THE '70's BEST DAY:

ON THE BRIDGE: The Verrazano-Narrows and the shape of New York. (GAY TALESE, 2002-12-02, The New Yorker)

Edward Iannielli remembers his working days on the construction of the World Trade Center as a dispiriting time. It was an era of conflict in which student antiwar demonstrators and various counterculturists presumed to occupy the moral high ground in New York and elsewhere, while hardhat unionists like him, patriotic traditionalists opposed to the desecration of the flag, were frequently depicted in the media as reactionary riffraff or worse.

One day in early May of 1970, Iannielli recalled, a melee broke out near Wall Street involving crowds of antiwar activists and dozens of workers who had followed them there. Iannielli had not accompanied the angry construction workers, but when they returned they told him that they had beaten up many demonstrators and had destroyed countless antiwar banners. They had also stormed City Hall and forced Mayor John Lindsay to raise the flag on the roof to full staff, infuriating the antiwar faction that had persuaded the Mayor to lower it in memory of the Kent State marchers who had been killed by Ohio National Guardsmen, earlier in the week.

One of the few pleasant memories between Ike and Reagan.
Posted by Orrin Judd at December 1, 2002 10:47 AM