’ll take it, and just see what happens, and I did. And there were younger students or whatever, and I took that test. I considered that nobody should ever know. I got what I considered—I barely passed, which was beneath my—however, but passed, which was hysterical. Then, years later, that’s 2008 or ’10 or whatever, not too long before Isaiah gets sick and all—or is it? I forget. Anyway, the people in the chapter, when I was already president, or people in the APA said, oh look, they want to nominate me to become an FAICP. I did not consider that this—who needs this, and I don’t care, and whatever.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Because I wasn’t working for a planning firm, or I don’t know what I was doing. And I did at the time say, “No, no, I don’t,” because you have to bring your whole life in and everything else. And there were about three people of the younger variety, I think, because the others, the ones, some of whom who’ve been around for a long time, saw me but didn’t like me, no matter what, weren’t going to do it. [01:15:03] But these three or four people, young, said, “No, no, you give us your material. You got to give—and we’re going to do it, and put the thing together, the application.” I said, “What are you doing?” And they did that, put it in, and then I became an FAICP. 

 

Also then, I mean, I don’t remember which time, in the coinciding of it, because Isaiah had gotten sick. And then there was a conference, the APA conference in Los Angeles or something, and I then would be honored at the conference. And I remembered feeling very sad and very upset with Isaiah, because I went with him when he was traveling and whatever. And I said, “How about coming with me, and we’re going to have some fun there, and whatever?” And he said, no, he’s busy with this, with that. And I went alone, and then I was kind of upset. And then a couple of well-known senior people, radical types, Ron Shiffman and Yvette Shiffman, who’s still—she’s in the APA now, I think. At the time, there was going to be a reception, and they looked at me, and said, “Would you like to—why don’t you come out with us, Ethel?” I wasn’t friends with them, but they were doing like a nice thing. And then when I came back home, Isaiah then said, “Oh, isn’t it your birthday or whatever? And I’ve invited Albert and Edith––the very people of the memorial I was just talking about––to do this. ” And I realized he’s sort of making up for not having gone. It was not long after that, like, in the summer, that he got a stroke and got sick. 

 

Another example, though, on a completely different level, is that Sally Goodgold, when it was Yom Kippur [laughs]—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —which was years later, she had moved or whatever. Wait, just before that, when I was chair or the president, I’m not sure, Henry Stern, do you know that name, commissioner of parks? 

 

Q: Yes, yes. 

 

Sheffer: A very major character, also—

 

Q: P. Henry Stern, I think. 

 

Sheffer: Pardon? 

 

Q: Sorry, go ahead. 

 

Sheffer: And he had also been a city council member, and many, you know, a very smart but very kind of madman, but also good. And he in the middle—I forget whether I was doing the SROs or I had—and he called me, and he did say, “How would you like—perhaps it’s a good idea for you that I could—to come to work for parks, the parks department?” And I remembered, “What, really?” I thought, oh, maybe this is interesting. And I remembered coming home, and talking to Isaiah. I said, “Could I do a job, you know, of a regular job at a [unclear] [01:18:49]?”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: He said, “Oh, that’s good. Go ahead.” So days or weeks, whenever it occurred, I’d speak to him, and I said, “Thank you, I would like to. Can we pursue this?” And he then said to me on the phone, “Just forget about it.” And he then said—I just remembered—“Do you know Sally Goodgold?” And he said, “Sally Goodgold said some things about you, so the offer is rescinded [01:19:24]. I was—

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: I remember thinking, the bad—the stuff when I—it’s years later, I mean, why—she isn’t—she moved.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: But she was cons…

 

Q: Still, mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: Sometime after that, it was Yom Kippur, and I got a call from her. You’re supposed to say, “Be forgiven for your sins [01:19:52].” So she, on the phone, said, “Will you please [unclear [01:19:55] for my sin? [01:19:59] Will you please, whatever, forgive?” [01:20:02] And I remembered on the phone—this has come to me now that I said, “Well, you’re supposed to do it, I mean, I’m supposed to do it, but I don’t believe you at all, and I don’t—and I know exactly—and I know a lot of what you did.” When I was chair of the board, I would go down to City Planning. I was around town, and she was no longer, I mean, she hadn’t been chair—it didn’t matter what time I came when there was a hearing, and that I had to cover it, or when, she would be in the executive session, in the front row, before I came. She was also friends with Marty Gallent, who was a—oh, I got that name—a chair of City Planning, so therefore important, and sort of a liberal guy. They were friends. I used to think, was there something between them? I was almost hoping there would be, to explain their, you know, because he let—and so that’s like the early days of things, of feeling—so, when I did become chair, I did become well known by newspapers. 

 

And also the New York Historical Society was doing—you know. And then I think that’s the beginning, the first time of Lincoln West, which they were the Argentinians. They thought I was great. They do get passed. I think they sent me like a little cigarette case, and I said, “I’m not supposed to.” And then, eventually, I joined the APA. But I felt that nobody know—they don’t know me. The Community Board, when I was on the Community Board, and, I mean, Amanda liked it, whatever, but I still felt there was the group. She had gotten off it. Bob—what’s the Supreme Court Justice’s name? Elena, Bob, please. 

 

Q: [Unclear] [01:22:37]

 

Sheffer: Anyway, her father had always been on—much earlier than I. They were part of the original group of running the Community Board, well before I—David Kornbluh, also with his son who’s well known—Kagan, Bob Kagan, Elena Kagan. Bob Kagan was actually, though part of that terrible group, was actually a decent guy, because I know that when I did run for Community Board—which, by the way, then there was a nominating committee, and I got nominated, because I wasn’t going to run. And I was shocked that I was, and it’s a major thing. I don’t think this has happened before or since. I won by one vote—

 

Q: Oh wow. 

 

Sheffer: —amazingly.

 

Q: So there’s basically a kind of insider-outsider thing that—?

 

Sheffer: Right. And the second year—see, it was only then for one year—I did a lot. I mean, it’s good to go over the stuff that I did do because it did count. Then it only was a one-year term. I ran again, and again, it was tough, and again. 

 

Q: One vote again? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: I think it might have been two, but again.

 

Q: Wow, that’s very close.

 

Sheffer: Here’s one other quick anecdote, immediate. It’s apropos. I win again, and Isaiah and then Bill—I forget—he was working for the parks department. He’d just retired. And we go and we have drinks or something on the Lower East Side at the Yiddish restaurant, The Moskowitz & Lupo…or something, and laughing about, “I win again, and you couldn’t do bet…” whatever.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: I then get a call from the counsel or some lawyer—smart, very, very, very smart—or something in the borough president’s office. This is so long ago, but you then could get the years, so I won’t mix them up. Andrew Stein was borough president for two or three terms. His major council in the office—now I’m suddenly getting the names—I believe his name was Ed Rogowsky. [01:25:01] And he calls me, and I’m quite astonished, “Why are you calling?” So I go down to the municipal building, and meet him. And he says, “You’re chair again. Close call again.” And I believe he said—I think these are almost the exact words—he said, “This is what you do now,” like this. He went like this, and I—

 

Q: Pointing at you.

 

Sheffer: Now, I was no dummy. I mean, I was political enough to be doing a lot of stuff, but I really was not—I still didn’t think that way. It wasn’t I was a goody-goody. I mean, I just didn’t think—so he said, “The first thing you do is all those people who worked against you in there, they’re six or eight or ten of them who are really the ones who did, you take them off each and every committee, the first thing you do.” Now, who was that? Who was still on? Sally Goodgold, four or five others, and she was the head of the Penn Yards committee, which was then—and she knew Trump, who wasn’t doing it again [01:26:29]. And I take them all, and I dumped them all to say, “You’re off,” which further consolidated her hatred. And even after that, when I would go downtown, because I was around town, I would do this. 

 

Herb Sturz—I’m getting the name—was the head of City Planning, a very strange type, and very smart. And he and his lawyer, also wonderful, counsel to City Planning, who was wonderful—and Herb Sturz, again, was beginning the whole, again, the building of Riverside South, or whatever. It was the Argentinians, and then Trump. Later, Trump comes in with Koch. But, anyway, Herb Sturz announces—or it works out, they call—that the chair wants to come to do a walk along the river, and I have to bring them. So it was a whole thing of Sturz, elected officials, me walking to show the site of Penn Yards, Penn Central. And he then changes. He was very odd, a very odd type, and very smart. And he starts walking, and says, “Why don’t you and I walk together as we walk?” I didn’t know him, I didn’t. And he begins to talk to me about who I am, what the potential, Penn Central. And I said, “Well, in any other city, the city would’ve told Penn Central what to build. But Penn Central’s just saying build whatever. [laughs] So he, like me, Bob Davis was the counsel, very smart. I got to know him, and he liked me. 

 

And then I think later we move on to maybe the Columbus Circle thing later, but here’s just the one anecdote. I think it was the Argentinian…no, it was Columbus Circle and Mort Zuckerman. And Bob Davis was no longer working for City Planning, but for—I got it, very important—Berle, Kass & Case. Those names—Burley, there’s a very famous A.A. Burley of the New Deal and all. This is the son; very, very important. Also, that firm won the case against building a highway at the river. Berle, Kass, who I still know, Steve Kass, who they formed their lawsuit. Case was related or was Clifford Case, the governor of New Jersey. [01:30:00] So Bob Davis worked for them, and he was representing—he left City Planning. I don’t know what. And then I got Berle, Kass & Case because of Bob Davis, and maybe Herb Sturz taking my measure as we were walking along. I didn’t know. 

 

I then got—this is moving into then the whole thing about, I mean, was it the Argentinians or was it beginning to be Trump? But it was that, or I’m mixed up. Was it Columbus Circle? But I walked into City Hall unannounced. I think I was at a hearing, and I walked into the office of a deputy mayor, then. I just walked in, and I’m polite. And it was Bobby Wagner, the son of Robert Wagner. He was the guy. He died too young, terribly. And I walked in—I know—and all I said to him was, “Look who’s coming here. Look at the developers.” And I did a whole thing. “The Community Board needs help. Get them to give us money.” He said [unclear] [01:31:33]. I don’t know. This was very, very unusual, and I was much condemned, but it was wonderful. Bobby Wagner, I think—I don’t know the old stuff. But I think Bobby Wagner called the developers, whomever, whatever, and said, “Give the Community Board some money to hire.” We hired Berle, Kass, Bob Davis, and then Michael Kwartler [01:32:09]. I still have a very—he’s still a very important planner, who then created the study West Side Futures. And the money came from the devel…I think then it was like 25,000 or 30,000—I don’t know—and it was legal. And then I learned, like, to put it—give it through a—you can’t—shouldn’t give it directly to Community Board, or they did. So, I mean, that was major. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Q: Let’s keep for a little while longer on this topic of—

 

Sheffer: The Community Board—

 

Q: —the Community Board needing more resources because I’m just looking at my notes here, and I also am not sure if that was with the Tri-Board Task Force on Columbus Circle or with the Riverside South Penn Yards Committee, because there’s just a common theme there that—

 

Sheffer: Yeah, but it’s completely different.

 

Q: Completely different situations there but—

 

Sheffer: And a different way of being dealt with and also—

 

Q: Because you had brought up with the Lincoln West, in your Lessons of Lincoln West article, basically, how good is ULURP if the community boards and the public doesn’t have the information and the resources to learn about the issues?

 

Sheffer: Yeah, that was me early on, critically.

 

Q: So this is a theme across—I thought of it as a theme across a few of the main committees that you’ve been part of, which is understanding the function of land review, and understanding what is the input of the Community Board with regard to decisions that the Department of City Planning is making.

 

Sheffer: Yes. I learned about it. I tapped—I learned about it, about—wait a minute. An example, to summarize—let me just give you that and come back to it, because it is complicated—is here. Knowing or beginning to know, I was—no, I’ll start again. [01:35:00] When I was chair of the board, and then when there were these task forces, like the SRO thing, which was then Tri-Board, so 4, 5, and 7—don’t think that there weren’t people on 4 and 5 who didn’t like me either. But then between the Tri-Board Task Force and the other jobs that I began to do with this, there were a number of instances, like the one of the people, the Argentinians, the two big buildings that I, even then, were getting phone calls that I was not to be trusted, or that—you know. And I then finally began to see, the community boards have very little power, and ULURP, they’re going to be right. I thought, I mean, I was devoted to being right. I mean, I had that. 

 

But I did begin to learn—which I don’t think I ever had in me—wait a minute, you got to figure out how to negotiate. You got to figure out what you do, so that if I may skip to two or three years ago, or maybe that was earlier when it was COVID, when I did—sitting there in the—us being so cloistered, and I developed here and with George Calderaro, to some degree, doing and mostly taking the material I had in the house, you know, of saying, let’s take a look at either the history of the Riverside South, or how it went. Then that particular thing, which was two or three years ago, because it was COVID or whatever, on—it was Google or whatever you call it—there were like 200 or 300 people on. And it was faculty at Columbia, and here, there, whatever. And I gave a his…I spoke, and a lot of it I put together. My point in telling this to you is the stupid, still petty annoyance is that then there were people asking questions, which I have one note that I wrote down—I found this email of one sentence from someone after I gave that. This was so intelligent, it was so good, and I never do all of this. And I think I said, “Oh, let’s keep that, I’ll show that.” But it’s also this woman, I mean, criticizes me [laughs] in a different way now, which is okay.

 

But my point is that even that two or three years ago, gives an illustration. People were praising, I mean, I was sitting there, I was exhausted, and many good comments, including from a man who gives tours, and a book there of famous people, and living on the Upper West Side, etc. 

 

And I remembered after that, in that, at the end of that long presentation, there were questions. One question then came out, a comment by this woman, Roberta Semer, who was chair of the board. And this is two or three years ago. I’ve now gone on to be whatever. She’s still on the board, whatever. And she then—when the time comes to questions, and I’m sitting back in there, and thinking, “Oh, that’s good, and isn’t this nice?” And one guy telling me, “Look, Fordham University Press,” and Susannah’s calling me, saying, “You’ve got to write an article,” and I’m feeling sad and stupid—that this woman Roberta begins to go on about, “Well, I was at Lincoln Towers, and I was the chair of it, and we did this, and we did it, and it was Lincoln Towers.” We did that against them, or whatever.” And I was sitting in the chair, just laughing to myself. This is years later. 

 

When I was on the board with another woman, she became chair. [01:40:00] Trump was starting to come in, and the other woman who came on was a young planner. I said to her, “Let’s do some stuff, and put some things together. It’ll be great to work with you.” She knew this, and so, “Great, great.” I said, “Fine.” And we started to do this. Roberta then called me, years before, and she said, “Don’t you dare do any of this that you said you were going to do about, well, will Trump become”—and I said, “What did you say?” And she said, “No. It’s too complicated. You don’t deal with Trump, when he comes; I will.” And I said, “That’s what you’re saying?” And I then said to her, “I am now telling you I am about to hang up on you. I will never talk to you again, and I will ignore you when on the Community Board.” I thought she was pitiful she had to—you know. But she’s still on the board. It’s okay, but it’s—

 

Q: What was her concern about you dealing with Trump? 

 

Sheffer: I don’t know. I think many of them thought I was making money out of it—I think—or doing something, and I wasn’t a friend. Then when it was Symphony Space—and look at what Isaiah did—and developers were coming there, I said, “Thank God, every developer came, except Trump.” 

 

Q: There were a few instances in—so I was looking at a lot of The New York Times records for information about the different zoning task forces, and how they were reported on. 

 

Sheffer: What, on the Upper West Side or all over the city? 

 

Q: On the Upper West Side that related to Community Board 7. 

 

Sheffer: Oh my, you are good. 

 

Q: [laughs] There were, you know, a number of the times when you were quoted, you have often said, the quote that they use is something like, “We’re okay with the development but with these contingencies. We’re not opposed to the development, but we are opposed to the size or to this”—

 

Sheffer: Oh, did you find that out? 

 

Q: Yeah, so I could see how somebody would maybe say, “Well, you’re not 100 percent opposed to all development.” But there’s also these other forces that are going on in the city, which is that the housing is all out of sync with the people. [laughs] And so I always, in my research, assumed that you were concerned about, well, we need development because we need housing, and we need commercial space, so—

 

Sheffer: Yeah, but I also was working.

 

Q: —how to do it? 

 

Sheffer: But the way I did the negotiation, I learned, is to get something from the developers. I almost always did get something. Not, I mean, I had no—but I bargained with them. In fact, Ed Wallace [laughs] I’ve known, and he has said to me—because we were friends now for years—he said, “Ethel, you were impossible.” I’m quoting him. He said, “You were impossible, you were so difficult, and so tough.” And I was looking at him. 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: We’ve known him for years. He said, “It was so hard with you.” I said, “Who are you kidding?” And he then said, “But you’d always try to work to some deal that you could make, and that was going to work.” I said, “Really?” He didn’t use the word “deal.” You would always try to find so it shouldn’t completely be what the community was saying. Let’s say no to it. I knew, I was aga…I mean, it wasn’t good, but I kept thinking, wait. I mean, I began to learn, or I thought I did, that, wait a minute, if this is going to happen, we have to find ways. “Is it enough?” “It won’t be.” “What is it? Can we get some affordable housing in it?” Which often we couldn’t, or to fix whatever, you know, so it’s not good enough. 

 

Q: Well, it actually makes me think of how you said, when Andrew Stein talked to you and said, “This is what you’re going to do,” you said that you didn’t think about it politically. [01:45:02] You were political, and you understood the politics of what was going on, and this is an elected position, but you weren’t thinking strategic like a politician.

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: But I would say that what you just said about, you know, it’s going to happen, and we can’t stop it, so what can we—how can we make it better for us? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, but also in the process—

 

Q: That that is starting to think about it that way.

 

Sheffer: Yeah, in a way. But, also, I think what I’m saying—maybe I’m praising myself too much—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —how can we make trouble with them so that we can get something meaningful? I always hated if they would say, “Well, we’ll do a lot of ra, ra, ra.” So I was learning things, and then a lot of the people who didn’t like me before really didn’t because if I had a kind of success, it still wasn’t, you know, I mean, like the whole thing didn’t get—they still—oh yeah. 

 

Q: But, in a sense, you thought about yourself as being more of a troublemaker for the developers, as opposed to pro-developer?

