The Final Word: Charles Bagli on “Other People’s Money”

You had a lot of newspaper veterans that were on the staff and we were all sitting cheek to jowl in the office, literally on top of each other and I used to laugh, it was just this constant tapping because there was no advertising and there was so much space to fill.

Every week there seemed to be a new focus, flip-flopping, trying to find a niche and I think it finally did with the 1989 mayor’s race and they were using polls and we were doing a poll a month and there were four columns, one each week and at that point, since polls were expensive, no one else was doing them yet, even though this big political race was dawning, and I think we got a lot of notoriety out of that.

The next big thing was Graydon Carter coming to the Observer. I didn’t agree with everything he did and he tried to fire me several times, but he really raised the profile. I think it was under him the paper’s smart focus was on politics, real estate and the media. Arthur would always say: ‘We have the 50,000 right readers.’ I’d hoped it would be more readers than that, but it was a must read in the newsrooms, whether it was television or newspapers so by 1995, I would argue it was the smallest, most heavily recruited labor pool in the city and it had found a way to, not only as a weekly, bring people behind the scenes, but also to break some stories and so I really don’t have any complaints and Arthur refused to fire me and I think he identified some great journalists in the city and they’re working at The Wall Street Journal or New York magazine or Vanity Fair and elsewhere. I think he did a great job.

It’s a different paper today but I think those are still important areas.

Lastly, what was the research experience like?

Just on Stuy Town, it was great experience. Digging back—1947 in New York is like ancient history, because our memories are only about two minutes old. You feel like an archaeologist, finding memos or letters or papers. It was a funny thing about Stuyvesant Town, in many respects. It was sort of the first gated community, but for all the regimentation there were constant signs of rebellion. Whether it was in the first 25 years, when MetLife had to go to the Board of Estimates to get rent increases, and every time, the tenants rose up and fought them. So, then it would be voted down, and MetLife would go to court and get their rent increase. They very much saw it as a rare refuge for the middle class in Manhattan. You see the photographs of that era, people are all dressed up in ties and hats. Nobody goes out in ties and hats anymore.

Even in the little ways. I couldn’t tell you how many people told me when they were kids, they got such a kick out of racing across the grass chased by security guards. In those days, there were no locks on the doors, so you could run through the front door and out the back to elude the security guards, but woe be unto you if they caught you, because a letter went in your file.

Of course, the whole history of the original sin there, the racial practices, is really extraordinary. You would think we were better than that, but that fight was waged by people who lived there, and out of that was born the whole fair housing movement, so I think it’s a real touchstone for the history of urban development.