Richard Ravitch, former New York Lieutenant Governor and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) chairman credited for bringing the city out of crisis in the 1970s and 1980s, died Sunday night at age 89.
His wife, Kathleen M. Doyle, confirmed to The New York Times Ravitch’s passing.
“Dick Ravitch was a titan of New York’s civic world who left an indelible mark on our State, and he will be greatly missed. From steering the MTA through a critical time to serving as Lieutenant Governor, he was a steady, savvy, and brilliant leader and a public servant in the truest sense of the term,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul stated. “As Governor, I greatly appreciated Dick’s wisdom and thoughtful advice, and I know all New Yorkers have benefited from his contributions. I join his wife Kathy, his loved ones, friends, and all New Yorkers who knew him in mourning his passing and remembering his tremendous achievements.”
Born on July 7, 1933, to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, Ravitch went to Yale Law School and had a successful career start in construction before accepting government-appointed positions and pulling New York City back from the brink of bankruptcy.
In 1960, Ravitch joined HRH Construction Corporation, co-founded by his father, and there oversaw the creation of 45,000 affordable housing units. His entry into public service began with an appointment by President Lyndon Johnson to the United States Commission on Urban Problems in 1966.
Crisis Management
The night of Oct. 16, 1975, New York City was hours away from bankruptcy. The city had just $34 million of the $453 million debt due 4 p.m. the next day.
As The New Yorker writes, then-Gov. Hugh Carey summoned Ravitch and requested he convince Al Shanker, head of the teacher’s union, to buy the Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds—based on a model Ravitch had previously proposed—that would lend the city the needed funds. Ravitch talked with Shanker until 5 a.m., but the union head could not envision risking the teachers’ pensions. The Dow dropped 10 points at the opening bell on the 17th.
Hours later, Shanker had met with then-Mayor Abraham Beame and former Mayor Robert Wagner at Gracie’s Mansion, and then requested another meeting with Carey somewhere private. It ended up being in Ravitch’s apartment. The several hours-long meeting included a hiatus wherein Shanker met with the Teachers’ Retirement System, and less than two hours before the default the union made the announcement: it would purchase the bonds. The NY Times recalls that Ravitch convinced banks in Washington to stay open beyond the usual closing time on the 18th so the city could pay its debts.
In 1975, Ravitch was appointed chairman of the New York State Urban Development Corporation, and from 1975 to 1976 would assist in organizing the corporation’s finances and creating affordable housing.
In 1979, he was appointed chairman of the MTA where he lobbied for the funding and systems needed to revitalize public transit.
Saving NYC’s Subway
“Dick Ravitch, for everybody in the transportation business, was a giant,” said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber during a June 26 committee meeting. “He was the chairman of the MTA at maybe the lowest moment in the history of at least the subway system, and certainly the mass transit system in New York. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, he led the beginnings of the turnaround of our great mass transit system. I knew him from those days, coincidentally, when I was still a kid in high school.”
“He was one of the reasons that I got excited about transit, it was the area that was most representative of New York’s incredible revival, starting in the late 1970s. And in many ways, he is one of the fathers of the mass transit system that we have today, which we celebrate in so many different ways and try to continue to improve in his spirit.”
When Ravitch took on the MTA, the subway system was one of frequent breakdowns and record delays. He pushed for legislation that would allow the MTA to take out loans, backed by fares, tolls, and taxes, for system improvement.
“That was in many ways my greatest achievement in my life, to get those laws passed,” Ravitch told Gothamist. “That’s what provided the MTA with the capital to rebuild.”
During his tenure, 33,000 transit workers walked off in a strike that lasted 11 days, bringing all subway and bus service to a halt in 1980.
“There was a pent-up feeling on the part of the transit workers, who, because of the fiscal stringencies of the 70’s, hadn’t had a wage increase in a long time,” Ravitch told the NY Times 25 years later, reflecting on the strike. City officials were adamant that Ravitch not give in to the initial 15 percent first year and 10 percent second year increase demanded, and in the end both parties agreed on a 9 and 8 percent increase with cost-of-living adjustments.
Two years later saw another negotiation, on better terms. Having put in place a five-year upgrade plan to the transit system, he “won the confidence” of the unions, according to a 1982 NY Times report, garnering praise from “even his adversaries at the bargaining table.”
He left the MTA in 1983 and led efforts to reorganize The Bowery Savings Bank, which had once been the nation’s largest mutual savings bank. He then oversaw player relations at the Major League Baseball and c0-chaired the co-chair of the Millennial Housing Commission, according to his biography.
Though Ravitch was deeply involved in the public sector, he was never elected to office. In 2009 he was appointed lieutenant governor, which he later told The Wall Street Journal was a position that did not contribute much to public welfare. As he described the large office in his 2014 memoir: “The rooms came to seem like a metaphor of the job I held; elaborate and empty.”
He remained a respected voice in policy and public finance. Last year, he published an essay regarding the Penn Station redevelopment plan.
“In my more than 60 years in and around government in New York, I’ve learned one thing for sure: When it comes to spending taxpayers’ money to score political points, very few elected officials care about the price tag,” he wrote.
The Citizen’s Budget Commission issued a statement after Ravitch’s passing: “Dick’s accomplishments are deservedly legendary and New Yorkers all benefit from his legacy. For CBC, he was our Chair, Rohatyn Award recipient, and dogged motivator. Dick was a huge supporter. He so often said that CBC was the only organization that still told the truth and always urged us to be bold.”
Funding Journalism
Greg David, director of the Business and Economics Reporting Program at CUNY J School, wrote in The City that after after Ravitch’s stint as Lieutenant Governor, he “became appalled by the superficiality of coverage and overall lack of interest among media outlets on the issue of state and city finances and wanted to do something about it.”
In response, he funded the Ravitch Fiscal Reporting Program, which has trained 900 journalists over the past nine years. Ravitch knew from his time negotiating for the MTA that the media “moved the legislature,” David wrote. Ravitch was the first chair of the board of The City and had supported its founding.
“One afternoon, I was having lunch with Dick at his Fifth Avenue apartment when a New York Times reporter called for his advice on delving into a major story that had implications far beyond New York,” David wrote. “So many journalists have had similar conversations with Dick, known as a “wise person” among journalists: someone to call for frank talk about issues and insights on how to cover them. Needless to say, the media scene is very different these days. But Dick never lost his conviction that journalists are crucial to good public policy.”
