The Mayor Who Walked To Work

3.5 miles to City Hall and back, every day [FORWARD TO A FRIEND]( [VIEW IN BROWSER]( [DONATE]( [WNYC Politics Brief] Walking To Work: One Mayor Did It Plus: Should NJ Transit split in two, with South Jersey getting its own system? The OMNY fare payment system doesn't yet have the equivalent of a monthly unlimited pass. And both mayoral candidates agree: Save the yellow cab drivers. --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- [Eric Adams on a CitiBike] Wikicommons Earlier this month, Democratic mayoral candidate Eric Adams declared that if he's elected, he would ride a bike to and from City Hall on a regular basis, making him New York’s first "[bike mayor]( In a way, we’ve been down this road before — over a century ago, Gotham was led by a chief executive who was our first great "walking mayor": William J. Gaynor. Gaynor, who served as a reform-minded Brooklyn judge before being elected mayor in 1909, lived near the Grand Army Plaza entrance of Prospect Park. This was years before New York City mayors were given the use of Gracie Mansion as an executive residence. Every morning, Gaynor — who was in his early 60s — would exit his home, stride down Flatbush Avenue, walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, and end his trip at City Hall. The journey was about 3.5 miles one-way, and in the evening he would walk the reverse route. He practiced this routine "not occasionally, not frequently — but every one of the working days of the year," wrote Edwin Wildman, a New York Times reporter who accompanied Gaynor on one of his Tuesday morning commutes during his first summer in office. Wildman’s detailed account of his walk and talk with Gaynor, published in the paper with a spread of photos, provides some insights about one of our best, but little remembered, 20th-century mayors. Gaynor, we learn, was a serious walker, not just a commuter. "I start out from my house and take a ten, fifteen, or twenty-mile walk in the Brooklyn suburbs, often," he told Wildman. "One shouldn't walk too fast," he advised. “Walk evenly, moderately — and the best results are obtained.” Regarding his City Hall trips, Gaynor said, "I usually walk alone — I prefer to, because I think better as I walk .… There are so many interruptions during the day. It is during these morning walks that I plan out the day's work. Gaynor said he was confounded by the commuting habits of most New Yorkers. "There's no excuse for any man with an office within three miles of his home not walking back and forth," he said. "Despite the fact that the offices and factories are crowded, and often illy lighted and ventilated, there is a mad rush for the overcrowded [street cars and subways] … If men would walk to their business, their health would be improved." (Gaynor, a general health and fitness enthusiast, was also a proponent of cold baths and only smoking socially.) The mayor's eccentricity and independent mindedness wasn't limited to his commute — a his tenure in office progressed, his reform-leaning policies would make him an outcast from the Tammany machine. Then, in August of 1910 — less than two months after his strolling interview with the Times reporter — Gayor was shot in the throat by a disgruntled former city employee. Though he survived the shooting, Gaynor died of a heart attack in 1913, before he could finish out his first term. He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery, and an attractive monument to his memory can now be found in Cadman Plaza, near the Brooklyn entrance of the bridge that he famously walked across each workday. — [The above is excerpted from an article by Michael Miscione, the former Manhattan Borough Historian]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Here's What Else Is Happening Mayor Bill de Blasio postponed the plan for a 5th Avenue busway after meeting with a real estate scion who's concerned about changes to the retail corridor. The plan, which had already been watered down from its original no-through-traffic vision, would've installed an extra dedicated bus lane, making the road a more efficient route for speedy bus travel. But after the mayor met with Steven Roth, the head of Vornado Realty Trust (and a potential donor for de Blasio's potential run for governor), the head of the transportation department postponed the plan, saying the city didn't want to interfere with the holiday shopping season. The option to go ahead with the busway will likely fall to the next mayor. ( [The New York Times]( The NYPD is going after people with fake license plates. Tickets for missing or obstructed license plates were up 45% in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period in 2019, and police made over 2,000 arrests in the first seven months of this year for fraudulent license plates, a marked increase from last year's total of 1,134 arrests. After broad enforcement slowdowns during the height of the pandemic, the NYPD said it's now making a concerted effort to crack down on fake paper license plates, which have been associated with dozens of shootings across the city. ([THE CITY]( The OMNY fare system currently has no "unlimited" option; the MTA might fix that. While commuters can buy weekly and monthly unlimited MetroCards, there's no equivalent with the OMNY tap-and-go fare payment system — each tap costs $2.75, no matter how many times you ride a bus or subway in a given week or month. The MTA said it's "workshopping" a way to give riders free taps after a certain point, a.k.a. "fare-capping." The next step, the agency said, would be to do a pilot program. ([AM New York]( Both Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa said during this week's debate that they'd do more to help yellow cab drivers get out from under crippling debt. Though Mayor de Blasio has launched a $65 million plan to help cab owners restructure their debt, drivers are currently staging a hunger strike in front of City Hall, arguing that the plan needs to go further, since the city was complicit in the boom and bust of taxi medallion values. Though neither Adams or Sliwa offered specifics, they both said they agree that the current plan is insufficient. ([Gothamist]( Should NJ Transit split into two agencies, one for North Jersey and one for South Jersey? "No matter what mass transit improvements there may be for South Jersey in the decades ahead, that section of the state will always be dependent on cars for basic travel," says a new report from a group of transportation finance experts. Their position: Stop making South Jersey subsidize mass transit for New York City commuters, give the region a break from high gas taxes and tolls, and give South Jersey its own mass transit agency that's more focused on electric buses and light rail. ([NJ.com]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- And Finally: [Go Vote!]( [a tweeted picture of someone reading a ballot guide on the subway]( [Gloria Pazmino/Twitter]( --------------------------------------------------------------- 🚆 --------------------------------------------------------------- Support WNYC + Gothamist Make a donation to support local, independent journalism. Your contributions are our largest source of funding and pays for essential election coverage and more. [DONATE]( [Facebook]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Instagram]( [WNYC]( [WQXR]( [NJPR]( [GOTHAMIST]( [WNYC STUDIOS]( [THE GREENE SPACE]( Copyright © New York Public Radio. 160 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013 All rights reserved. [Terms of Use.]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your [preferences]( or [unsubscribe]( from this list