Who am I?

I am a New Yorker.


My first trip here was in 1964, when I visited the Statue of Liberty and the New York World's Fair. I remember climbing up the long winding stairs all the way to the crown, and reading the inscription on a tablet within the pedestal on which the statue stands:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A poem by Emma Lazarus

I remember a few Pavillions of the 1964 New York World's Fair:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcJAULZpvNU&feature=related

Branding itself as a "Universal and International" exposition, the Fair's theme was "Peace Through Understanding," sanctifying "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe." The theme was symbolized by a twelve-story high, stainless-steel model of the earth called Unisphere.

The Fair was a showcase of mid-twentieth century American culture and technology from its leading corporations. The emerging Space Age, which I was excited by as a child, was also covered by the exhibits. Over fifty-one million people attended the New York World's Fair.

The organizers recruited New York's "Master Builder," Robert Moses, to manage the company set up to run the Fair because he had a track record issuing bonds to raise money for vast public works projects.

The public works projects masterminded and financed by Robert Moses-- including upstate New York dams, New York superhighways and New York state parks as well -- boggle the imagination. According to Robert A. Caro's 1974 book, ``The Power Broker,'' Moses developed projects costing $27 billion between 1924 and 1968, which, adjusted for inflation, is over $125 billion today, almost $3 billion per year.

``More than any other single individual, this one man shaped Long Island as we know it, in its modern form,'' Caro said in a telephone interview. ``He shaped it for the better, and a striking example is Jones Beach. And for worse, a striking example of which is the Long Island Expressway, which did not have to be built the way it was built. The building of the Long Island Expressway, the zoning policies with which he influenced communities, and the systematic starving of mass transit condemned Long Islanders to traffic jams for the rest of their lives.''

He spear-headed the planning and building of most of New York City's highway infrastructure and, as Parks Commissioner, Robert Moses created most of the city's and Long Island's park and public beach system over a period of decades. He is one of my heroes in the history of New York's infrastructure for innovation.

I loved one ride in particular at the Pepsi Pavillion from Disney: "Its a Small World". The ride has several audio-animatronic animated children from all over the world singing the ride's title song (composed by the Sherman Brothers), which has a theme of world peace. The ride was transferred to Disneyland, in Los Angeles, and later adapted for Disneyland in Orlando, Paris and Tokyo, along with the "Carousel of Progress" and the first Abraham Lincoln audio-animatronic figure for the original "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" show. I remember Abe Lincoln, sitting, with his beard and stove pipe black hat, and then slowly standing and talking about human freedom.

This is the speech that Mr. Lincoln gave during the show at both the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair and during various versions of the show after it was transplanted Disneyland.

"The world has never had a good definition of the word "liberty". The American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty. But in using the same word, we do not all mean the same thing.

"What constitutes the bulwark of our liberty and independence? It is not our frowning embattlements, our bristling sea coasts. These are not our reliance against tyranny. Our reliance is in the love of liberty, which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us in a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected?

"I answer that if it ever reach us, it must spring from amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be the authors and finishers. As a nation of free men, we must live through all times, or die by suicide.

"Let reverence for the law be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in the schools, in the seminaries, and in the colleges. Let it be written in primers, in spelling books and almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And in short, let it become the political religion of the nation. And let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes, and tongues, and colors, and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly at its altar.

"And let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that, in future national emergencies, He will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, or frightened from it by menaces of the destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might. And in that faith, let us to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it."