 

Sheffer: I did not think that I was—the words “troublemaker for the developer,” I didn’t think that. I think I learned that—did I have skills? Was I articulate? I wasn’t, in the meantime, getting—I got a few consulting jobs for developers; never big-big, I mean. But that kind of thing, the fact that I did, and then went to the Community Board, unlike what’s going on here now, I actually didn’t cross the line. For example, I didn’t try to vote, I didn’t, at the Community Board, because I still stayed on it. So it became that those who thought that I was really no good because, “Oh yeah, she’s always in the pock…” continued to think that, I think. I think Roberta Semer, I mean, why would you do that? Why would you continue saying that? I mean, it’s changed because I’m older and I haven’t—and all this time, I wasn’t chair of the board. I did do the big—the zoning task forces, all of them, which were, I mean, to this day, people were very annoyed. 

 

And, of course, Shelly would say, as chair, he said, “I’ve thought about it”—he was chair—he said, “and I decide to pick you,” whom he didn’t know well, though he knew I was chair years before. I wasn’t chair of any committee either. And he thought, “I think she knows City Planning,” and he made me—it was very hard. He told me to chair the first time, before I became chair, because people were demonstrating over the fact that these two big, gigantic buildings. And they came out in the street, and it was the political clubs organizing it, the Community Free Democrats, I think. And there was a big meeting, the first one, and it was held at—what is it—Shearith Israel? No, Anshe Hesed Synagogue. And Shelly said to me, “You chair that meeting. I said, “What?” I didn’t even know. It’s a synagogue that’s still a conservative synagogue, and then upstairs, and people—it was so crowded. And I came there, supposedly, to chair on behalf of the Community Board. There must have been five or six hundred people in the room, it was that—

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: Actually, I will tell you, though I was experienced, I was older, I was actually terrified at the numbers of people who were yelling at me. I mean, I was frightened. I thought, “What’s it going to be?” So then I talked to Shelly. I don’t know. But I then began, see, I knew City Planning a little bit then, including, I think, Amanda was chair. I’m not sure. But I knew staff, I think, and I called them. I don’t know how I did it. I didn’t threaten them. [01:49:56] But I said, “This is this big deal, and it’s 96 to 110th, and it’s going to be very hard. You have to send out people, and you have to go with me.”

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION] 

 

Sheffer: And got them to go for walks with me, and they had contempt for me also, and to show them 96 to 110th, what it was like and how it shouldn’t—and these two buildings are much—you know. But, yes, you could rezone but, you know, take a—in fact, actually, they considered it a bad thing. They got past the way we—the text [01:50:46]. In these last years, except recently, no development occurred on a number of the sites. By now, they consider this bad. Only the last few years, there’s a couple of buildings going, but they’re not buildings that can be fifty stories. The one next to the movie theater that is defunct, you know, the Metro, that’s an Extel building also. That’s there, but they also bought the air rights off the—you know. That was a big thing, and I’ve been able to do that. Now, I’m already, you know, they won’t give me anything else. I mean, it’s ridiculous. Even with this brand new building of Extel, which will be huge, I found out earlier in the summer that the chair of the board now selected four or five people to go and meet with the developer, quietly. 

 

Now, I did that a couple [unclear] [01:52:05] because I knew that in order to get to the developer that you can’t have every time forty people being there; that you have to have—but you have to, then, if you’re meeting alone five times, five people. I get it. You got to get with the architect. You got to then get to a way of reporting. You got to then come back to the committee to say, “We’ve had this meeting. They’re doing this. They’re not that.” That has never happened. And then, in this case, it’s a different world, I mean, I’m helpless. I mean, I’m okay, you know, not helpless. Finally, when I thought, “Wait a minute, I know someone on the city, you know, whom I worked with for ages, on the committee board, who’s one of these five people, totally respected, a friend, this and that.” And he was driving me home, used to do this, and he said, “Oh, we had a meeting.” This is like June—May or June. And he then said—we’re in this, oh, it’s a gorgeous building.

 

So I’m sitting in the car, and I just said, “Richard, you were there, and you met there.” And I said, “Richard, first of all, how is it?” And I said, secondly, “Richard, you’ve known me for years. How many projects have I done with you, and how many places? And so why am I not being picked, because I know how to behave?” And he said, “Well, Beverly [phonetic] [01:53:42] wants it to be small.” And guess what? This Richard, whom I have loved, respected, a tough lawyer, twenty-five years on the committee board, I worked with him, it turns out that he has some mortgage or something. It’s come out that the developer has money in the same project. And I am dying. I love Rich…and all I could think of was, “You had to have gone to the conflict of interest board, at least to say, ‘Is this okay?’” 

 

One of the other tiny anecdotes of stuff in the whole thing that I told you about, you know, going, getting the lawyer, and getting all of that, you know, of Bob Davis, and so on, and I think—I’m not sure if that project was either the Lincoln West one originally, or maybe it’s on the Coliseum. [01:54:56] But, in fact, they called me to come downtown. And I then did say, “I don’t go to meetings alone.” So I went to one with the lawyer. I forget. It’s three different projects, each one interesting and important. It really affected me deeply. So I then went with the lawyer to the meeting. And after the meeting, which was on the East Side, near Grand Central, this very major—he’s still around—fixer, Capalino, I mean, major, major, major. So we leave the meeting. Bob Davis is there. I’m out in the street, on the East Side. And Capalino says, talking to me—the architect, who is one of the best architects in the world, who just died, and whom I love, he had called me and said, “You don’t know me, Ethel. This project’s going to be terrible. You’ve got to do something to help make it better.” 

 

As I’m leaving, saying so long [01:56:06] I think breakfast, Capalino hands me a little bag, a shopping bag. I just automatically—nervously, he hands it to me, and I take it, and then we say goodbye. And I walk, and I start walking west, to go to the subway or to get a taxi. I come home, and in the bag is a big, quite gorgeous book, like, a living room book, a wonderful book, an architecture book—now I’m not thinking of a very—the very major architect in the city, who I think this guy is using now, talk about years [01:56:56]. So I look at the book, and you see there’s millions of books. So I look at it, and I didn’t understand. And so I open it, and I see it’s this book, which I would covet, because I would—but I was walking. I walked around the house, and I thought, “I don’t know. What is this?” 

 

And I made a call myself to the conflict of interest, where there’s usually a lawyer of the day. And I told this little thing, and I said, “He handed it to me.” The first thing she said—this is years ago, also, it makes me wonder—she said, “Could you give that book to the Community Board?” So I said, “I guess so.” I said, “They wouldn’t know what to do with it, or anything like that.” She said, “Well, I’m sure”—and I found this very odd. She said, “Capalino is a man who—he does business, and used to giving something to people and clients. He may not have meant it.” So I’m listening. She said, “Do you feel uncomfortable?” I said, “I would like to have the book, but I do feel uncomfortable, but I don’t know why.” So she said, “Okay. Well, do what you want.” It was like mild. But I then made a call to Capalino myself, and I just said, “I’m feeling somewhat uncomfortable.” And he then, of course, said, “Ethel, please, no. Please don’t ever think that. I know how you are.” And I just said, “Jim, I am sending the book back.” And that’s what happened. [laughs] I mean, I was like—to this day, I mean, more recently, the people on the board, I doubt that they feel that way now, because the board’s changing. But she’s not good. 

 

I renewed for the last few years, and I said, “This is my last time. I’ve been on too long.” And I wrote to the chair, simply saying, “Really, I am okay. I had a big heart ablation, I had this, I had that, but that I’m okay. I really can help. I’ve got my faculties, and please do it.” And she said, “No. The committee has to be small, so this is no good.” So if this continues, I mean, I don’t want to—you know. I want to be involved. I should be doing—getting something. Somebody has to give me a little task, that’s all. 

 

Q: [02:00:00] Well, let’s end there—

 

Sheffer: Yeah, good.

 

Q: —for the day, I think. Then, next time, I think I want to talk through, in a little more detail, the Lincoln West—

 

Sheffer: Oh yeah, well, and also Trump, right? 

 

Q: —and Trump, and the whole Penn Yards development situation. 

 

Sheffer: Yes. For that, you see, there’s so much which I can show that I have now online, you see, I mean, on—also, I did two different presentations to lay people with that happy title—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —of Why Does New York Look the Way it Does? But it shows you the way it developed, and what the Community Board did. That’s all very important, yes. The Upper West Side now is not as much of a place of development––you know, every week there’s a new development. When I was chair, even early on, they don’t realize, every month, [02:01:04] there would be six, eight, [02:01:09] projects a night. Also––about cafés––there’s a lot of cafés now––I mean, they do—but it would be like a lot of stuff. One time, I was chairing a meeting in a church––—I don’t remember—some guy would always come. I think it was a café, [unclear] [02:01:29] or whatever. He came—I have the image—he came up the aisle, and raised his hand to hit me. That was very unusual, and I am not brave at all. And I just stood there and looked at him and said, “I am calling the police right now. Sit down.” I mean, the guy—

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: But this is, you know, okay.

 

Q: Yeah. And then I also want to talk about the Coliseum and—

 

Sheffer: This is very important.

 

Q: —a little bit more about Boston Properties.

 

Sheffer: This is more recent.

 

Q: Yeah. 

 

Sheffer: And I don’t know, since I gave all those files just recently. But I don’t even know, at the 

New York Historical Society—because I signed—that they’re calling it the Ethel Sheffer 

Collection. But I haven’t seen—and I signed, and she signed, but I don’t know if they are— 

 

Q: I looked, and it’s not listed online yet, so they must still be processing them. But there’s, I think, a lawsuit involved in that from ’89. I know the whole thing went on for decades. 

 

Sheffer: Oh yeah. 

 

Q: But there’s some elements of it— 

 

Sheffer: I also gave them the letters, which were first-class letters, that I did have from Mort Zuckerman to be addressed to Mrs. Sheffer and the other partner. Oh, I know, now—to just bring this together with Ed Wallace—when I found those two or three letters that they wrote to be 

“Dear Mrs. Sheffer”—and I’m not remembering exactly sure. “This was a tough haul,” in a way saying, “you were very difficult,” or something in it, “but you helped drive to a conclusion,” in that letter. And I don’t know if that’s what it said exactly. But seeing it the last couple of years, like, psychologically defending myself, when I saw that he said that—so that there was the respect. So you did some—you know. Like Roberta said, “No. What are you trying to do? You were in bed with the developers,” you know. 

Q: But you were pushing them— 

 

Sheffer: Yes. 

 

Q: —in a way that was productive for the community. 

 

Sheffer: The last I did was the building here on 96th Street, as you get—between West—on West End. And I just did consulting in the last two years. There was a garage, whatever, so it had to go through ULURP, and this guy [Hal] Fetner, who does middle-class housing also. But I got hired to advise him about it all.

 

[END OF SESSION 2]

 

Sheffer: —remember if it began in the ’80s, but the interesting and unique part of the involvement and the work was that a Tri-Board Task Force was created, it being 4, 5, and 7. And you know I don’t have to tell you, but I could just say quickly so you know, four is the board that then goes south, touches it, because it’s Clinton, whatever. Five is the midtown one. Seven is the northern one. So, in itself, it’s hard for me to remember. But in the boxes all given there, I put in, I think, like minutes, pages, minutes kept. They did not take stuff, like, I see a quote from Paul Goldberger. There were many, it was really good, high-quality journalist comments in The Times in many, many places. And I had all of them, all in the boxes and all. And then the librarian said, “We’re not taking that anymore.” [laughs] I didn’t keep those, but I threw out the newspaper things. Maybe I still have the references, because there were terrific journalist comments where, I mean, I read them all. I thought it was extraordinary, and over such a long period of time. And then I think with—because I don’t want to dwell on it—but I think since it was a Tri-Board Task—a tough situation—I believe I became or acted as if I was—I think I actually became the chair of the Tri-Board, which the others did not like, I mean, especially, I still—I’m sorry to forget the names. 

 

At this moment, and in all the years, I have very high regard for the two men, each one who were leaders in their respective boards, and who were—it’s bad for me to use this word—in some ways, oddballs or whatever. But, for example, a man named Ed Kirkland, Board 4—older, odd, someone deeply involved in preservation—and I knew him because he worked to preserve the Columbus Circle station, subway station. I mean, it was a big—he worked in it, and then—see, as I’m talking to you—and 5 was Steve Wilder, of number 5. Each one of them, to me older, I mean, I was never not old, I think, when I was doing this stuff.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: They were not, each of them, I mean, they were smart, but a task force was set up. They each were not a chair of the Community Board but—and I just remembered, they were smart, and oddballs, and funny, and historic [00:04:05]. And Ed Kirkland, especially, I think, I just remember him knowing a lot. He loved the history of the sub…and I did not start off saying, “Oh yeah, I’m interested.” But it was years, and I became respectful and admiring of them, though, in a sense, they weren’t hard-nosed or political. I was more so. I was not as much [unclear] [00:04:36] but they were [unclear] [00:04:38] but good, really, and devoted. There was someone else, and then there was a state senator, major, who very much political—the name, Ohrenstein. He was very, very, very important, representing it, and a tough guy, whom I didn’t like, I guess. [00:05:03] But then the joining of creating the task force, and in those boxes, I mean, realizing they’d been in the closet, I had them all there. 

 

And about two years ago, I called DOROT [phonetic] [00:05:18], and they were providing volunteers, sometimes, to help the older people at home. I had no idea about any of it. But I thought, “What is all this stuff? I got so much here.” So there were about three or four big boxes but packed with stuff. And I called DOROT, and they had volunteers. And I got this—I called him an odd duck. He was not—maybe, I think, he was in his thirties, perhaps, and he worked for Channel 13 so that he worked five days a week. And he had been a volunteer, was, as he continued with me, with a number of the older people at DOROT, who I think were either writing their memoirs, or doing this or that. And so he said he would help with this. He came. He seemed like an odd duck indeed. When I say that, he didn’t talk much. And I was taking out these big boxes, and they were filled with minutes. See, that’s the internal memos of that. And after a while, and he had to work, and then he wanted me to meet him at night, after work. I didn’t want to do it, because I am not good, you know. And this went on. But then he would come.

 

And Susannah, my daughter, after hearing about him, called me and said, “You want to give this to the library,” because I said I’ll call there when the time comes. And she said, “I’m warning you.” [laughs] I always remember. I’m sure I’m distorting what she said. But she said, “Librarians don’t want somebody else organizing it. Just give them the boxes, and they’ll organize it.” But, instead, he came here for weeks, one week, but sometimes it would be Saturday. And then we sat while he said, “Okay, is this in that? What’s the consecutive thing?” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: I mean, a lot of crazy time of which, you know, it existed, and he was—his only good thing, I mean, he was a great, strange guy but then sort of loosened up, I think, because when he first came in, I said, “Would you like something to drink?” And when I took out the bottle of seltzer, he just looked at me and the wooden box. And I said, “May I show—just let me”—and he said, “Wait a minute.” And he took out his camera to take a picture, the way people, I mean, he wasn’t seventeen—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —but to take a picture of the way the seltzer looked, and then everything else. But he did it all, over many weeks. And then I knew someone who had worked there, and then just made a semi-blind call to the Historical Society. And I have the name, in fact, I really need to—I can’t remember her name. But it was the end, not of this summer, of the summer just before, when it was very hot. And then finally, her name [unclear] [00:09:06] but I have the name and the reference and everything. And she came here, and all the boxes were here, and he was doing it, and she started to go through them. She was relatively younger, maybe thirties or whatever, but she was just—and kept looking at all of this. And it was like, they were each packed with minutes, with things. And she then said, at the end, “I want everything,” and she said, “but we can’t take the”—

 

Q: The newspapers?

 

Sheffer: Right. This was very remarkable. And so a week later, she came with a young man and a cart or whatever. She took all the boxes. [00:09:56] And I had found three letters, which were original letters, and they were first class letters in the envelopes, addressed to Mrs. Ethel Sheffer, from Mort Zuckerman, who then owned The Daily News, but he was one of the partners, the partner in this—

 

Q: With the Coliseum?

 

Sheffer: —with the other man, whose name—he’s still there. I forgot his name. But he wrote me a letter too. 

 

Q: Edward Lind [phonetic] [00:10:33]? 

 

Sheffer: Hmm?

 

Q: Edward Lind? 

 

Sheffer: Thank you. Thank you for remembering. That’s better than I am now.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Then I believe I had a letter, which you can imagine, from David Dinkins at that time. So I gave those, which were the original letters to Mrs. Ethel Sheffer, and so they took it all. I guess it is a summer before. And I signed—they made me. But I haven’t seen—are you showing it? I have to ask them. So in terms of to the extent I can remember—

 

Q: Well, let me ask you about this third point under the Columbus Circle category, the Paul Goldberger quote that I put here, which is that a criticism of the development of the Coliseum was that it “demonstrated the failure of the city to be a protector of the public interest.” 

 

Sheffer: That was from Paul Goldberger.

 

Q: Yes. And I’d wondered what you thought about that. 

 

Sheffer: Well, it’s a big statement. 

 

Q: Yes. [laughs] And I believe he made it in 1987, so it went on, obviously, for so much longer. But around that time, there had been input from the Tri-Board Task Force about it being too big, and just not being the right fit, and the City Planning Commission had moved forward without really considering those things. So that’s sort of where we are in time at this quote. So what do you think? 

 

Sheffer: Please remind me, because I may be an answer. It’s only last week that Lincoln Center premiered its film about San Juan Hill, so that’s Moses, the destruction of San Juan Hill. 

 

Q: Yes [laughs], we’re talking 1959 [laughs], finally getting around to recognizing it. 

 

Sheffer: And then later, later, and you perhaps know, in the last couple of years—this is already a long history—in the last year or two—here’s the stimulus—I could pass, let’s say, in a taxi or a bus or go to the subway there, because then I didn’t take the subway as much because then I got afraid of doing it, and I would pass and look at Lincoln Center now. But the key for me—which I start with it with you—is that if you see the buildings, Alice Tully, etc., all of them, they all have this artwork, these statements, all over it, in which—and, if I was by myself, I found myself saying these words about San Juan Hill, the invocation of some African American—you see it on the sides of all the buildings. For me, I would say to myself, “Hmm, this is guilt, the longtime guilt, and now the great, great art center.” But it was their guilt of—if you see what’s on there, the invocation of San Juan Hill, of the Blacks, of jazz, of this, and of course then reading about it and then even, okay, Caro’s book, but having read more, I mean, I knew more of it, having studied it, but then the movie, which you know some of the film of it, it’s very detailed of showing the community, San Juan Hill, in detail. [00:15:05] A lot of it, one knew, but then knowing that at the end of the movie, which is an hour and fifteen, twenty minutes or so, is then showing more than I have seen pictorially, the absolute destruction, the sledge, the destruction of the blocks. They knocked down blocks, and you could just see it. You knew it. It really, I mean, I think, ooh. And one knows big histories, and not all urban renewal is terrible, so somehow you know. And, of course, Robert Moses, who is considered the villain of all time, which he was a villain. I’m not the one to ever begin by saying, “Yeah, but he created Riis Park and Jones Beach, and he started out with all of that, and sort of remarkably”—so, this is a big deal. 

