Ben Nadeff-Haffrey
speaker
1,009 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 6 Aug
Ben Nadeff-Haffrey’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.
Appearances
And this was a big problem.
The harbor was polluted.
Epidemics and crime waves didn't care that these were different cities.
They spread wherever they pleased.
The competing areas would bicker about water supply, which, when it ran short, let huge fires blaze up.
So, in the 1890s, a wealthy group of Manhattanites came up with a plan.
They would convince these five disparate places to join into one gigantic city.
This was called consolidation.
In 1898, the greater New York City was born.
But just like when the United States came together, there was a concern.
How could the new boroughs be sure that they wouldn't just be dominated by Manhattan?
The answer was an obscure legislative body known as the Board of Estimate.
Frank Cipolla, who was the assistant press secretary for the Staten Island borough president about 40 years ago.
The deal that was struck at the dawn of the city was that each borough president would have an equal vote on the board, right alongside the mayor, the comptroller, and the city council president.
And to be clear, these weren't just some perfunctory meetings.
The compromise was that the Board of Estimate held all the real power in the city.
The city's budget.
The city's land.
The city's operations.
And Cipolla found himself attending meetings of the Board of Estimate for his boss.
Showing 881–900 of 1,009 · page 45 of 51
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