[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 21 (Thursday, March 5, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S1479]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       URBAN POLICY, THE RICE FOUNDATION AND NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise today to call our 
attention to a most significant event to be held next week. On March 
10, 1998, New York University will honor the generosity and vision of 
Henry Hart Rice with the first ever Henry Hart Rice Urban Policy Forum 
on ``The Revitalization of New York City.''
  The moderator will be Dr. Mitchell L. Moss who has fittingly been 
named the Henry Hart Rice Professor of Urban Policy and Planning, a 
newly endowed chair at New York University. In addition to honoring the 
remarkable legacy and vision of Mr. Rice, this new chair, according to 
University President, L. Jay Oliva, ``will play a major role in 
supporting undergraduate programs in urban policy that will be 
available to students from all schools of the University.''
  The study of urban policy is vital to the future of New York and our 
nation. Appropriate that it is carried out by as vital and lively an 
institution as NYU. But let us not lose sight of our history as we look 
forward. For the longest while we in New York defined ourselves by 
spectacular public works. The Croton Aqueduct, 1842--pick and shovel 
all the way for 41 miles to 42nd Street. We built Central Park in two 
years--more gunpowder than was used at Gettysburg. The Empire State 
Building --a public work really--14 months. Steam power. But the plain 
fact is that we have developed a civic culture in which prestige more 
often goes to those who prevent the city from developing than to those 
who enable it. The time has come to ask how this came about, and how it 
might be reversed.
  Thus, it is with great anticipation that we look to Professor Moss, 
the esteemed participants in the Henry Hart Rice Urban Policy Forum, 
and the committed leaders at NYU, to lead us toward this end.




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