 

And, of course, there you are with Lincoln Center, the art center. No. What’s the name for it that you call when there’s a great big center that a city develops for the arts? There is a word for—I mean, it’s supposed to be—and now, of course, the last years, there’s things for the public, free, and there’s a lot of that, all of which, you know, I mean, it’s great, of course. But there is this—because this was over the years, and when they smashed it, they smashed it. And the pictures, of course, of Eisenhower coming and signing to seize the land, and Rockefeller all—with John D. Rockefeller, this is—now the narration is more critical. I think that this is a separate thing not to ever say. I mean, Isaiah, in these years, you know, creates Symphony Space, no comparison, obviously. But I think Isaiah would often say, “Well, it’s not a great big public center here.” [laughs] I’m forgetting the words. But this is the worldwide thing, a place for the city, and supposedly for everybody. 

 

There is the public housing, which now Lincoln Center has been creating a task force, and there’s a guy who calls me, and they meet with the people in Amsterdam Houses about how should we be doing it. And a lot of it is good. I remembered, though, of course, I mean, it’s worth reading Caro’s book again, and I have it. I read it years ago, I think, when I was teaching. I think maybe when I did some teaching at Fordham, I assigned some of that. But Fordham got a place there, the downtown, I mean, that which knocked down, right? And it was the Cardinal who negotiated because it was a Catholic school. That was done. What else? There’s two or three other things. 

 

Q: Yeah. Do you recall when that happened, just as a young person in New York? 

 

Sheffer: Yes, because it happened—I have to remember. I mean, we haven’t—it’s really the ’60s, ’70s, I think. I don’t think it’s—

 

Q: It’s a little earlier. 

 

Sheffer: Maybe, I think so. You’re probably right, yeah, because they could do it. 

 

Q: [laughs] Yeah, right.

 

Sheffer: And there’s a friend, George Calderaro, who’s a good guy. You know him? 

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: How have you met him? 

 

Q: Through the Archive Project.

 

Sheffer: Oh, that’s good. 

 

Q: Yeah.

 

Sheffer: Well, he’s good, and he’s at Columbia in the community. He asked me, and I gave some of the talks that he asked me, and I’ve gotten to know him as a friend. [00:19:56] In fact, the Gilbert & Sullivan Players are doing their fiftieth anniversary on Saturday [laughs], and they’re giving free tickets or whatever, which now people are going crazy. So I called him, and I said, “I’ve got a free ticket for the evening thing. You want to come?” I actually have one for the morning also, and somebody can’t come, and I feel very bad. But I want to get somebody else to be able to do it because, I remember, I mean, the Gilbert & Sullivan was—how Albert Bergeret has been able to sustain this over forty or fifty years. It was all started at Symphony Space. Isaiah loved it. And then when Symphony Space changed—but also the manager—then they began to complain to Isaiah. “No, they want to have scenery.” “We can’t allow that. It will be a fire hazard.” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And so then, over the years, they were thrown out of, you know, didn’t love that. And then they have continued at Hunter, at here, at there, and amazing that it’s that long, but that’s it. So I have to remember the years. Now, I will check, and I will send you anyway the two or three pages of the—

 

Q: Yes, that you—

 

Sheffer: —which I will, because I did set it aside. So I’ll just send it to you. But I’m now forgetting the dates, because it is earlier, I guess. 

 

Q: Yeah, it would’ve been way before the task force that you were talking about.

 

Sheffer: Well, there was that, and then the inclusion and the setting aside of Fordham, and then what else? There was another, well, full Lincoln Center.

 

Q: Yes, exactly. 

 

Sheffer: And, yes, Amsterdam Houses—that’s another thing—had been built earlier. 

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: But there was conflict and more shutting out, and there still is. But now they’ve been reaching out too, and so they meet with them and for consultation of—they want to change on Amsterdam Avenue where there is the place that—the sort of amphitheater. And now they’re going to put that underground, and they’re going to make a place for more community use. But even the fact of the—what is it? I’m sorry that I’m forgetting names. But the theater with a “D” [David Koch Theater] that’s on the western side, where there’s concerts, and that was from the beginning of creating Lincoln Center. They’ve now decided that they’re going to redesign that, and put it underground. It’s a place where one could sit, also, but then there’s all the big building. And Fordham built a great big building as well as Lincoln Center. And Amsterdam Houses, now there is consultation, which I have not been to any of those meetings, of what do they need. Oh, excuse me, it’s also conflict, which there are some interesting photos in the Community Board of, in the last years, getting out of the subway, you know, there’s 65th Street. And then now people living to the west in fancy [00:23:48]—but the big thing is that they walk through the Amsterdam Houses, which was a place that the kids could be robbing them or whatever. But there is this kind of, oh, that’s okay, they get out of the subway and then walk. I mean, have to show the pictures. So, it’s a joint thing, some of it okay, but—

 

Q: Yeah, yeah.

 

Sheffer: —which some, by the way, lastly, the jazz stuff and the mixture of the African-American arts, and the famous jazz musicians there, who lived there in San Juan Hill, George, with his organization, then has been promoting—well, first of all, he got the landmarking of where the writers were in the East twenties. I mean, nobody—there’s nothing there now to see. It’s just that those were—but then a lot of them went uptown, I mean, they went to Harlem. [00:25:02] And there’s a couple of the streets here renamed—please excuse me again—famous jazz musicians who lived here on 68th Street, and the name is there. 

 

Q: Well, speaking of west of Lincoln Center, why don’t we talk a little bit about Lincoln West, which you just showed me the PowerPoint presentation about that whole Riverside South development. So some of these things, I guess, you were telling me, but I’ll ask you to talk about them again for the sake of our recording here.

 

Sheffer: Well, in this context of Lincoln West supposedly failing, you know what I mean. 

 

Q: Yeah. As you pointed out, it’s a thirty-year-long process [laughs], if not longer. But I’m curious to know if you can talk about the role of the City Planning Commission in that development. 

 

Sheffer: Well, then I have to remember who were we dealing with with City Planning. If it’s Lincoln West—did I put it all in the article, or some of it? 

 

Q: I don’t remember. Your questions from your Lessons of Lincoln West article, it was questioning the ULURP process, the effectiveness of ULURP. 

 

Sheffer: Was it also—excuse me—

 

Q: No. That’s all right.

 

Sheffer: —that it was that the Board of Estimate had been challenged in a Supreme Court case as being under-representative, and so that’s when the New York City Charter Commission gets developed in the ’80s, I think, and changes into ULURP and that kind of thing. 

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: I have to show you some of that, or it’s in—I thought it was in the article, but it also is part of how New York’s approval process changes. 

 

Q: Yes. I can’t find in my notes where the Board of Estimate happened, so where that, you know, they had to review the last piece. 

 

Sheffer: I have that. What I should do, because I do have it, I’m going to remind myself—it could be a page or two of that—that there was, I mean, the bigger question—I have to get the name—was the way that the question of how New York approved development, and then what occurred was a challenge to the entity the Board of Estimate, because there always was the City Council, the legislative body. But there was an upper body, the Board of Estimate, composed of the borough presidents, and it was like eight or ten or twelve people of power, and everything had to go there. There then was, finally, a constitutional challenge by the guy from the famous—oh god—Robert Rogers. His wife has just come on to Board 7. I mean, he was great. Let’s see, it’ll come to me in a minute—of challenging the constitutionality of the Board of Estimate. I’m just forgetting for a moment. Suddenly, this is my problem though, as I’m talking to you, it flashes. I have it in my mind’s eye. 

 

When I began to be active at, it was Board 7—I don’t know when—but that I have a memory of going downtown to City Hall, and being there into the night almost, and the wonderful New York Times journalist, Joyce [Purnick]—can you get that? [00:30:03] She was very…she was terrific, just terrific, around—anyway, I forget what it was. But I went, and the Board of Estimate was meeting. Was it on that or was it then—am I thinking a different time of when the Historical Society had proposed the building of a brand new skyscraper. So I was there, and there were challenges. And I remember sitting there by myself, and Joyce, whatever, then knew me, and I didn’t know—I thought—and it got very late at night, and I talked to her. And I remembered walking out of City Hall late, and thinking—I didn’t do this kind of thing—but I then thought, “What’s going on here? What is happening?” And then I thought, “I have to get home,” and I took a taxi home. But I know also Moyers, Bill Moyers—remember him?

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: He was there. I’m not sure if I’m mixing it up. We talked, and Joyce—and I went home. It was like one in the morning, and I thought—I didn’t even know. I thought, “What is it, the Board of Estimate?” And then a major constitutional case was brought by this great guy. The name, I mean, it’s famous. He challenged it as being unconstitutional, because they were not representative.

 

Q: Right.

 

Sheffer: And they won. So that’s when a new City Charter Commission—of which I have all that someplace—and that the community boards then, which had been vaguely in existence but not really doing any…where, among other things, began to have a role in the approval process. Board of Estimate gets done away with, so it’s then community boards could have that, their process, advisory—

 

Q: Advisory, mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: —and City Planning then next, and the last is City Council, you see, no Board of Estimate. So that’s all of that, and that was a commission, and then passed, I mean, I think I have—why am I forgetting? So in your question, which I’m now [laughs] losing, but, I’m sorry, just tell it to me again, so I answer it correctly.

 

Q: I was curious about the role of City Planning, the City Planning Commission, in the discussions of Lincoln West and Riverside South. But I guess I could also ask about the ULURP process in this because, basically, that’s what was developed, as a means of the community boards to weigh in on these developments.

 

Sheffer: Well, I also did develop, and I have it in one of the things that I could send you of the ULURP, you know, what the ULURP process is, and the deficiencies of it, but the way it works. Some of it’s in there. But the thing is that the so-called—the changes in the City Charter just taking it from the community end, because there had been community boards. I forget what they did. But what changed was a role in the approval process, which was always advisory but which was legal and was part of, so that you submit—you the developer, or the Department of City Planning—submit a proposal, first to the community board with presentations, and a calendar, and a vote. And then it goes to City Council, where the community boards, also, it is a sort of a ladder, although it’s very advisory, which is, if anything—I guess, over the years, I guess I began to recognize how the community boards, which were advisory, and, over time, there was influence and power—not definitive. [00:35:04] I mean, you know, they were, but that I learned vaguely and sometimes effectively how the community boards’ at least influence could be maximized or—here’s just one thing. But I want to just send you—because I think I would put it down in just—here’s a little anecdote, but it’s one that keeps coming back to me, and it’s probably unfair, but it’s got enough of an image. 

 

Over the many, many years of me doing some of this, and then eventually, when I got a job, the only government job I ever had—which thank God—which was the SRO, the Department of Social Services state thing of me getting the job in order to do the SRO study, social services, and the office was in the World Trade Center, the earlier one. But, among other things, created, at that time, to consult with the community boards, study the SROs, document it, interviewing, and also I created or we created a relocation task force—or not that so much as a developer task force, also, to be offering advice of what they need to create SROs, to get—okay. So there was that. At the time and before—I forget the years, but I’ve got it. I think I have it in the box, which I want to give away—that there were lawyers on it. And I would head that up, and meet with that as well, and linked with elected officials like Carl McCall, who helped Jerry Nadler. And then there were other lawyers and others. And I met a man then who became a member of the City Council or an elected official. His name was Ed Wallace, and he was then on this task force or whatever. And over the years, I got to know him. And then when Fordham asked for—there was a Fordham task force, and Fordham was going to build this big building, and all of that. He was a lawyer for that. I’ve known him over the years. So he was an elected official, then he became a member of a law firm, a huge one, and very influential. Over the years, we became sort of friends in a way, over time. And periodically, there would be a joke of having breakfast or whatever. Two or three or four years ago, as we were having breakfast, talking about, you know, and he’s a big deal lawyer for developers, he then said—here’s the quote that I then used for myself too much. And he said, “You were so difficult, you were so tough, the developers would consider you a tough opponent.” I said, “What?”

 

At the same time, I was being criticized by Lincoln Towers, the community, as “she’s selling out. Look what we have to get if we’re going to be there.” And I would then begin to think, you know, they’re not going to—and I began to learn something, but would be criticized publicly by the community. I was on the Community Board. That’s with a task force. I never then was a co-chair. I would always be somebody—and then he said to me, “You were so difficult, the developers—and you were hard to take.” And then this is like the last four or five years [laughs] we’re having breakfast. And he then said, “But you always try to find a way to make some result or some—that it should—that you”—I’m not saying it exactly correctly. [00:40:00] But, in effect, he said, “You knew the Community Board did everything, and the Community Board then felt represented and right in what they asked for. But you knew that there had to be a way to get some stuff that could work for the Community Board, and figure out how to”—you know, that—what’s his name—I just said it, I’m sorry—of the Columbus Circle. The letter, in a way, praising me, was a little bit about how very difficult this was. And then said, “Now we all have the space, and the open space in there, and it’s thanks to you and the Community Board.” So he kind of gave me obliquely that “you were not easy.” But this is Ed saying to me that “You were very difficult, but you figured out—you got to determine what you could get, and you were v…” And he used it for me, and I said—that he said, “So you were very tough on the developers.” And I said to him [unclear] [00:41:23], “There was no pay.” He said, “Oh no, because you were a tough bargainer, you would”—and, actually, in those papers, which I don’t even remember all, the four boxes of the—there’s minutes, there’s things. And I saw that—I can’t even remember—the minutes of the task force. Ethel writing something else, then saying all of that stuff. But Ed’s just saying, “But you were so difficult, but you always were looking for a way, rather than only to”—I’m adding his thing—“to be right.” Because, in a way, the Community Board, they wanted this, and they needed that, and they weren’t wrong. But I began—I guess I tried. I learned, and it was very hard, and I wasn’t right all the time, and it wasn’t just me. 

 

Q: Would you describe that as negotiating? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, I really would. But, you know what, see how confused I am even now, so many years later, about that, because now lately, I get these—because I think I’m so old, I forget the names. But I get these absolute straight-on visual pictures—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —of anything there. And I can remember being at the Community Board there, and a woman named Madeleine Polayes, who had been a power, and ran the community thing, like of Lincoln Towers. It’s P-O-L-A-Y-E-S. And she was never on the Community Board, but a powerful advocate. As was a woman who remains on the Community Board, namely Roberta. I’m forgetting her name now. She’s been on eighteen years. It’s not good. But I remembered reporting—was it the ’80s—and Madeleine Polayes getting up in where we were meeting. It might have had to do with 59th Street, or to get a pool, or get something else, or was it the Fordham process? I don’t know. And her saying publicly, criticizing me, “We know that you are in the hands of the developers.” I just remember that. Now, Roberta, look how she’s on the board. She’s still [unclear] [00:44:23] my last thing. This is like, you know, that’s why I just want to give you the one pages of what we were [laughs], because I can feel my, you know, that I still feel it. And I want now not to feel as much as when I did tell you that Sally Goodgold—

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: —prevented—when I was offered a job by Henry Stern. And he said, “Oh no, I can’t talk to you. Sally Goodgold said no.” Or Zuccotti, who was an honorable man, and when he called me, and he said, “May I take you—I’d like you to meet at breakfast.” [00:45:01] And I respected it, and I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t go alone.” And he shouted. He said, “Ate breakfast with Sally Goodgold, and now I have you?” She would get in the paper. Sally Goodgold was known. She would get in the newspaper. She had developers coming to her house. She was known. She was a friend of one of the—Marty [phonetic] [00:45:28], whatever, one of the City Planning people. She was utterly influential.

 

Q: And influenced, maybe?

 

Sheffer: Hmm?

 

Q: And are you saying that she was also influenced by developers? 

 

Sheffer: Oh, I think so, but I don’t know that she took money or anything like that. But she was one—at her bagel breakfast, people met—John Zuccotti shouted, “Ate breakfast with Sally Goodgold, and now I have you?” He shouted that. Then when I meet at the Yom Kippur recently, I told—and that she called me years later. I said that I mentioned it to Susannah about her, that at Yom Kippur years later, she called me and suddenly said, “Oh, if I have offended you, I’m sorry.” Now, I’m not religious. But at Yom Kippur, you’re supposed to say that, and the person should accept. I believe—who knows if I’ve distorted it now—but I remember her phone call. She had moved also, I think it was. I don’t know. But she did that, and I said, “Yes, I appreciate what you have said.” And I said, “I don’t believe a word of what you were saying, or the sincerity of anything.” In other words, I wasn’t good enough to accept the ritual because I just thought, “Why did you—you needed all of this.” I was often liked—in quotes—or Jim Capalino, a fixer of fixers, and still gives me a book as we’re—

 

Q: Oh yes, you did tell me this last time. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, in a different situation. But when I decided that I was afraid, and I called, and he was so—he said, “Ethel, I would never do—I’m not doing that.” And he deliberately, in that case, when he handed me the book as we were leaving, it was with Rafael Viñoly, and a lawyer that I had gotten money for from the developer to represent the Community Board. And I walked away and went home, and looked at the book. And it was a great big coffee table book of—I can’t remember—of a major, terrific architect, whose firm, I think, is still working. And if you see, there’s millions, too many books in this house.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And I got tons of stuff. And I looked, and I thought, “Oh, what a great book this is.”

 

Q: Yeah, I think you said that you had checked with the Conflict of Interest Board to make sure—

 

Sheffer: I called them myself, and she said, “Well, would you like to give it—could you give it to the Community Board office?” And I said, “I don’t think they would do it,” whatever. I was so shocked. She said, “Well, he’s in a world where maybe he gives something to someone he’s”—she was like excusing him. And I stopped, and I was here alone in the house, and I thought for a while. And I felt uncomfortable, even though I covered it—because I covered it, I mean, in a lot of books of [unclear] [00:48:56]. [laughs] And when I called him, and said, “Listen, Jim, I’m going to send this back to you, thank you,” and he said, “Ethel, I would never do anything like—what do you mean? I would never,” you know. Later on, many, many years later, he hired me, along with others. It was the last job [00:49:16] of I think the development on 96th Street or something—one of them to advise on, you know, which, of course, I took myself out of the, you know, voting on community boards, and declare all that, because you have to. 

