after Judge Kaye had written some fine opinions herself and had been appointed the court’s chief judge, we exchanged letters and resumed our friendship. Both of us, of course, continue to live in our high-class apartment building in our virtually all-white neighborhood. And both are happy to be here, a stone’s throw from the opera house we both love.
* * *
In 1999 our firm moved to new digs at 225 Broadway across the street from Trinity Church, with its ancient graveyard, a block away from the World Trade Center. Our suite was up on the twenty-fifth floor and was large for our four partners, one or two associates—depending on the month—one legal secretary, and a paralegal-receptionist, so we became landlords and rented out some space. Looking out of the large old-fashioned windows of my corner office, I could see City Hall and its small adjacent park. Lower Broadway stretched right below us. Behind my desk rose the Woolworth Building with its elaborate facing and griffins and gargoyles. To my left I could see three bridges spanning the East River. The view was breathtaking. The river shimmered in the sunlight. Tugs, barges, small freighters, sightseeing boats, and, in the summer, sailboats and yachts plied the waters up and down as helicopters darted around. At night the skyscrapers lit up, and the strings of lights on the bridges sparkled. I had my doubts about this new luxury. After all, as I had protested years ago, “I’m a civil rights lawyer.”
While all of us belonged to the National Lawyers Guild and supported the most progressive Democratic Party candidates, there was nothing resembling a progressive, much less a radical, movement in the country for a firm like ours to support. We were all married and had children, and my partners needed to work hard to support their families in an increasingly expensive city, and that would be easier to accomplish in a space that looked like a real law firm. Also, our practice had grown. In the race, sex, and age discrimination matters we handled, our clients rarely had any interest in expanding the law. They just wanted money or the resolution of whatever issue they faced—or both. Additionally, we were trying to expand our negligence practice and represent tenants in conflict with their landlords. I hadn’t worked on a criminal case since the last days of representing John Artis, and I had no interest in ever showing my face in a criminal court again. Dick kept us focused on meaningful civil rights work, as he was still handling housing discrimination cases. Together we were still struggling to get the Huntington garden apartments built. But much of our work was routine.
That left me with a feeling of deep unease. My career, with its origins in my relationship with Bill and Lorraina, had always been defined by a sense of mission, and that only deepened as Bob Carter and Kitty and I drew ever closer over the years. Now my “home away from home” was like my Central Park West apartment. Also, I had long since banned Tony Maynard from coming around because he would appear without calling, looking like the street person he was, sometimes wet and soggy, driving our receptionist and my partners nuts. Wondering what Tony was up to and how he was surviving grated on my mind. But at least I had some peace, and I assumed he could take care of himself.
Fortunately Myron Beldock had asked me if I wanted to join his firm in a class-action racial discrimination case against the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It was a strong case. White workers with lesser qualifications and education were being promoted over blacks and Latinos. The parks commissioner, Henry Stern, had instituted a program he called “Class Of.” It recruited new employees at elite colleges—twenty or thirty graduates each year—with the promise that they would be doing public service work, occupy positions of responsibility, and receive a five-thousand-dollar raise after the first year. Yet our black and Latino clients had to train these entry-level employees, virtually all of them white, to fill the middle-level positions that they themselves had been trying to get for years.
You would think such a case would be a slam dunk, but it wasn’t. Henry Stern had been a powerful New York City councilman and was a key figure in the state’s Liberal Party, which at times held the balance of power between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Stern was close with