One day recently, at about half past twelve, some people with disparate professional interests gathered at the site of the first City Hall in New York City, on Pearl Street—now a vacant lot—and waited for Mayor Koch, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commissioner, and an archeologist to say a few words about archeology, Old New York, immigrants, the Dutch, the city today, archeologists, the original shoreline of Manhattan, archeological digs in Jerusalem, archaeological roots in old Greece, and other things along those lines. The people were there at the request of the Landmarks Preservation Commissioner, a large man with large, very white teeth, which anyone could see when he smiled, and he smiled a lot. The Mayor was late, and these people whom the Landmarks Preservation Commissioner had invited to hear him, the archeologist, and the Mayor speak wandered around almost aimlessly when they weren’t signing a piece of paper that said if they fell down and hurt themselves they wouldn’t sue anybody. Then
the Mayor arrived, and suddenly all these people, with their disparate professional interests, and maybe even disparate personal interests, found a common ground: all attention was now focussed on the Mayor. He walked over to the Landmarks Preservation Commissioner and the archeologist and greeted them. Then, while the Landmarks Preservation Commissioner and the archeologist made their speeches, the Mayor stuck his hands deep in his trouser pockets, glanced up and down, knit his eyebrows, made creases in his forehead, unmade the creases in his forehead, turned to look at what the people behind him were doing, looked up at the blue sky, looked down at his shiny black shoes, rubbed the area above his left cheek and just underneath his lower eyelid with the tip of his left index finger, put his left hand back in his left trouser pocket, pursed his lips, unpursed his lips, rocked his head from side to side, turned again to look at what the men behind him were doing, squinted his eyes, unsquinted his eyes, pressed his lips tightly together, then stretched them out in a Cheshire-cat smile, looked up at some pigeons flying by, took his left hand out of his left trouser pocket again, and rocked his head from side to side again. Later, we asked the Mayor what was going through his mind during the time the Landmarks Preservation Commissioner and the archaeologist were making their speeches. Without missing a beat, the Mayor said, “I was thinking how proud I am to be the one-hundred-and-fifth Mayor of the City of New York.”
—November 19, 1979