 

So I think about it now, because I’m not there. I’m annoyed. I re-upped to be on the Community Board. But I did write to the borough president, Mark Levine, whom I happen to have a dislike for him. [00:50:00] And he’s now running for controller. And I just did write, “I am telling you it’s my last term, that it’s overdue, but that I feel okay, and would like very much to work now, and I believe I can, in the next two years.” I was in a fury, I will tell you, that this chair now has been meeting—and this is a big deal, because Board 7 doesn’t have a new development on every block, but something’s going on. She has been meeting, taking four or five people from the Community Board, and meeting with the developer, Gary Barnett of Extell, on the plan for them to build a brand new building in Lincoln Center, the last one. And each meeting is of the five [unclear] [00:51:04]. 

 

And I heard about it when Richard Asche, the co-chair—I’ve known him for twenty-five, thirty years, worked with him on the Community Board, excellent—and Richard Asche, the co-chair. And I said to Richard, when he was driving me home—but I shouldn’t walk—and he said, “Oh, we had a wonderful meeting.” And I said, “Richard, you know that I’ve done quite a lot of this, to be able to negotiate. How is it nobody’s asking me?” He said, “Oh, I don’t know. The chair of the board says it has to be small, five people.” And all I could think of was, I don’t even remember. I’m sure I met—of course I met with developers. But I would then—because you’re not taking thirty people to it. But then you make some report or whatever. None of this happened. I feel like, what’s happening in the world? 

 

Q: [laughs] Yeah, you don’t get rewarded for being moral, I think. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: Right. So I’m not, I mean, and people—and the criticism of me, I mean, Roberta, when years ago—I told you my last little anecdote of this, because it bothers me now—of when a new person came on the Community Board, she said [unclear] [00:52:48]. And I realized, oh, she’s a planner. And I talked to her, and I said, “Look, I think that Trump is going to be coming. How about we’re both on the same—what about starting to write and work together, and starting the analysis?” She was as pleased—she just, “Oh, it would be fun, too.” I said, “That will be good,” as I was in the league [00:53:12], I thought, oh good. And the chair of the board, who was still on the board, called me up and said, “How dare you seek to work with”—Semer is her name—“to do this?” And so I said, “Well, this is us beginning to analyze it and talk about it.” And she said, “I don’t want—you don’t deal with Trump,” that he was [unclear [00:53:44]. And she said all this, and she said, “Don’t you dare do this.” By then, I mean, this is like fifteen years ago instead of [unclear] [00:53:52]. I said to her on the phone, “Is this what you’re saying to me?” And I said, “I am now going to hang up on you, and I will never talk to you again, and maybe if and when you ever apologize to me”—and the fact is, I never talked to her again. And she’s on the Committee Board like eighteen years. 

 

I mean, I would rather—you know. I’m no angel in any way, I mean, you can’t be. I wish I had like more work, but I never—unlike Brenda Levin, another very—a major person in New York, working for developers, and working for Extell, has done that for years, exclusively, and made a lot of money, and is an odd and intelligent person. I have not done all that. [00:55:01] I’ve worked once or twice for developers. But mostly the jobs that you see in the résumé or something have either been for community groups or whatever, and sometimes with developers. It’s confusing to me now.

 

Q: Well, why don’t we talk about your previous experience working with Donald Trump so that we have that—

 

Sheffer: I’ll be glad to do that—

 

Q: —on the record. 

 

Sheffer: —because that’s important. 

 

Q: Yeah. So I think that you’d showed me there’s the image of you with him and the charrette. And I wondered if you could describe that point, you know, what that meeting was about, what everybody was looking at and considering. 

 

Sheffer: That particular meeting was the charrette meeting. Now, the background is, of course, that Trump, when he comes back into the picture, you know, I mean, that he is seeking to develop the site, and eventually does make the deal with the civic groups. But, as is to some extent shown in the PowerPoint, in those slides, he takes over. Because originally his whole job, his whole point was he’s going to build the world’s tallest building. That was his entry. And Penn Central may have at some point—I can’t remember—given him a voucher or something to be able to do it. But it wasn’t working. And then when he made the deal, I think, with the civics, that is, the bank, I think, finally said—Chase, I think—I’m forgetting the sequence—“You’re not going to succeed with this.” And the Community Board was always against everything and, simultaneously, especially Jerry Nadler, was waging a huge battle about, “No, don’t take the highway down, because the trains have to come, for the TOFC”— Trailer on Flatcar. . Freight, there was a freight station—that’s very important—of manufacturing, to continue that, and Jerry Nadler worked for that, because that was one of his political things. So then he comes into it—and the civics who were arguing against him—begins this dialogue, and he begins talk…they begin talking to him, and are joining together. 

 

So the Trump thing is, he was already a figure, who, like the photo—but not that one, the big—but of him—he was all over with the world’s tallest building. I mean, he would show that that’s what he wants to build. Also, he was younger. He was nice looking. I mean, he wasn’t a madman. Although, I think we should remember—when did he deal with—that Roy Cohn was working with him. I mean, that’s—

 

Q: He was working with him at that time, already? 

 

Sheffer: I have to think of the years because there is—I have another thing of Roy Cohn dies of AIDS—I forgot—because he would always go to Provincetown, too. But, I mean, a side note: I think that Koch actually disliked Trump. So Koch was mayor, and then doesn’t want to give anything for whatever reason, so thereby the civics beginning to work. Okay. So Trump comes into the picture, and I don’t remember the sequence of this. [01:00:00] But there were a couple of phone calls. There might have been one when he—oh. So then what occurred was that the counsel to Ruth Messinger’s office, the borough president’s office—Marla Simpson, I think, or something—she called me and said—the only word I remember there was—“I have $25,000, which has to be spent before the end of the fiscal year,” namely June of whatever year that was. She actually called me and said, “Ethel, do you have any ideas? Can you use this?” I had no—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —I mean, I go “What?” I don’t know if it’s immediately—because I didn’t know him that well. But I do remember thinking, “Okay, how do we do this?” I think it was—was it March, was it April, you know, it was a few months to spend this. And I called Lance Brown, who I must have known anyway, who was a professor at City College, an architect, who’s still around and keeps writing things. And I knew him through other things. I don’t know if I worked with him. But, anyway, I think I called him up, just to say, “There’s this money. Do you have any ideas?” What I only remember is Lance on the phone said, “You know what, Ethel? We could do a charrette.” I had no idea almost of what that meant, the word. And he then said, “Look, this is what you have to do. Do you know how to do this and that?” I did not. And then he was the one who said, “We get architects, but they must not be the architects who work in New York.” He explained what it was, and then I began to work in a stunning way with him, too. I told Marla, and then I went to the Empire Hotel, which was still there, and then said, “How much would it cost to get them for a weekend, to get the people dealt with John Jay to be there?” 

 

And what I was told with Lance—and I did it with another architect who was on the board, Larry Horowitz, who was just a great, great guy, wonderful, and he died too young, but marvelous. He was very fine. He helped me when he was on the Community Board, and learned what a charrette was, and then set up that it has to be a whole weekend. Like, they come Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. They have to analyze, they write a big report, and then that goes to the Community Board. It’s a day and night thing. This was incredible, to all these people. And I remember thinking, boy, these—this one from the West and here. And I just thought, “Whoa, this is terrific.” And I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was great, and so we did it. Trump then calls me, suddenly. There had been some kind of call before to say hello. And I was so shocked, and I said, “I can’t talk to you. I’m in Queens, visiting my mother.”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And he said, “Oh, well, say hello, Mom.” And I just thought, “What?” Okay. And so then this was this extraordinary effort that we all did that—elected officials. And he called me, I believe, on the morning of when it was supposed to open. It was either Saturday morning—if I’m mistaken, if it was the day before, but it was just like that. First, there was a phone call, but I was not home that night. And Isaiah, who would be at the theater or whatever, but he was home sleeping—unusual for him—and the phone rang. And Isaiah could fake it with the voice, so he was not knowing. [01:05:00] And he wakes up, “Hello,” as if he’s—you know. It’s Donald. “Hello, who is this?” “Donald Trump.” And Isaiah, then according to him, says, “Don’t pull this crap.”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: “Who do you think you are?” And he does say things like that. And Trump said, “No, no, it’s Donald Trump, and I want to talk to her.” “She’s not home.” And then he says, “Well, tell her I called.” And Donald Trump says to him, “She’s a great gal,” and hangs up. So this is bizarre.

 

Q: [laughs] Yeah.

 

Sheffer: Then the day of the opening of the charrette—I think, I’m not sure whether it’s the day before or on the morning of—and he calls me up, mad as hell, and he says, “What do you”—the words, it was like this, “What do you think you’re doing with all of this? And you’re doing this whole thing,” and describes it, “and what do you think I’m doing?” And I said to him—I remember only this—“No, you cannot come.” And he said, “What? It’s my project. How could you say this?” And I do remember the line that I did say. I just said, “No, wherever you go, you create a disturbance and a ruckus. You are not to come.” And I can’t believe I did that. And then he lets me have it. And then I believe it’s [unclear] [01:06:49]. I go to John Jay, and he walks in. And so that picture—although there are others—he’s looking, and some of them are architects. Some of the architects, including [unclear] [01:07:08], are just, “Oh boy, look what’s going on here.” [laughs] And he is behaving—which I don’t remember the content. But you see that picture, and he begins to work. 

 

And eventually, you see, he agrees—this is complicated as hell—by meeting with all those civics, those names of those people. They get him to reduce from fifteen million to seven million, whatever. I mean, it was a lot of stuff. And their big thing was the highway and the park, none of which he cared about. and all that. And that version of Riverside South in detail, in a way, as summarized in that set of slides quickly, does get passed in the Euler [phonetic] [01:08:19] process. I don’t think—I have to remember—I don’t think that the board actually votes for the plan, Community Board 7—I have to check that out or remember—or that it agrees to some parts of it. But it does get passed, and then what happens, I’m los…but this becomes the wildest, craziest, multi-year madness ever in the world, because then he joins with them. Then he doesn’t have money. I think that the Chase Bank is saying, “You’ve got to be with the developers.” They then say that they’re going to do affordable housing. The Community Board doesn’t like half of what they’re talking about. But they go through, and they begin to win out. 

 

However, he loses out, so that the first buildings going from the north are with—it’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Costas Kondylis—whom I name there—these important—and start to develop it. It begins to happen, and you could see that the aim was to make it look like the Upper West Side. [01:10:03] So they begin, and the architects, this wonderful architect woman—her name begins with an M, famous—just at one time said, “Why are we doing this? Why are we doing it? This shouldn’t be for us at all. It’s supposed to look like Central Park West. 

Why are we doing this kind of project and it should look like that?” Which is why I show it’s good. And then he would name things. He always put his name on everything. 

 

Q: Trump.

 

Sheffer: And so it would be Trump, and all those buildings began to have his name on it. Years later, when he began to [unclear] [01:10:44] things, the people living in the buildings would fight, and pull down his name. But in the process—I don’t have it all—is that he lost it, you know, I mean, but it was—

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: —then the separate fight because he gets into politics, and they don’t like it. But then Extell buys the rest, and it takes all those years. It takes another ten years of complexity, and different architects and never—guess what—does the highway come down. And the architects chosen ten years, fifteen years later—I forget—you see a well-known, you know, they’re sort of sterling, and the whole design is quite different. It’s the last two blocks, right, 59th to 61st Street. It’s worth looking at because it’s very different. I mean, it’s good. 

 

Q: Yeah. When we were looking at the slides, and you had your—some of the long story summarized, you said something like, you know, here’s the story or this is what I learned, but actually how could I even describe [laughs] what I learned by this project? Something like that.

 

Sheffer: Oh yeah.

 

Q: I kind of found myself wanting to ask about, you know, maybe what this taught you about how complicated development projects could be. 

 

Sheffer: Well, it did very much because, also, I had been teaching and all, but I also was not devoted absolutely that I should be doing some political science. I began to be—I was in City Univ…you know, Brooklyn College, whatever. I mean, it was important to me, just it’s a sideline, but it did upset me, I think in a good way, that at the early part, when I was teaching at Brooklyn College, and then it was Brooklyn College—and if I told this to you, I will immediately stop—and CUNY had received, or applied and received a big federal grant to create a liberal arts program for police officers who, at that time, did not necessarily have to have a college degree, I mean, you know, full. And simultaneously or parallel in a different way—I think I may be mixing it up—it was the Vietnam War, the whatever, and the veterans are coming back with all the—so, secondly, though the big one was the law enforcement one, was they also set up a program for veterans. So, for other reasons that had to do with my life or Brooklyn College or stuff that I didn’t like or—I don’t know—somebody, they asked me would I like to teach the police officers. 

 

The school set up those two programs downtown Brooklyn at some buildings so that those population groups would be separate. And then, after two years, they would then filter into the Brooklyn College, and get a BA or whatever. But first, they should be—so to learn how to cope with it. [laughs] [01:15:00] So this was bizarre, but it had a deep effect on me, I think, in a peculiar way. So I was then given that I could teach a course, and it was in political science—I forgot—introductory thing, I don’t know what, to the cops, and there would be—so the cops joined, and it meant that those cops didn’t want to go to John Jay, which was in existence then. And I think the reason was that John Jay was changing so that it had younger people, African-American, I mean, it wasn’t only for the police, so the police there didn’t like that so much. 

 

So I remember the first class or whatever. I don’t know. Were there thirty people or twenty-five? And there were sergeants in the class. There was a lieutenant. There were others. They were all in civilian clothes, and I thought, “What’s happening here?” And I realized they were in civilian, but there would be guns in there. This was bizarre, but I couldn’t get over it and I began I don’t know what. I created things. I still have, I think, a plaque they gave me years ago. Anyway. And I began to teach them, and I told them that they have to read this. And they were very well behaved because they were Catholic and thinking they have—so I became, not personally exac…but involved, interested with them, like, how to—what is this all? They were very like respectful, because they came from Catholic schools or whatever. I don’t know what. And I also vaguely remember when we’d stop for lunch or something, and in the cafeteria it was just me. And then if the men were there, they’d take out that they should pay for my lunch, and I said—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —I mean, because I was—and initially it was all men. 

 

Q: I was going to say, it’s all men at that time. 

 

Sheffer: Then, a year or two later, the women—more women were hired, and they came to the program. Don’t think there weren’t horrors, I mean, that was just awful. However, I did it, and I became involved in how do you teach—how do we do this? I began—I’m skipping because I don’t remember. But I gave them Thoreau. I gave them stuff to read on civil disobedience. I gave them Thoreau, I gave them this, and that. Then, a year or two later, the veterans came, and this was a whole different thing. They were all, almost all African American and all. And there was some mixture of the classes, and a number of the veterans came to school, and several of them were dressed. Nobody was in uniform, but they were dressed like they were undercover. So they were dress with fancy hats and like, to be undercover. So they’d come in. There was once—everybody was in the room. I forget. There was a big discussion of whatever the subject was. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: Suddenly one jumped up, and they started to fight with each other in the class. I thought I was going to faint. I screamed at them to such an extent. Also, the cops said, “Okay, what do you know? Would you”—I mean, with murder and complexity. “Would you ever go out with us on patrol?” And I said, “Yes.” And two of them did it. I remember Susannah was little. Isaiah said, “What are you doing?” And they took me on a Saturday night, like, an eight to two o’clock in the morning or something on a Saturday night, in a high crime area. And I went with them. [01:20:00] They brought another guy along, just in case. Stopped at one place, and then began going up the steps, and said, “You could come.” And I walk up. I’m being able to go faster at this point. And I realize that, as I’m going up the steps—it was in a four-story building—that I think there’s blood on every—and so it was Haitians. It was this. 

 

Then they went into Prospect Park, forbidding me to get out of the car, thank god. And it turned out that there was some huge battle, ice-skating rink, because I sat in the car. By then, I was ready to go. Sat there, and the third cop, the other one just stayed there. And then the mischievous one came in, and threw into the back seat, where I was sitting, waiting, a—what do you call it—like a long knife, a scimi…the word is—machete—a big thing, huge, that they just threw, that they had taken off the kids. And I was just—

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: It became very influential for me. And then I wanted to figure out how—what do you do? How do you teach this? And the only other memory I have is later teaching the cops, and it was when—as to some degree like now—when the students were demonstrating against the war, and I was teaching, and they—and just almost the same buildings were taken over. And the cops came in, and some of them were going to school, and then there were cops coming from Brockway [phonetic] [01:22:00], so they were altogether conservative. And I remember being in the room, teaching them, and it was—I forget which one it is. And one of the cops—it was an amphitheater, whatever I was teaching—and he raised his hand—Congolosi [01:22:18] [unclear] [01:22:19]. And he said, “Yeah, well, I was on duty”—this was April 30th or whatever it was, when the cops did the bust. And he said, “Yeah, well, that’s nice.” He said, “Oh yeah, mathematics hall.” And he said there were a lot of women there, radical women, and he went like this. “I took each one of them, and took one at a time, and bounced them down all of the steps.” 

 

Q: Oh.

 

Sheffer: In other words, it is, I mean—

 

Q: Yeah.

 

Sheffer: So that was a very significant—I’m not sure how I [unclear] [01:23:02]. But it was like, what’s happening now? [laughs] And then I spoke to the chair of the classics department, who actually had been a well-known, prestigious professor. And it turned out that he wasn’t getting enough registration, because students weren’t taking classics. You know what I mean? And I talked to him, and I said, “Listen, do you want to get somebody—you and others—to teach here together?” And that man—I don’t remember anything else—he developed a course called Greek and Latin in Everyday Life.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And he taught it. 

 

Q: In the program that you taught in?

 

Sheffer: Yeah. So this was all rather strange. So I wasn’t being successful in other ways, but I really—you know. And then some of the cops said, “Would you and your husband ever come to visit us where we live? We could do a barbecue.” This was a sergeant. So I said to Isaiah, “What?” Isaiah working like this, and he says, “Yeah, sure, I’ll go.” And we did. Isaiah was always good and charming, but he’s working like hell. So there were things I learned that influenced me in a way, though I got out of the whole thing. And then teaching at Barnard and Columbia, there’s another set of stories of someone I knew for a long time, and we were pals, and has been very rotten to me [laughs] at this point. That doesn’t matter now. But in my life, I realized that, for example, with the Getting to Yes now, and all of this that’s going on with the zoning—

 

Q: [01:25:03] City of Yes. 

