Oral history interview with Nathan Leventhal, 1992.

Biographical Note

Deputy Mayor.

Scope and Contents

Personal background, work in Washington D.C. as an intern in the office of Robert F. Kennedy and in the Air Force General Counsel's Office; John V. Lindsay Administration, descriptions of various positions held, recollections of housing issues and rent decontrol; Edward I. Koch [Koch] Administration: descriptions of positions held as Deputy Commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development and Deputy Mayor for Operations, handling of rent control and rent stabilization, rehabilitation and new housing, South Bronx Program, tenant cooperatives, gentrification; initial confusions and resulting antagonisms of streamlining of city government; transit strike, Koch's handling and city's preparedness; controversies over reduced manning of sanitation trucks and one man police cars; success of Pooper Scooper Law; responses to de-institutionalization of mentally ill and management of homeless population; opposition to incentives for minority businesses; political impact of closing of Sydenham Hospital; comparisons of Koch Administration to Mayor David Dinkins' Administration; reflections on Koch's personality and management style; Koch's relationships with the press and Mario Cuomo.

Subjects

• Interviews.
• Koch, Ed, 1924-2013.
• Leventhal, Nathan--Interviews.
• Municipal officials and employees--Interviews.
• New York (N.Y.). Mayor.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Zane, Sharon, interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 1993.