 

Sheffer: Excuse me, the City of Yes. I mean, there’s very important things, and people being against it. And then there are those who say we got to vote for it. There’s a lot to vote for, I mean, Board 7, which they don’t give me anything to do. She wouldn’t even say that I should be part of it. I mean, why would you do that, by the way? It’s not as if I’m looking for glory now, at this point.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: But I have learned, though, I’m old as I am, I’m not looking now, and I haven’t for years, that I need a job out of it, or some glory. There was the bad thing of that woman when Henry Stern asked for a job, and some others. And I thought, “This is no good.” And many of the community people have said about me, “Well, she’s making money from it.” I did make money from it, in the sense of I’ll show you the list of my developing inside associates. 

 

Q: Right. You made money from work that you did that was not connected to your position on the board. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah. And I didn’t want to teach anymore. But now, god knows, I’m frightened if Trump gets elected because, look, it isn’t only my direct stuff with him, I mean, I think I saw him subsequently. I forget. But he’s no good, I mean, he’s a man now who really is in enormous trouble. He’s clearly unhinged, and you can see it now. I think I had maybe some conversation with him, maybe in the last years, but not really. 

 

Q: Did you tell him to stop running for president? [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, oh yeah.

 

Q: Stop causing the ruckus wherever you go. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Q: I wanted to ask about your becoming a certified planner and your presidency of the AICP. 

 

Sheffer: That’s a big deal. 

 

Q: Yeah. I specifically wondered if we could talk about your role after 9/11 in the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan.

 

Sheffer: Yeah, which then there was a small one because the architects did have a conference two years ago, where we all came. Well, it’s very strange that I found myself doing this or thought to do it. I don’t know if I’m accurate or telling the truth or have I made it up or something. But I thought, “Why am I getting interested in planning?” And I used to say to myself, I think when I even was a kid, I liked to look at buildings [unclear] [01:28:04]. I mean, I don’t know that that’s it because, remember, I was brought up in Brooklyn on a street in East New York in a tenement with the Italians across the street, who, the word was, in the private houses, you know, all of that. And then, of course, we moved, and got married young enough, and then moved to 110th Street, which I still is, you know, I liked all that, and then eventually having Susannah and so on. And Eric Bentley, you see all the books and that, because they were here and got us an apartment, which didn’t look like this. This is one of the smaller ones in the building, and now I’m being priced out. But, okay, forget that. 

 

And I don’t know, but maybe what I did do—which I can’t even remember my being motivated to do, much less doing it—at some point—well, we’ve got the years, I can’t think of it now—I decided that I see that there are these planners. And I thought—because my thinking is not clear, but I do know—I thought, “I see that all these people have taken an exam to become certified as an AICP.” The thing was that I never, ever took a planning course, an APA, or studied it, or did anything. [01:29:58] But I somehow thought—memory—to me, it’s like bizarre, why did I do this? I knew that an exam was being held, and I simply said to myself, “I’ll take the exam, and I’ll see what happens, and it’ll just be—and then I’ll do it again.” So I did, and then I thought, “Oh god, is this horrible.” I can still feel it. I passed it but with, for me, an unacceptable score. I felt, oh my god, I have passed, but just barely. But, okay, I thought, “Really?” 

 

So then I think I began to teach with also Doug [Woodward] at Columbia, and began to do some teaching there, of which, as I went through some of the syllabi and the stuff I wrote for students, I thought, “This stuff is really—this is pretty good.” So I really got to like it, I mean, I always got very interested, and had complicated, difficult experiences with students, then began to do studios, and did it with Doug. And I knew him from City Planning when I was an advocate. And then we taught together two or three times, four semesters, because Columbia would have students do a studio with a real project. So we would determine something in New York, whatever. And then there would be a vote on the part of faculty or maybe the American Planning Association to vote what was the best studio. And somehow, Doug and I, whatever, we were very different, but what we taught was voted Columbia’s best, three times. And we would often kid, “Aren’t we different,” and blah, blah, blah. 

So I began to do that, and then was teaching planning and whatever, and sort of liking it. And then the 9/11, the horror, which I remember, I think it was on a Friday, and I believe I was at home here. And I remembered I had the computer on quite different, Susannah being older and that. Susannah was the baby and the child in the room there, because it’s a two bedroom. Then she eventually decides and goes to Swarthmore. That’s another story. Because she began to read everything of John Holt’s and everything else, she became anti-school completely. And my fear, our fear was, she’s dropping out in college. So it was a great big thank God that—she was going to drop out—she was doing that. But then went to Swarthmore, which suited her, I think. Anyway, so then the room eventually got changed to a study. Isaiah didn’t have anything, but worked in a big closet, that’s all. We only have one bathroom, but it’s a big closet. And he immediately would say, well, we talked about, “All right, where is this and where is that?” And he would say, “I think it’s in the mine shaft.” He dubbed it—

 

Q: 

 

Sheffer: —mine shaft. It still has the [unclear] [01:34:14], I’m amazed to say, because of course everything’s changed. He’s been gone a long time. I still have left three suits, jackets in there, one being the white suit, all white, to be worn—guess. Well, this is a key. Have you ever read Ulysses? Bloomsday? 

 

Q: Oh, not in a very long time. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: He created the major, major, major Bloomsday thing, in which there is a custom, and he got all the Irish readers, and it happened every year, and to be dressed in a white suit, which I will only—I will not stop. [01:35:05] I will finish it. But I only have—oh, I’m sorry, I’m reading this. Just take this off for one second, and I’m only going to pull this out for one second to you, because there’s no place, but there’s too many books. 

 

Q: Oh, this poster, the signed poster, yes. 

 

Sheffer: It’s the last one, you see. 

 

Q: Yeah, yeah.

 

Sheffer: But the year he did it was [19]15 or [19]17, you see?

 

Q: Yeah, that’s amazing. 

 

Sheffer: And there he is with whoever did it, because that’s the hat that, you know, the author was—so it’s a big deal. 

 

Q: Yeah, yeah. 

 

Sheffer: I’m so mad because Symphony Space, they have stopped doing Bloomsday. They could do a simpler one because nobody—but they stopped it completely. Then the planning and the 9/11, of course, the horror occurs, and I was home, seeing, and then they were still—sorry.

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: Seeing this and looking at a television, it had become a study, but Isaiah began to have an office finally at Symphony Space. In the horror, the beginning horror, the networks were still—although they stopped it—showing people throwing themselves out the window. I remember seeing—I don’t know. But this has come to me now, though. So this horror, I mean, of course. I remember, though, walking out in the street and, like a dummy, went to Murray’s, the great store here, the best store in the world for herring and whatever, with a line there, all of us not talking but all there to buy food in order to have food in the house, because this horror is—and nobody, I mean, and we’re buying herring. 

 

So then I don’t remember. I joined the American Planning Association. I began to go to the meetings. And there was a head of it, a woman. And I would do that, go regularly, and all that. And I don’t remember now. There was a question of an election for the president, and I think I ran, and I got elected, but I didn’t know why. I mean, I barely made—they didn’t know I never took the planning course ever at any place, and barely passed—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —the AICP thing. [laughs] So then this becomes very important—I mean, I wrote about it, and I have it—of improvising, you know, the planners, the people, the memorials—I learned a lot—and big memories, terrible things of then with the memorial, and who to choose, and working with the planners. I have it all. I now threw out a lot of the APA stuff that we would meet, and you couldn’t—the president—it was hard to get downtown, or you didn’t even know what to do. But it became so absolutely, completely stunning. So I became the president, along with the other officers and other organizations, and I felt others who knew much more there, eventually. The Municipal Art Society was in there, and it was established—that’s years later—to have what kind of memorial, you know, and hiring that. And I remembered going downtown, and sitting, and listening to the architects. I’m not explaining, I’m not even conveying the emotions, the horror, the shock. I felt as if I knew much less than all these other people, of course. [01:40:01] I felt I’ve got to be involved. I kept thinking, “Don’t make a mistake.” 

 

And a number of the planners were killed, and I knew them. And then later, see, I no longer remember, but then as the planning was occurring, some of the planners called me, who survived, and said that there’s going to be a hearing on section 106, the federal, about—they want to do away with the Vesey Street entrance to the subway, which had survived. And they asked me, they said, “You have to testify”—this is after—“to say they must keep that stairway, that entrance, no matter what.” And I was so worried, but they said, “You have to do it.” And I remembered doing it. I also remembered going downtown, that they let us—this is after—to go inside, where we could see some of the ruin. It was utterly and completely traumatically, I mean, for the city, for everything. 

 

Q: Are you saying that having to be the head of the New York chapter, for you, was traumatizing, on top of the event itself, the trauma of the event?

 

Sheffer: It was traumatizing, but I think that it was enhancing. I mean, it was something. I mean, I had to administer. I had to raise money. There were receptions. There were awards. It was sort of, until then, not like me or in my life at all. And I felt others certainly had more expertise, and so I listened. But then, when I’d listen to the architects and what they were saying and doing, and what the memorial should look like, I got educated, and also had opinions, big opinions, and taste maybe. I mean, I was cynical and pleased and stunned and, actually, I was older also. I really was not overjoyed being an academic, which I was not good at, or never want…you know. And the city, everything, it meant a great deal to me, and I hardly knew how much it meant or that I was capable of it. And I didn’t have a rep as an architect or planner that other people knew. But it meant a great deal. It was very, very important. It should be, you know?

 

Q: Yeah.

 

Sheffer: And a lot of things just never worked out. It was phony, wasn’t it, I mean, some of it. But it’s still—who else? Well, I just got mixed up about the—well, there was a meeting of the architects last summer, and they invited me. This is very unusual, because it was the Architects’ Convention, and I said something about, “Aren’t you going to do anything?” And so I should really find this now, because this is important. It was live, there was a conference, and I spoke, and spoke with, and was on the panel, and had things to say, I think. If it was recorded, it would be good if I have it, somehow. 

 

Q: Yeah, I looked for it. But if it’s from a conference, like you say, it could possibly be only for the attendees to access. I wonder if it’s—

 

Sheffer: It could be. Maybe I’ll take a look, and see if I did have it, because that’s worth—

 

Q: And was that about the memorial or the museum or the overall development of—?

 

Sheffer: I think both or all of them. Also, Gretchen Dykstra, whom I worked for, and thought the world of, doing the—god help me—the adult uses study, she was the head of the Times Square Business Improvement District. [01:45:06] But then she got a job in the whole rebuilding or the memorial—I forget what her—I mean, a major job. I always thought the world of her abilities. I wasn’t working directly with her, but she was doing it, and I think she got either shafted [laughs] or whatever, or probably was too determined, because with Bloomberg—I don’t know—but she may have gotten let go or fired, when she shouldn’t have been [laughs], I think, because I remember that she could do anything great. She hired me for the adult uses thing, and then also a big thing on homelessness, so I did that. That was huge. I mean, she was great, very important, difficult, but I respected and admired her a great deal. And she just said, the one line—this is before, when she asked me to—before on the—not the home, but the pornography. She said something about, “So do you know the constitutional history of it?” and named the important Supreme Court opinion, which I did know, just since being a political scientist. And I said, “No, I don’t know about it.” And she said, “That’s it, I’m hiring you.”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So that my first job with her, I was so frightened and, I mean, I was older—to the board, which had everybody from The New York Times, all the famous people, and for me to—

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: She did the pornography study. And then, after a while, she said to me, “Let’s go into all the stores.” Now, the job, I said, “No.” You study the rules, the constitution. And then I did this study of getting where all the stores were, did that whole thing, and it was very major. There were 150 stores, whatever, whatever. But then, after that, Gretchen said—and it was successful because Sulzberger at The Times, they loved it. The Zeckendorfs were there. And I’m reporting on this whole thing. But then I think—let’s see, what am I getting at? Oh yes, something happened at the pornography. Then, at some point later, she said, “Look, let’s just go into the stores, Ethel.” And I had not, I mean, the job was not to do that.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So the two of us—

 

Q: You were researching the secondary impacts of pornography.

 

Sheffer: Right. So the two of us—and she, with her great hair and bleach blonde [01:48:38], and great. And we did it during the day, and we’d walk in. And I was already older, of course. And we’d go into the stores, opening them. And in the store—let’s say it was the afternoon, lunch hour maybe. And we’d walk in, and there were almost always men in suits, who, by then, some of Times Square had redeveloped, so the office buildings were coming back. So they would then look up from what they were seeing—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —and gradually, subtly, would walk around, and get out of the door, because who are these women? Which was hilarious. But then, as you know, historically, I mean, the Civil Liberties Union was against the regulation, except in terms of the great freedom of speech case, which I can’t remember now, that the First Amendment does protect obscenity. [laughs] And I’ve just remembered that, and that was the talk. I gave all that. I can’t remember now. [01:49:58] But I think I was—no, I forget my point, so I probably do. But I thought that she was sort of run out of it, I mean, she quit or something. But I remember her getting one of the biggest porno guys, who owned everything, and she got a meeting with him, and she told me to come. And I was sitting on the side. She’s talking to him. He also had all these places in Philadelphia, whatever. And as he keeps talking to her—because he wanted to, because he’d felt—outrageous, he was—she was the head of The New York Time…no, of 42nd Street. So she counts. And then suddenly, he looked across, and he said, “Who is this woman? She keeps writing, and she’s looking, and she doesn’t say anything.” That was me.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And I was the old lady, because I was already old. But what did happen was the fact that they didn’t need the stores anymore because everything was digital, so everybody could do everything at home. 

 

Q: So the problem kind of went away on its own, in a sense?

 

Sheffer: Yeah. But then, finally, the Court of Appeals, who was already Giuliani and all, and regulating it, and the Court of Appeals of New York State ruled that you could have the regulation of the stores. So the wonderful woman who was the head of the Court of Appeals—I forget her name—very, very, very respected, the Chief Justice ruled that—it was great. Some years later—I’m mixed up with the time—she comes walking into Symphony Space, and she was going there with I think her grandchild, but it was also because, after twelve years or fourteen years of hell, Symphony Space won its case on the taxation, and to be one—not to pay, and control the block. That was, I mean, for us, I mean, I don’t even know how we got through it, doing that. But then she came and then said, “I remember you.” And then she said, “Oh, we’ll have to have lunch.” And I thought [unclear] [01:52:44] came with her.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Just as one day earlier, Alice Tully came earlier, when it was like the first ten years. And her thing that she said, as she was coming out—I always say this. I forget who [unclear] [01:53:03]. And she said, “Oh yes, oh yes, that place. It’s a bit ramshackle. But they do wonderful things there.”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So, yes, I loved doing the work. I was impressed almost with myself, it was marginal, but that I could—am I doing some of this? Because I didn’t know how to do a lot of it, but I really got very excited about it. 

 

Q: Yeah, and invested in the topics. I read something that you had written with Michael Levine, I think, about a critique of the memorial design submissions. 

 

Sheffer: How interesting. When was that? Michael Levine was the secretary of the chapter, so that—

 

Q: Yes. I don’t think it had a date on it, but it was before they selected—but, I mean, that took years, so. 

 

Sheffer: What did we say? He was a different kind of man, but we had an interesting, good relationship.

 

Q: Well, the document said that the proposals weren’t thinking about people ten or fifteen years into the future, and not including enough of the experience. So, in other words, people who hadn’t experienced it directly wouldn’t necessarily learn what it was like from the memorial, I believe was the main point. 

 

Sheffer: Interesting, good.

 

Q: Yeah. [laughs] It’s always nice to agree with yourself years later. [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Yeah, that’s so true. 

 

Q: But, I guess, related to that too, I wonder if we could spend a little bit of time talking about the Public Design Commission. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah, yeah. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: [01:55:02] To me, it feels like eons later.

 

Q: You had gotten recommended to serve in 2015, right? 

 

Sheffer: I think so, yeah. 

 

Q: So I was wondering what some of the, I guess, some of the more memorable discussions and decisions that you were part of there.

 

Sheffer: Well, I think I saved for you—I did write something, a very small thing, because when this mayor came in, I had already been on for four or five years, appointed in the de Blasio administration. And, as I said, I found it remarkable, somebody recommended me, but I had no dealings whatsoever with de Blasio, either money or working or anything. It may even have been maybe—

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: But, as I may have mentioned to you, I wanted to become a—could I be on the City Planning Commission? And I was, somebody recommended me, in each case, and then they said, “No, because you have too many opinions [unclear] [01:56:33].”

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: And then I got recommended to the Landmarks Commission, and the woman who was on it, whom I knew well, Indian, but she then, I remember, on the phone said, “Ethel, I know you, and you have a lot of opinions and all.” And I just said, “But if I am the mayor’s repre…I have to know how to behave, so I would know how to behave.” But that was no good. So then it was either this one woman or—I don’t know if Ed Wallace, the same Ed Wallace by now, found out and said, “Somebody said something about the Public Design Commission.” I hardly even knew what it was. I think he may have called me, and somebody else even did it. And he said to me, “Look, why don’t you go on, and it could be interesting for you, and then you’ll see how you do.” And I thought, “Really?” and I thought, stupidly, “Oh, it’s uninteresting and all.” Then I realized, yeah, it was created in 1890. Then I thought, “Really?”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Then I saw what it dealt with, and then this whole idea of it being sort of advisory in a way, and then I was horrified and frightened that I was called, the position was called the mayor’s commissioner or something for the community. And I thought, “Oh no, what?” [laughs] And I think a couple of people let me know, “Look, people are going to call you about voting the way”—you know, will they? I think I got one call once from somebody, either staff on City Planning, saying something about the woman’s monument in Central Park, and was I doing this or that? And then I think once from Gale Brewer, and I let them know, “Wait a minute, I’m not yet not doing—I’m spending time—I’m going to look at it.” Anyway, then also Phil, a very good guy—I’m losing names—a developer, had been on the PDC before I was, actually, two, three years. I knew him because he developed some major buildings—Phil Aarons, a very, very fine person. And he had been on the PDC two, three years before me, and I found that admirable. And then when we were on together, he did his thing, but I always admired and respected the way he conducted himself, and he clearly liked it.

 

And then the people on—there were a couple of architects, a couple of others, and so it was about seven people. [02:00:02] And then because of the change in the mayoralty, the executive director, who was the person to handle, gets knocked off in her job, which I thought she was humorless, but I thought she was terribly capable, and why get rid of her. But the typical—the mayor comes in, this one, and names somebody else. But they continued to keep me, so I actually was on five years or so, which was astonishing to me. And I found that I was very interested, I learned a lot, I respected and learned. And then some of the others, the architects and some said, “Oh, you’re good. You asked a good question.” So I really found it to be wonderful. I liked it, and I was interested, and I just felt I learned, and I knew what the deal was. And a couple of times, certainly, lawyers and all would call me, and I’d say, “Listen, no, I’m not doing anything. But you could tell me what you’re concerned about.” But I knew if there was another mayor that it wasn’t going to work. That’s how it is, because it’s total political. 

 

I believe I stayed on a year longer than I might have, because he didn’t care that much about—he was appointing others. [laughs] But Phil Aarons and I were both knocked off at the same time, and I wrote a statement, as he did, because they asked, and I was careful about how much I liked it and what it was about. I think I saved it for you. I’ll send it just easily. So I appreciated that, and I learned a lot, and they thought I was good. I wish I could do some of it again. I’m not as good, whatever. But I found it to be very valuable. It’s more interesting and more valuable than one thinks. And in a way, I was glad that I wasn’t on the City Planning because, yes, it’s political, but we know what we’re dealing with, and what we have to—but it’s extremely important, and I cared a lot, I mean, like approving the East River Pedestrian Bridge. But we were looking at the design and how we got there, all of that. I liked it a lot. I think I did a lot. And what I’m most glad about is that the architects or others would ask me how do I feel, and I would ask them. And I thought there’s good work there. I’m not sure how it’s going now.

 

Q: I’m not sure either.

 

Sheffer: I think there’s going to be an anniversary now, because I think I got an invitation. Anyway, well, I think we probably have done enough at this point, unless there—

 

Q: Yeah, I think so. I think we can wrap up. Thank you. 

 

Sheffer: Thank you.

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: I’ll send you some of the stuff that I—

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: —which I think I can do via the computer, I think—

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: —sending you—

 

[END OF SESSION 3]

 

Sheffer: —recent questions, the ones you sent? 

 

Q: Yeah. I’ll—

 

Sheffer: You go right ahead. 

 

Q: Okay. Today is December 14th, 2024. This is Sarah Dziedzic interviewing Ethel Sheffer, our fourth session, final session. And we have a few questions to address some of the lingering topics that we covered in the last three sessions. So you had sent me some notes about your Times Square study. And one of those points that you hadn’t mentioned in the interview so far was about talking to—talking about the First Amendment to a group of real power brokers. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: The Times Square Business Improvement District Board. 

 

Q: You said that you were, in your notes, you said you were truly stunned that you were able to talk about this topic. So can you explain that meeting? 

 

Sheffer: Well, actually, that’s in the 1980s, I guess. And I was called—I got a call from Gretchen Dykstra, who was the head of the relatively new Times Square Business Improvement District. And the head of that, or chair, I think, was one of the, you know, Arthur Sulzberger, whoever was running it, which, by the way, I think he has resigned. His son is now—because each time, the son, fortunately, which, by the way, I saw a note in, I think, The Times or someplace that that has moved from wherever he was living in Manhattan. And it surprised me that he’s gone to Claremont Avenue, and has now an apartment there. And I just vaguely thought, man, oh man, a Sulzberger is up there. 

 

Q: He’s your neighbor now? [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: Well, but that’s further. Then I thought, oh, maybe I should look at Morningside. Ridiculous. No. But the point was, the way this happened, I think I knew Gretchen a little bit but not well, and she called me, and said Rebecca Robertson, who then became the head of the 42nd Street, you know, whole major whatever was the city-wide improvements at 42nd Street. And Rebecca Robertson has been, over these years, enormously influential in all Times Square. But, as I remember it, since it’s so long ago and so unlikely, that Rebecca says—Gretchen to me—when she called, Gretchen said, “Who could I get to do this?” And that Rebecca said, “Ethel Sheffer,” to Gretchen, which astonished me. Because I think I was teaching political science sort of halfway, part, whatever at Brooklyn College, and whatever. So then I spoke to Gretchen, whom I immediately felt was a ball of fire, and smart, and whatever. So she said to me, “Look, we’ve got all these video stores, and this is, in effect, a scourge.” I think there were figures, like, 140 within the boundaries, I think, when I wrote my notes to you about that, what the boundaries are of the bid. So then I can’t remember, but then she said, “Do you think that you could give a talk to the board about the First Amendment? Does it protect the pornography, but when it doesn’t or whatever?” I’m trying to remember, I mean, there were many cases. But there was one major case that I was trying to remember—and she said, “That was decided more recently” [00:04:22]. Then, I don’t know whether Giuliani already was elected, but since Giuliani then became mayor, he was gung-ho to regulate the shops, not only at Times Square but at Brooklyn, and he was just Giuliani. 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So she said, did I know that case? And I said, “Err, I don’t know.” But, somehow, I look back, I’m trying—I don’t have any notes or anything of the talk. I mean, I was frightened out of my wits. [00:05:00] But I prepared a talk about a couple of the major cases, what could be done, and gave that talk to the board with the results, so to speak, is that there is protection of porn, if you like, as speech under the First Amendment. However, the case and other cases could have—

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: That there were cases, I later learned, around the country of some regulation that could occur. So, whatever it was—I can’t think now at all—I researched that. I prepared a talk. Gretchen, who is extremely smart, animated, I mean, working for someone, I did over the years, I thought she was a knockout. So I gave the talk to the board, explaining that the Constitution, and what could happen. She said, “That was a good thing.” Then, gradually, she said to me, “Do you think you could do a study of this entire area, and the adult uses?” I was staggered. I really was very surprised. I thought, I’ve nev…I haven’t done this. But I then said, “Yeah, okay,” I thought. And so, in a variety of steps, I had a so-called inside associate, whatever, I was starting some consulting. But then a woman, a colleague I knew, who later—Marcie Kesner, a major planner. But she, I think, was on maternity leave or something. And I called her, and just said, “Marcie, you want to do this with me?” And then, I’m trying to remember, I got hold of a graduate student who was someplace else, named Jeff [phonetic] [00:07:38]. I can find his name because he’s now headed—now [unclear] [00:07:42] headed up something, a big thing. And then I think I said, “Okay, I can do this.” And the idea then, which is contained in the report, I mean, the methodology, to be able to show the effects on communities, on economics, on business in the neighborhood, of all of these shops. So there was something like three or four different negative effects. So we proceeded to do this, just the three of us, this gigantic study of not going into the stores, or not going in at all, but mapping the blocks, mapping the stores, mapping the economics and the prosperity or the kinds of stores of the entire district. I mean, it’s all—I forget. There were three indicators that could show that the proliferation of the stores affected business in a certain area, crime, and that kind of thing. So that was, I mean, it was a big deal that we were doing it, just us. 

 

Among other things, as an anecdote, here’s a couple of them that then came to me. I mean, it was a long time ago. Susannah was little. It wasn’t like this. I would be working here. We would go out, or I got the graduate student to be mapping it all over. And I think Marcie did it. Then I have a couple of anecdotes that came back to me, sitting in this living room, and it wasn’t like this at all. And I’m looking over all the papers and the names of all the places. And I think I said something like—Isaiah was doing things with, you know, getting Symphony Space to occur, and was sitting. And I say something, like, I don’t know. I’m reading this one. I’m looking at this map. [00:09:59] “What do you think this means, ex-stacy [sic] [00:10:01]?” Something like that. 

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: And he hardly looks up, and says, “What’s wrong with you? It’s ecstasy, the name of the—” [laughs].

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: And I’m saying, “Oh, what is that?” [laughs] 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So there were many anecdotes, and one more, as this went on. I mean, it was a number of months. Some of it’s all detailed in the study, which I had to do. But, simultaneously, I think Giuliani became mayor, and then City Planning—so the city was doing its own study, which I took out. I should have brought them here, both, to show you the study: mine with the yellow cover, which I still have; and then adult entertainment done by the city. However, we go on and proceed to do all of this over many months. And, somehow, there—and I always said, “I’m not going in. We don’t have to go into the stores,” because I didn’t want to do that. I thought, you shouldn’t have to do it. You got to show the—another anecdote was, after almost completing the—getting all the info, the prime info, leave it to Gretchen, I think—oh no, what was it? She said, “Ethel, I want to take a look at the stores. I want to go in.” And I said, “Well, I didn’t go into any of them because I just—and we all—” She said, “No. Let’s go.” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And so she and I—she, you know, with this great—with hair, with bleach blonde, smart as hell, terrific. And she and I go, and we open the doors, and go into a couple of the stores. This is sort of months later. And, you know, Times, the whole area, which was terrible, was beginning to be less terrible as buildings are being built, and the 42nd Street. So we two walk into the store, and just walk around, during the day. I still remember, it was in the middle of the day, the stores that we went into were fairly empty. But, as we walked around, businessmen, men who were working in the buildings were going there. And we walked around, and then they looked up, and they saw these two walking around. And slowly and gradually—that’s my memory of years ago—they look up, and they slowly circled us, and they all walked out, and emptied the store. [laughs] 

 

One last anecdote, which is more even important, so I was like, “Oh my god.” So then there was—I’m so sorry not to remember his name. But there was this—I guess he was from the police. But there was some Midtown crime enforcement thing, a big thing of the police. And this guy, very good, naturally an Irishman was running the whole thing. During the course—by doing the study, and they knew that that was happening, he said to me, “Look, why don’t you come with me, and you and I will go in, and we’ll go and pay at some of the buddy booths? And we’ll go in there, but I’ll go with you so you could take a look at what they come in to see.” And then he said—and there were three or four, many live shows, big ones—and he said, “And while we walk in, the women will just be getting ready for later.” So this was during the day also. I walked in. He says, “Here’s some quarters.” And he says, “Now, Ethel, don’t worry, I’m always with you.” And I’m thinking, what’s happening? [laughs] Because I was like, I mean, I wasn’t young then. I wasn’t like a fifteen-year-old. But I thought, oh, what is happening? [laughs] So he goes into one booth, and then he says to me, “You’re in this booth.” And he closes the door, tells me to throw quarters in, and he says—and I always remember him saying, “Ethel, I’m here. Don’t worry. I’m with you on the other side.” And so then this happened, and I start looking at the films or whatever of these so-called obscene things, which are not affecting me particularly. And I’m thinking, oh god, this is sort of—and I could hear his voice. “Everything okay, Ethel? I’m on the other side.” [laughs]

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So there was that hysterical thing, which was my experience. [00:14:59] And then walking through, a number of the women were sitting there in another place that we went, and they looked at me and us walking around. I mean, it really—and they just [unclear] [00:15:11]. The last thing, I think, it only came to me this morning because those memories stay, but as I was thinking—and I think I noted down the guy’s name. Did I do it someplace here? Yeah. I was looking at some of—in answer to your question. The name Richie Basciano, and he was a major, major porn business guy, who I believe had made a fortune and had stuff in Philadelphia. But he owned a lot of the stuff in New York. I mean, he was a real tycoon. So, somehow, after I did a lot of the research, Gretchen, who was a force anyway, somehow, whether she got to him or he says he’ll meet her, and interview, and upset that she’s destroying his business. And he’s a good businessman. So I then remember that she went to see him. She said, “You come with me.” So I remember it was Richard Basciano—what was it?—Robert or Richard Basciano. And he’s talking with her, because she became a force in a way of publicity, you know, and she—so I am sitting on the side, and I’m sitting like a lady, not saying anything; writing. So he went on with the interview, and was saying, “Look, we don’t break the law. Why are you destroying us?” Whatever. This went on—I can’t remember, but the one thing [laughs], and he was going on, he went on, and then he said, “Who is this? Who’s that woman over there writing all the time? Why is she doing that? Who is she anyway?” 

 

Q: [laughs] Referring to you.

 

Sheffer: Yeah. So it was Richard Basciano. So all of that was part of it. So then I complete the study, frightened out of my wits. Is this going to be good? In the meantime, the Department of City Planning was doing its study. I believe that I managed to connect or call the police who were doing the City Planning study. And I think I did it either because the guy from Midtown Enforcement said, “Call them, and see what they’re doing” Or, I’m trying to remember, was I in good graces with the police because I had been teaching, and taught the police program? But what then I vaguely remember was the city was doing the bigger study, and a lot of it was, like, in Brooklyn, along the waterfront, and all that. But, somehow, in the completion of the details of this study, I think that I realized, wait a minute, are we getting more correlations than they are? Only because I documented all—I could never have done it without—and it was only the three of us. And Jeff [Raven][00:18:37] walked around and did all of that, to show the connection and a difficult, you know, the economy was not good, there was high crime, all those correlations. So we do it all, and then Gretchen says, “Okay.” And then the owners of the stores then are going to bring suit because everybody knows that Giuliani is going to do the regulation, and Times Square bid is in there and has good material. 

 

The lawyer, the guy who was on the board of the bid was F.A.O. Schwartz of F.A…and he, very smart, and of course who he was, so I was terrified always. Every minute I was terrified—I never showed it—because I thought I am the least organized. This is how I felt. I am the least organized person I know, and that I’m a mess with things, and whatever, and then I thought—so they had a lawyer. I think it was [somebody from] Proskauer [phonetic] [00:19:55]. I forget the name of the other lawyer. [00:19:59] But F.A.O. Schwartz was supervi…and to look over my original materials. And I thought, I’m so disorganized. I’m so frightened. I’m never—and I gave it—and I remember F.A.O. Schwartz looking and going through what I was submitting. Then I went through like a third degree of—and I can’t remember the name of the lawyer, but it was Proskauer [phonetic] [00:20:23] or something, the big one for Times Square—to pass the research, publish it, and then submit it because the stores were suing to prevent it. And it went all the way up to the New York Court of Appeals. 

 

Chief Justice Kaye–– this was a woman very, very respected as a lawyer. And the suit was brought by the stores and also Norman—is it Norman Siegel’s who is still around now, of the Civil Liberties Union—all bringing against regulation. And my last mem…another memory, it’s unbelievable to me that I—I think it was winter. I’m not sure. But they were going up to Albany to sit in on the hearing. And they said, “You come with us.” So I did that too. I was in a state of just like shock. And I remembered, beforehand, I was constantly in terror because to show my—the primary research, and I thought, I’m so disorganized, and I was trying to show them all of this with F.A.O. Schwartz, and they’ll never be able to understand it, and they’ll hate it.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And I gave them stuff in boxes. In any case, I had met—I think that I’m correct. I’m not sure which lawyer argued the case because, eventually, I managed to get—this is a big deal, another thing—pro bono services of a major law firm. Now, I know I was able to do it for many things here at CB7; Berle, Kass & Case. I’m going to come back to that because that helped the Symphony Space case. They won the Symphony Space case—Berle, Kass & Case—based on pro bono. But, in any case, I forget who did it. So that was the Albany thing and all of that. And then I was told—I have some sense, but I couldn’t explain it, that the Times Square study was impressive as compared to the City Planning study because we were able to clearly show correlations more than—so that was a big deal. 

 

Q: After you had that feeling that you were nervous and you were scared—

 

Sheffer: Terrible.

 

Q: —and terrified, but that you had a real impact, and that all of what you did was extremely useful and comprehensive, and more comprehensive than City Planning, how did that change how you thought about your consultancy after that? 

 

Sheffer: Well, I thought I could maybe do some of this kind of work, but I did not have a lot of confidence. I mean, I did proceed to go—because I’ve sent you the résumé—

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: —haven’t I, of different studies, what I was doing, community stuff, but I’m always thinking, ah—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —this isn’t so good. But one other anecdote, I don’t know how many months later, because, separately, the Symphony Space case, with twelve or thirteen years of a horror, got up to the Court of Appeals. I’ll remember the doctrines of it. Anyway, the chief justice––Judge Kaye–– who was generally utterly respected—

 

Q: The same chief justice as—? 

 

Sheffer: Hmm?

 

Q: The same chief jus…?

 

Sheffer: Same chief justice. Then she one day—see, I’m getting this memory. One day, she walks into Symphony Space with her grandchild. She was taking the kid to one of the—then she sees me, and then she says, “Oh yeah, but you didn’t testify.” “No, no, I did this.” [00:25:01] And I remember her saying something like, “Oh, we ought to have lunch.” I was so stunned and impressed. But it did work. But the biggest thing of all, it was the court case. But as you perhaps know, what finally was the victory was what? The fact that now they all—everybody watches porn at home, and the stores basically began to fade because they could all—there was something. I mean, it’s all in the study. There were something like 130 stores in the whole—

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: —Times Square particularly. So, I think, I mean, this had an effect of a blow, but I truly think it was the change in the whole technology, and everybody not going into the stores. And then the enormous promotion and some lack of success but really basically success of the rebuilding of Times Square, the investment, and the tall building, and many hundreds of workers coming in. I remember that some of the places would call and ask me, you know, I mean, I think I was still doing stuff for Gretchen because I think it was after that—I think that’s the sequence—that she said, “Could you do a study of homelessness in Times Square?” Which was a big study that I did on that. In each case, I wasn’t morally, you know, I mean, I didn’t care for the pornography. I didn’t like it. I never wanted it. But I thought, well, leave me alone. I don’t care about it. [laughs] And, of course, the homelessness, I wanted it—there began to be so many, and I did a very major study, which made me—I think I got—was it Gretchen? But I think I did a big study, which was funded by the New York, well, I did one for the New York Community Trust here, and went with the cops on patrol, and went into the railroad here, because they’re sleeping in the trains. But there was also one for the 42nd Street bid, and how to reach out for them, because Gretchen did want to have help, and there began to be agencies for reaching out. So that was, I mean, it was kind of—I was stunned by what I was doing. I was impressed. Marcie went on to be—she was a very good planner, and she worked with a major planning for many, many years after that on many big developer things, and that was all. So it was somewhat bizarre, but it was good. 

 

[SIDE CONVERSATION]

 

Sheffer: Did I give you a, you know, that you could just look at the copy of the—?

 

Q: The study itself? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah. 

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: Yeah, I did, okay. It’s off of that, yeah.

 

Q: Thank you for all of those anecdotes, and for explaining—

 

Sheffer: It’s hysterical, right? 

 

Q: —[laughs] a few more pieces. [laughs] Yeah, it’s funny, an unexpected chapter of your career. So let’s talk now about the—you said that you’d made some extra notes about that Paul Goldberger article—

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: —that you had re-read it. And what I had originally asked was, you know, what were your thoughts on the redevelopment of Columbus Circle, and the kind of eventual outcome of it? Because it happened in the context of the city changing its process, as you explained in a previous session, that it was kind of one of the first processes that implemented ULURP after the Board of Estimate was deemed to be unconstitutional. So—

 

Sheffer: Well, also, by the way, I guess, the challenge to the Board of Estimate, I think, affected, and the doing away with it really affected other things, including Lincoln West, including Trump and all, you know, the end of the Board of Estimate. 

 

Q: So what were the thoughts that you had written down for, on that? 

 

Sheffer: [00:30:00] Here’s the thing, I think. The so-called—not so-called; that’s the name of it. The Tri-Board Task Force was the three community boards. The boards were not the power of it. Really, I don’t think that Board 7 cared about it because Board 4 and 5—and there were the first plans, which I think he describes, for the renovation and redoing an exhibition place, a convention center, basically. I can’t remember exactly, but the Tri-Board Task Force began then, loosely. Somehow—I have no idea why or how—I became the representative of Board 7. But I didn’t think that it was essential, because we were at the tip of it. And I remember Manfred Ohrenstein, who just died, I thought, my god. And the woman, Ros [phonetic [00:31:26] something, very, very much involved in politics. And he was the most powerful legislator, and representing Board 4 also. And 5, Midtown, you know, just requiring it. 

 

I don’t remember, though I think I have it, or maybe could see it, that it all sort of can, I guess, can be reflected in the boxes that I gave to the—that I throw things in. And then when this librarian came to the house, she says, “I’m taking everything and calling it the Ethel Sheffer,” because I had to sign. To this day, I’m wishing—does it say that—that somebody could look this up? [laughs] Because I don’t know that they organize it. But it really started—well, it was even before this—in these ’80s, I think, early on, and it was like many different false starts of what is needed. We need a big convention center. And it wasn’t working each time. I think, but I’m no longer certain, I know right after this, that when Mort Zuckerman and this other guy who’s still around, [Ed Linde]and Zuckerman then became the head of the—he bought The Daily News, and so on—took over, they recognized in the ’80s the opposition and the fact that even the so-called convention center wasn’t working, they didn’t know how to do it, and the traffic, and how do you get uptown? I mean, the plan was not working, and they saw—so there was opposition, even for those who were in favor of it. 

 

I have a vague memory of—the choice was in the ’90s of getting the architect Moshe Safdie. And I remember, somehow, I remember him. I knew nothing about him. But his presence, and the fact he had been—was successful with housing in Canada and elsewhere. When he came on, the communities, the community boards questioned him, disliked him and whatever he was saying. I did, and I thought, I don’t understand this. But I sort of, I think, personally, I thought, this guy is really like some sort of prestigious, quiet, interesting guy, and how to do this. But then it was also in the ’90s, I guess, the Municipal Art Society coming into it strongly. And I’m oversimplifying, but one memory, when that happened, and they—I never particularly—Kent Barwick was extremely effective. I never—I had a little something against it because I thought he—he thought, “What the hell am I doing here, frankly?”

 

Q: [00:35:00] [laughs]

 

Sheffer: I’m sure you have to knock out these things that the people will say, “Why is she here?” or me thinking, “What am I doing here?” Also, he said, “We’re going to do a lawsuit.” He explained how this was going to happen. The one thing I remember, strongly, is he said, “We’re going to ask Steve”—the name is in there—“and Ed Kirkland”—Steve from Board 5, and Ed Kirkland, two older ones. Ed Kirkland, kind of a wonderful, nutty guy, but really excellent, wanting to change and expand and really do something great with a subway station and also as landmarks, and have—and Steve, also. They were people of passion, and maybe [unclear] [00:35:55] and I and Board 7, I think, didn’t feel—weren’t—but they—and I began to enjoy their passion and that they were kind of nutty guys, but I liked them. I thought Kirkland was—because he would talk about and show me the subway station and what has to be done with it. And I got impressed with him saying, “It’s a landmark. It should be this and that.” But then, when MAS said that “we’re going to do the lawsuit, and that you have to be on it, and name the others,” I remember very strongly that I said, “I don’t live there, I’m not even close, and I don’t want to be on it. How can you put me on as having any interest? I live a mile away.” And he looked at me with annoyance and contempt, I think, and said, “No.” So there was, “You’re on it.” But then they got the publicity and Jacqueline Kennedy. And that had to do, the big thing, which is years into—what is it?—the ’90s, the early ’90s—

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: —is that the issues of shadows, the shadows on the park, as there’s going to be big buildings. The one memory I have—I mean, notice how I’m making it into nothing, but it was—I have a visual memory—where I was thinking, to see you, that I can’t remember the date when, but it’s all during this—that there was going to be the demonstration, which you can see it was all in all the newspapers—I don’t know if I, I mean, you could get it—of demonstrations in the park. The memory I have is that I was called when the reporters were coming. I feel I was indoors, and then I’m sitting next to, at a desk, Jacqueline Kennedy. So I am mostly in a mild state, behaving myself.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: But, as I’m sitting there, I’m checking out her shoes to see what she’s wearing.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Then, I always think of this, and that is, she was sitting, and she was sitting at a table, as I was next to her at a little table, with a yellow pad. And I realized, as I looked, that she had—that I believe—she had written out her remarks carefully in handwriting. I remember glancing at it. Inwardly, I’m the only one being very impressed that I think she did that. And then I remembered thinking she was nervous, and she had her remarks in front of her. I mean, I just thought of this. And then there was the demonstration about the shadows, and Jacqueline Kennedy, and all of that. So there was clout there, and with the MAS actions. And so the Tri-Board did continue, and then I gave testimony for Board 7. Now, I’m not sure if I’m mixing it up, but I think I am not. Eventually, there was a ULURP, or what, and I remember being in City Hall, to testify on behalf of Board 7. This came to me. [00:40:00] And Ruth Messinger, whom I never liked, I mean, because I think I told you that when I was running for office—see, nobody knows this, because it’s her word against mine—I knew nothing. And I get a phone call from her, when I was running for the Community Board the first time. And she said, “Hello,” and she said, “what the”—this is how this conversation started—“what do you think you’re doing?” Actually, I wasn’t a dummy, but I—“What?” She says—this was the line. See it’s her—she’ll never—“It’s not your turn. What are you doing?” And I said, “Uh, what?” And she said, “Ludwig Gelopter’s supposed to run or whatever.” I said, “I don’t know what you—” whatever. And of course, I ran. I won by one vote. 

 

Q: Right. You told me that you—

 

Sheffer: The second time, right, okay.

 

Q: Yeah. You told me that, but you hadn’t told me about Ruth Messinger calling you.

 

Sheffer: Yeah, that she did—but here’s the second Ruth Messinger vis-à-vis the Coliseum. I believe it has to be the Coliseum because my memory is strong. At City Hall, testimony for—I don’t know if it was the ULURP—but changes, I mean, on the Coliseum site. And she whispers to me, on the side, she said, “Make sure you say something nice about Mort Zuckerman when you get up there.” And I remember thinking, I mean, I didn’t, you know, I thought—I wasn’t, I mean, by then I’d be—I thought, “Hmm.”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: So she said that. I did what I was doing, and I’m sure I did say something, because I then also was learning—now that’s a whole other story of learning to negotiate, or learning how—and the Community Board, I think, I don’t want to make myself that much a center, but the ones who voted once that way, voted twice, and still didn’t want me. And when I would go to testify, they still—so I was learning. But her asking me to do that, I just thought—I came to think that, yeah, okay, I mean, I think she was—I don’t know if she was Manhattan borough president then or whatever. But, I mean, she was wor…had to be working with them, with some of the developers. And those on the Community Board, who are to be admired because you needed the push, but they were constantly saying, “No.” And if you said no with nothing else, as you know, even the—when I found this letter now that I sent you, from the three, and everybody said—

 

Q: From 2002, yeah.

 

Sheffer: —“Oh yeah, we like the trees now.” So it’s crazy. It was fifteen, twenty years to do this, and it’s still not terrific, but you notice who said—I was surprised when I found that just now—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —as to who assigned that, you know, to show Paul Goldberger. And that’s in 2000-something, right? 

 

Q: Two, I think, yeah.

 

Sheffer: So it’s a very complicated, interesting thing, so that was, “Yes, you did okay with this, but now it could be that.” And then, it doesn’t go together exactly, but when I found the letters from Zuckerman and his partner, and in each case, “To dear Mrs. Sheffer,” and saying that “Finally, thank you for—” I mean, the letter, three sentences, was, I took it, which I have over the years, I took it as, you were impossible, you stopped us, in a way. I was not the only one, but they didn’t make it. But then you found some ways, so we thank you, and you sit there. Now, I think I told you that over the years—he’s not calling me anymore—this guy, Ed Wallace, who was a council member, he had become one, but then—and he is still a lawyer of one of the biggest firms in the city. [00:45:00] Then when I—my only time ever with any job, I mean, a job that wasn’t academic, when I—Jerry Nadler and Carl McCall managed—called the Department of Social Services, Barbara Bloom, the commissioner, to say, “Hire her, and then do the SRO study.” Then when I started that, I also helped in the World Trade Center, my only government job for 10 months or something. But I also created a devel—what was it called?—a developer relocation, I mean, to find ways to build SROs, even though you were against SROs. So Ed Wallace then was a developer, and he was on that also. So, in these last years, in different ways, we became friends, not really, but all of that. And once the things—and I’m mixing it up now. But over the years, we’d have coffee or whatever. And he then, maybe a year or two ago, when we were having coffee, he said, “You were so impossible, Ethel.” 

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: “You were so difficult, he said.” And then he said—what was it? I think I’m mixing it up now. He said, “But, ultimately, you were looking, and trying—seeing if a deal could be made, not quite a deal, but you were trying to find—so that you got some stuff, where the Community Board would then be against—would still be voting against it.” And there were many times, many times, people would get up, and say in front of me, ‘Oh, the chair is—I wasn’t chair of the board even then.” But she’s doing stuff, you know, selling out, which is very, very hard. 

 

Q: Yeah, hard to hear, yeah.

 

Sheffer: But the Columbus Circle, I don’t think it’s really perfect, but the fact—I only found that letter signed by so many people in the two thou…that I had it on the computer. And I thought, well, I mean, it was only like fifteen or twenty years, but there’s a lot of, “Okay, pretty good.”

 

Q: Well, you say, yeah, only fifteen or twenty years, but that’s so long, really. And, I mean, I think what you said in your notes about that, the way that it started out was bumpy, rocky, but, over time, the group involved was able to get a few concessions that worked out—

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: —in favor of the communities. And I also wanted to ask you, what are some of the things, when you look at Columbus Circle today, that you think about, like, “Oh yeah, this is pretty good, and that’s something that we fought for”? What would you like people to look at? 

 

Sheffer: Well, I’m thinking, I don’t go there so much anymore. Now, they’re also, in recent years, on 57th, with a whole homeless facility. And I think Board 7 was voting against that, and so were others, because it’s not being handled well, which is probably the case about that. I think the fact that there’s the plantings, and that you could sit and all that—I’m trying to remember. They could probably make it more functional and prettier. Still, there’s always the cars. I mean, you have to—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: If you’re coming from downtown, and you’re in a car, or in order to get east—you’re coming south, and then you want to go east, you have to go around the circle, and then go down 7th Avenue. 77th. It’s sort of awkward and accommodating the cars a great deal, which I think, hmm, maybe it didn’t have to be that way. But it’s okay. I don’t think that the building is the most gorgeous. Safdie was very dedicated to it—I don’t know—and he’s very good, and felt contempt often, I think, because he knew what he wanted to do. I don’t know if he was completely satisfied. But I just began to admire him and respect him, somehow. And sometimes if I come vaguely from either the north or the east, and I walk around, then I stop into Le Pain Quotidien, or something, to sit outside [laughs], some of that stuff, and I think, okay, it’s working. [00:50:04] Trying to think of other circles in the city, I mean, like in Brooklyn and Prospect Park, and whatever. So, I mean, I don’t know, because I don’t do enough of it. The north, oh, to think of the north part of Central Park and here, it’s not the greatest circle. It’s not as good looking, I think. 

 

Q: It’s not as big, but it’s a little bit friendlier to pedestrians than in Brooklyn, right above Prospect Park, which is all cars.

 

Sheffer: Interesting. Yes, I don’t know. I guess I’m not the—yes, that’s correct. And then the Harlem community, or others, do work at, and have a voice, and get the—wait a minute—the whole idea of the pedestrian ability. But there’s a whole movement to do away with cars, and there are some, what, actual success. Now, Fifth Avenue now, they said—what did they do? They did it once or twice now, you know, no cars. But it’s a push to do it with opposition, but it’s getting, maybe—you know.

 

Q: Yeah. It’s bringing a little bit of pedestrian ownership to some of these spaces—

 

Sheffer: Exactly.

 

Q: —that you might normally stay away from because they seem to be dominated by cars. 

 

Sheffer: Right. It’s still questionable. Is there enough, I mean, in fact, not of pedestrian safety walking there, but it’s all, I mean, London did more of it than other cities around. But it’s hard for New York and hard for America with cars. But there is the change, and diminishing, which at least is something. 

 

Q: Yeah, absolutely. Those are really good points. Let’s talk about your more immediate neighborhood now, the Upper West Side. 

 

Sheffer: Well, I was puzzling about just the way you, ah, to preserve. 

 

Q: Yeah, I’d asked about what are the most important things to preserve about the Upper West Side? 

 

Sheffer: I’ll get to Symphony Space. I don’t really know. I’m always unhappy now with it. Well, I don’t know. As I began to think of it last night, or I woke up and I didn’t know what I was thinking, because I think I walked out—oh no, I know. I think there was something that came over the internet of, just now, several stores closing, and I was quite aston…now they’re all writing about Absolute Bagels. 

 

Q: Yes. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: I mean, do you feel that, I mean, did you ever—? 

 

Q: I was going to go there today—

 

Sheffer: No kidding? [laughs]

 

Q: —and it closed two days ago. 

 

Sheffer: But, evidently, I mean, this is a madness that they closed because the place was filthy? I mean, when did it—? 

 

Q: I don’t know. I don’t know the reasons. 

 

Sheffer: That’s the reason, rats running around, I mean, what is that about? 

 

Q: Ugh. Yeah.

 

Sheffer: But then a store here on 89th Street and Broadway, which is sort of an uptown, West Side, you know, Good Stuff, whatever’s the major, you know, the good—?

 

Q: HomeGoods or—?

 

Sheffer: No, the Whole—the big supermarket, you know, that’s west. What’s the zoning with—? 

 

Q: Oh, Westside Market? 

 

Sheffer: No. It’s a small version of the great big—the other one, and presumably one that is only pure and—

 

Q: Oh, Whole Foods, maybe? 

 

Sheffer: Whole Foods. So there’s a Whole Foods in a store that’s been there on 88th, 89th Street, and they’re announcing they are closing. Then there’s a third place here, also closed, and there’s a whole—and I’m thinking, wait a minute. Now, okay, so what’s the character, what are we talking about here in the neighborhood? Now, what do I like about it? But it’s not easy. It’s not great now up here to do the variety of shopping. There are empty stores that continue, and there have been efforts of, well, there could be subsidy, or they could—or there could be an arts place that should go to the—but who’s supporting it, and how? [00:55:08] And then the Getting to Yes, all that’s occurred, you know, the zoning—

 

Q: The City of Yes.

 

Sheffer: —the big thing in 60 years, the goal, says City Planning, is that we need new housing, and there is provision—I can’t go into it now—but it’s clearly far, far, far from adequate. 

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: And it’s true, because I don’t care, I wanted to preserve Brooklyn and Queens or whatever, and I’m glad if they are saying, okay, you don’t have to only have cars and one-family houses. But, here, how adequate is both the incentives and the regulation to provide for moderate-income housing? And I think there’s real questions about that. And the battle, I mean, Gale Brewer will—if Extell goes on, we’ll insist on it, I don’t know. [01:00:00] I’m not yet answering your question. What would I like the Upper West Side to contin…well, first of all, I guess, even in the so-called bad economic times—and maybe there was always rich versus poor—the architecture, for example, along Central Park West, yes, for wealthier people and some like here, and so counts. And the mid-blocks and the brownstones, which ADU (Attached Dwelling Units) [01:00:38] is allowing that you could put more into the back, you know, the rear yards is to worry about.

 

Q: Oh, accessory dwellings.

 

Sheffer: But I think they’re going to be able to do it, but who’s involved? Who is going to be working at it? Who could do it together? Then, okay, this is unusual, and we get to Symphony Space. But, in general, the churches, to some degree, and the synagogues, there are a lot of them, and I guess they’re active. But I’m not sure about what are they [laughs] that preserves or enhances, rather than, I mean, there was a wonderful thing that the community did with a woman who’s left it [01:01:34], by helping create a recreational center for people with disabilities. It’s a great thing, a playground on Amsterdam Avenue. That was a—it is a very good thing. So there needs, I think—I don’t know. I’m mixed up. I’m not sure. 

 

Q: It’s a tough question. [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: It’s very—it is. But I also am not certain that the Community Board, in terms of the way it’s working, is—what’s coming before it, I mean? You don’t have to have a new project, but begin to say, let’s look at the next five blocks, and do that together, which I would say, yeah, yeah, let’s take a look, and see what you’re seeing. I mean, there are minor things. Everybody wants public bathrooms. So then—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —you can’t do that. So I haven’t answered, and I’m upset. 

 

Q: Well, I guess, I hear two things. One is that, something that’s important to preserve is just the knowledge about the neighborhood.

 

Sheffer: Very much so. 

 

Q: And then the second thing is that, a lot of times, if I ask somebody this question, they’ll say they want it to stay like it was thirty years ago. That’s when they moved there, and that’s what they loved, and they don’t like the changes. But you’re saying things are always changing, and we’re always seeing new possibilities. Like, maybe a church comes down, and a center for people with disabilities comes up, and something you couldn’t have foreseen—

 

Sheffer: Or the church could accommodate both physically and in terms of its mission. 

 

Q: It’s just so rare for me to hear someone say, “I don’t really know, because things will change.”

 

Sheffer: Yes. But—

 

Q: And so I just want to compliment you on that. [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Thank you. But I do feel the obligation. I should at least say more. Now, for a moment, I reread the last two or three pages of this, and I was kind of impressed. 

 

Q: Is that the Lincoln West? 

 

Sheffer: Yeah. Now, remember, that’s before Trump. And looking at that, I was complaining, and also it was at the end of the Board of Estimate, that that was done away with, which was done away with for, as you know, I mean, the Supreme Court said that it was against [laughs] civil liberty, you know, doing it. But, after that, the question of ULURP and the process, and it’s far—and we know—and now there’s an attempt by Adams, another charter commission. I’m also wondering why nobody asked me to get on that, you know, but okay. So what are they looking for now in the City Charter? I mean, okay, the Board of Estimate was done away. It was all powerful, and was done away with because it did not represent everybody. [laughs] And, now, how does it work? It’s what? The city council is the legislative body, yes? [01:04:59] So who goes—how does it work, what is ULURP about it, and how could it be changed? 

 

Q: And if all of the development that’s happening under City of Yes is as a right, then ULURP isn’t—

 

Sheffer: Correct.

 

Q: —even part of it. Yeah.

 

Sheffer: Now, actually, the change in the City of Yes may affect Brooklyn and Queens more, maybe, than here. However, I’m not sure. But it’s worth it to at least understand, which I don’t think is understood here, by the new people, by ULURP, and what do we think needs to be changed? I mean, if Gale Brewer now will say—I called her, not to her face, I mean, she’s good, but I called her—I can’t believe what she said to me. She’s the godfather. She’s operating as go…

 

Q: [laughs] 

 

Sheffer: I said that. And this is what she said to me, not just to me but on this Extell thing, which I still don’t know—maybe he’s not going to do it—but that she, in effect, her goal is totally, completely—and she’s going to get it, because that’s how she will vote for City of Yes, which she just did—

 

Q: Yeah.

 

Sheffer: —because up until then, she wasn’t. Okay? So there were two things that she said, that it has—that place has—that development has to have housing on site, affordable and, no questions, it’s got to be there. Because there can theoretically be affordable housing under City of Yes, but I’m sure that—I would doubt very much that Gary Barnett would want it on site. But, okay, maybe let it be. But that was what she wanted. At the same time, though, what’s the involvement? What is the Community Board, and does the Community Board understand it? 

 

Q: Yes. Because if I remember correctly, in the lessons from Lincoln West, you’d said that it really doesn’t matter because the community needs resources in order to become up to speed on whatever the issue is. So you can’t just have a period of feedback if people don’t have the opportunity and the means to learn what they need to learn. 

 

Sheffer: Exactly.

 

Q: And so that is still applicable, is what you’re saying.

 

Sheffer: Yes, but—and all the process, now this Community Board said, “Other community boards are doing it,” and they passed that they can—that now there can be a public member appointed to the Community Board, by the Community Board, and go on a committee. Board 5 had—I just thought, and maybe I’m [unclear] [01:08:08]—I almost didn’t vote for it. I just thought, what are you doing? It’s good if the Community Board people should take on—they should get trained, they should do it, and that that’s a job, but also welcome and work with the public, and settle—I mean, I thought, why not set up a task force or something, and let’s do it? And you don’t necessarily have to have—but bring public—I just thought, this is crap, and I didn’t vote for it. But they feel, “Oh yeah, we’re opening it to the community.” You should open it to the community in other ways, because they don’t know what we do. 

 

Q: Yes, yes, yes. 

 

Sheffer: So that’s hard, but that thing here, what I—and that was before Trump, right, you know, before—and when the Argentinians failed, and then when the bank says to Trump—and Trump was always saying, “I want to build the world’s tallest building,” which of course nobody wanted.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: But then the big thing that then happens is that the civics, the civic organizations reach out to Trump. Then the bank says to Trump, “You need them because you don’t even have the money.” And he joins with them, and it’s a big triumph. And, of course, the Community Board feels, “Yeah, they’re cutting us out,” you see, because they’re with him. And that’s okay, in a way, but then what’s it about? So what finally happened is what is built there, and some of it’s, you know, it’s okay. [01:09:59] And then look at, I mean, it took ages for Riverside South, and it’s Extell. I mean, I think I sent you—because I looked at the big, you know, what am I thinking of? The website of Riverside South, I think I [unclear] [01:10:17]—

 

Q: Yeah, the PowerPoint. 

 

Sheffer: —was approved, and I think a couple of other things. So what did we learn from that? And then I did do that big talk, which I think I sent you, and everybody was praising it, during COVID.

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: And people said, “Ethel, this was incredible,” whatever. Except in that, and I was—it was on Zoom, and I was sitting here like, “Huh.” Somebody was helping me. And then, of course, and I looked, and there were different emails from individuals. “Wow, Ethel, we really learned something.” I thought, ooh, how nice. And then this woman, Roberta Semer, who was still on the Community Board, and she was chair—now, nobody else was. I mean, I can’t stand her. But even then—this is what, 2021 or ’22 when I did that—she got on, and I was leaning back, because I was so exhausted, and she proceeds to ask a question. And what she did was go on for five minutes. “We in Lincoln Towers, we did this, and we did that, and we managed to get that.” Now of course at Lincoln Towers and all of that but, I mean, she’s still—she’s now on the Community Board, and she was on—and she was a chair, and when she became chair—and Seema Reddy, a younger woman, came on the board. And I reached out or met Seema, and I said, “Seema, are you a planner?” And I go, “You know what would be fun? I would like it”—I was already president. I said, “There’s big talk that Trump is going to take over. How about the two of us start writing some stuff to either present eventually to Trump, or let’s do it?” She said, “Oh, I learned from you,” blah, blah, blah. Nobody remembers this, and it’s my word against them. 

 

Roberta called me then, and says, “What do you think you’re doing?” And I had [01:12:27], “What? What are you talking about?” She says, “You are not to deal with Trump. You’re not to call him or do anything.” And I said, “What are you saying?” And I then said to her—this is, what, three years, four years ago, or something, or five [01:12:45]. I said, “That’s what you’re telling me?” And I said to her, “I am now going to hang up on you, and I will never speak to you again, unless”—and I did it—“unless you change the way you—” And I said, “How dare you do it,” and I hung up. And, of course, I pass her in the hall. But that’s ridiculous. And she heads a senior task force, which I guess is okay. But then I went to a meeting, when she was chair, and she set up some Broadway something or other. I went to it, because you could go, and because I thought, oh, Symphony Space is on Broadway. I’d like to hear what’s going on. I sit in on it. Seema is the chair. Seema says nothing. And Roberta’s controlling this, so I’m thinking, see, I mean [unclear] [01:13:41]. So, whether I’m correct or not, I’m just feeling that I’m going to give the talk. I think I’m going to try to say something, maybe. Will something hap…will it be okay? Because it’s not good. And I did stuff with the federation, the WSFSSH, the West Side Federation for Senior Housing, a super-duper, incredible organization that has grown over the years, and is fantastic. I mean, it is like an empire, but they’re doing—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —great work. So that’s it, so I don’t know, I mean.

 

Q: I mean, I think all you can do is keep telling the history. 

 

Sheffer: Yeah. But there was something else you did a…

 

Q: Well, I asked about Symphony Space—

 

Sheffer: Well—

 

Q: So how—

 

Sheffer: —the big thing—

 

Q: —just about, like, how it impacted the character of the neighborhood. 

 

Sheffer: Well, enormously, in many ways, in that, first of all, that was the empty corner we, you know, and Allan Miller living across the hall. He was the assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, and then said, “Oh, I could do this, and do a free concert. Where do I go?” [01:15:03] And he came to me because I was in the community. And I knowing nothing, we wa…I said, “There’s a place on 95th.” And I think I told you, we walked in, and there was a boxing ring in it.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And there were two African-American guys. The two of us walk in. Allan begins to go on, “And so, you know, I’m going to do this Wall to Wall Bach,” and they’re looking—I mean, you’ve seen the poster in the bathroom—

 

Q: Mm-hmm.

 

Sheffer: —which is of that day, finally. And he talks about—and I then interrupted, I said, “How much do you want for us to do this?” Because he says, “It’ll be all day.” They don’t answer, and I think I said something like, “We’ll give you 350 or something.” In any case, then Isaiah helps him. And then, I mean, 4,000 or 5,000 people walked in on the coldest day of the year. The famous thing, McDonald’s is still there. McDonald’s was there then. 

 

Q: [laughs] Wow.

 

Sheffer: As it was freezing, a freezing January day, but people began to see this was free, and they waited around the corner, and they went all the way down to West End Avenue. I wasn’t the one to—but I’ve got to tell you, I still—I can’t believe it.

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: I walked into the McDonald’s, and I knew the manager because I was doing Blocks for a Better—I said, “Look, look.” And I said, “Go out there. Bring coffee”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: “Do this.” And he went and he took—and went and gave down to the people—I mean, when I look at the—

 

Q: Wow.

 

Sheffer: You know? At the same time, in the ’70s, there’s been these shootings and all, and it’s all been around McDonald’s, all of this? And the police are going, and it’s like, “What, what’s happening here?” Or it’s Gale, who then said––because again, Extell—this is like a few months ago. Extell owns The Belnord, you know, the big building on 96th Street. And there’s a street––you could put a store or something. And he then just arranged to put a bank in there. Five years ago—I don’t know what—she helped pass legislation, and it did pass, I think with Gale, with Ruth Messinger, to say that banks don’t animate the sidewalk, so don’t have them there. So they should only be there like forty-five feet, and just the gla…and then you could walk in and walk down there, but that was it. She then—so he’s—and the Community Board doesn’t know about it, and says, “Okay, we’re passing,” and passes that the bank could go there in a variance. 

 

She goes crazy, puts it in the newspaper, calls them up, and says, “I’m not voting for getting TS [01:18:19] or any of this,” and calls up the chair of the City Planning, and said, “You’re doing this? You dare”—I’m telling you what she—and then she said, “You take that out,” and he withdrew the permission, “or otherwise I’m not voting for you getting TS [01:18:42] either.” So she bullied him into it, and he did. And then she said, “And Community Board 7 voted for this,” and Richard voted for it, though he then declared this, and nobody was understanding what was happening. Excuse me, is this a way to do business? I mean, maybe. [laughs] I still don’t know whether there’s going to be another Extell thing. But, also, what would I say now about—at least up here, not so much at Lincoln Center, not because there are stores there. Many of them, by the way, in Lincoln, around the big buildings of Lincoln Center, they’re not retail stores; they’re medical facilities, some of them. 

 

Q: Yeah, yeah.

 

Sheffer: Right?

 

Q: That’s why I’ve been there, yes. [laughs]

 

Sheffer: Right. So you go there, but it’s not necessarily the—

 

Q: You don’t see it from the street. 

 

Sheffer: Right. So I don’t know that I’ve answered because I’m upset with myself about that, about not saying what would I want, you know. But the Symphony Space did extraordinary things because by starting it—and then it was really Isaiah and Allan. [01:20:00] Allan began to—got many Emmys and everything for television, and really did want it, so he is to be thanked. But Isaiah then, on the weekend after that occurrence of all of that, Sunday night, and we’re laughing, and counting and throwing the money, the coins out. And maybe—I don’t know—there was $1,000. He then said on the Sunday night, “That place has acoustics.” And I believe that he sat down on the Sunday night, or definitely on the Monday, with the typewriter. I do remember that. And he said—because I can remember that—he said, “The place has acoustics.” And you know what? It was a symphony. It had been like a movie, a symphony. And his first sentence that he said, “This, we will call it Symphony Space, a place for all the arts,” and he then lists the arts. 

 

Q: Yes, yes. All right. I think that this is maybe one of my last questions then, which is just another broad question about, you know, given all of the different jobs that you’ve had, and contributions that you’ve made to parts of the city, what are some of the things that you’re most proud of? 

 

Sheffer: See, even as you say it, I don’t even agree with your first premise.

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: See, that’s part of me. I really feel that, and I think, oh well, I didn’t—you know. But I don’t know. Probab…well, it’s the least of it but probably the people—when I say I negotiated with Donald Trump, of course, didn’t. You know, that’s what—when I gave the boxes on the Columbus Circle, the woman from the museum, and I just quickly showed her the picture—

 

Q: Yes.

 

Sheffer: —and that, and she said, “Would you give it to us anyway?”

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: And she said, “There’s the little hole that you put it on a bulletin board with.” She says, “We want that one. I want that one.” So I said, “Oh, I have to think about it.” [01:34:59] And so I quickly did go and make a reproduction, and gave her that, and I said, you know, with Trump. I don’t know. See, it’s extraordinary to me that Susannah, not telling me, on her own, researched, and called your organiza…but also didn’t tell me. And then she said, over the next—the last—she said, “And I looked over the résumés in the Columbia School, and I picked this woman.” And I said to her, when she called today, I said, “Susannah, you really did—” I said, “I can’t believe that.” But she was very good because I appreciate your professionalism, I do, because I believe you’ve worked at it, and I think the questions and everything have been good. [laughs] And it makes me feel, you know, you brought me to be thinking, and that’s a big thing, while being good and professional. I appreciate it.

 

Q: Yeah, yeah.

 

Sheffer: So I’m glad about that. Who or what—so what am I proud of? Who will see this? I don’t know, really. Being, oh, the president of the American Planning Asso…you know, also 9/11, I mean, I was part—but really the architects and everyone, we all formed, I mean, and I was part of it. 

 

Q: And all the parts of that were important, all the parts, because it—

 

Sheffer: The what, I’m sorry? 

 

Q: There were so many people and organizations involved in, you know, after—

 

Sheffer: In the world—

 

Q: Yes, so everybody is important.

 

Sheffer: Well, that, I had a small part. I think it was two or three years ago that the architects were having a conference, and there was a panel. It’s just recent. And I was on it too, and with the architectures. I was surprised that they asked me. In a way, typical of me, I was glad I knew them. But I was, I think, a little bit, again, critical of what didn’t happen—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —among us. I wonder if I could send that to you. I don’t know. But I was pleased to be asked, because the architects really did it. But there was all the politics and, I mean, about the 9/11, you know, the memorial. I still don’t—I don’t quite go. I did, when they were in the middle of building it, they said, “Come, go in the elevator there.” But I guess it’s all right. Oh, the one thing was that I was proud of—it was a side note—that a couple of the people planners who were in the World Trade Center, but got out. Then, some months later, this one guy who was the head, and I think still is, of Metropolitan Transportation something or other, he said there’s going—he called me, and said, “There’s going to be some hearing because section 106”—which is a federal thing for landmarking, you know, some—and I didn’t know enough about it. And he said, “They want to do away with the Vesey Street subway entrance,” which still survived. And he called me up, and said, “We are begging you”—I think I was president then, I don’t know—“to say, no, that has to be kept as an important thing and part of the memorial.” And I did go to—and I did it before what—the organization and I—I said, “No, this is very important, and you’ve got to—” And I was so glad. And I remember those who survived, but I remember those who were killed. But others did much more, of course, but it helped me to become, I guess, president of it. So I don’t know what I’m proudest of. I’d like to be doing a little bit more now of something. Because I’m pretty old, will have a bad birthday, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen to me because I could fall. And they’re telling me, like, put stuff around [laughs], and I better change the whole kitchen, which I guess is correct. [01:40:02] I don’t know. Do you have any sense of what might stand out of all this? 

 

Q: Well, I think that one thing that I’m thinking about is, nobody ever gets exactly what they want [laughs]—

 

Sheffer: So true.

 

Q: —because, especially in New York City, there’s so many different parties and agendas and everything. And so there’s something about having to always navigate that and negotiate where you can. And so maybe at the end, when certain things do come to an end, it’s hard to feel—hard to be super clear about how you feel about how things turned out, because there were some losses and there were some wins, there were some concessions, lots of concessions. And so maybe it’s not so black and white. But everything kind of feeds into the next thing, all the stories are kind of interconnected, and you’ve kind of told them that way to me. So that’s also not answering your question. Yeah. And thinking a little bit more about what you asked me, I think that the questions that you raised about input from community members is still very relevant, as we were saying. 

 

Sheffer: When you say—what do you mean? 

 

Q: In the lessons from Lincoln West—

 

Sheffer: Yes. 

 

Q: —that—

 

Sheffer: Then, yeah. 

 

Q: —how to make community input meaningful.

 

Sheffer: Yeah.

 

Q: And I think that that’s a relevant question for the ULURP process—

 

Sheffer: Right.

 

Q: —but it’s also a relevant question for everything else—

 

Sheffer: Yes.

 

Q: —because I think what you pointed out is when you’re knowledgeable, then you’re able to ask for—ask questions, make demands, make requests. And it’s always worth it to go to a developer, and say, “Look, this is too big. We need this”—whatever it is that you need to say. 

 

Sheffer: Well, there are some community groups in the city who are doing better, maybe on their own—

 

Q: [laughs]

 

Sheffer: —I mean, nowadays. I don’t really know. I mean, well, I do a little bit. But, yeah, I mean—

 

Q: Yeah, the Community Board isn’t the only way to do that.

 

Sheffer: Exactly—

 

Q: But I think that—

 

Sheffer: —well, there are, indeed. 

 

Q: Yeah. But I think it’s keeping the example that you’ve set, because you’ve done a lot of work that’s been outside of the Community Board too—

 

Sheffer: Very much so, yeah. 

 

Q: —is just keeping your mind open to what are the possibilities, or what does the community need? 

 

Sheffer: Right.

 

Q: What needs to happen? 

 

Sheffer: This is a tiny thing that I realized a year ago or whatever, I mean, the district manager here, another matter, we learned and he explained that he is now reaching out to this group of block associations. [01:49:54] I don’t know much about them, though I observe and I have the sense that whoever’s running it, they’re quite smart and effective, and do that, and that the district manager goes to their meetings once a month or whatever, you know, something. So I just thought, well, that’s nice. But then the next thing I thought was, why doesn’t the district manager ask some board members to come also to their meetings so that they each see that? Why aren’t they doing this? And I felt like saying to the chair, you know, why are you keeping it—I mean, that’s a good thing to do—and why just the district manager? Let someone like a board—and I want to say it to them because I think, you know, I mean, I don’t have the authority, but I mean, I’ll say anything, and I’ll say it the next time, because if I’m staying on another year, I’m now going to talk more, whether they like it or not.

 

[END OF INTERVIEW]