← Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem
Revisionist History: The Staten Island Problem
The Staten Island Problem - Part 3: The Tuvalu Effect
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- [00:00]
Brian Leyline
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Ben Nadiffer
Ben Nadiffer here. Before we get into this episode, I wanted to let you know that you can hear all episodes of Revisionist the Staten Island Problem ad free right now by signing up for Pushkin plus. You'll also get bonus episodes, full audiobooks and other binges from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Plus, your support helps independent shows like us continue making the stories you love. Sign up and save on the Revisionist History show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin FM. Plus use the code RH25 for 25% off an annual subscription. Alright, let's get into the series. Every morning, a Staten island attorney named David Goldfarb used to walk by Borough hall on his way to the ferry. Some days he'd see a short white haired man with big glasses waving him down. Borough President Guy Molinari. Molinari, you might remember from episode one, was Staten Island's rabble rouser in chief. He was constantly feuding with the Dinkins administration.
- [01:13]
David Goldfarb
He would stop and see me and ask me to come into his office. He liked to talk to anybody and everybody. He would just call you in their office and would sit down and just have this and I would say, you know, I have to go to work, I have to get a ferry. But he wants he loved to talk about it.
- [01:35]
Ben Nadiffer
The it here is secession. Molinari loved to talk about it because everyone was talking about it and David Goldfarb was worried. He liked being part of New York City. He and his wife lived on the North Shore, the most diverse part of the island closest to Manhattan, in a house with a pool and depending on the season, two pink lawn flamingos. He worked in a law firm in Manhattan. He did not want to secede from New York and from their conversations it seemed like Molinari was maybe on his side. He had not yet endorsed secession.
- [02:11]
David Goldfarb
He told me in the beginning, point blank that this is never going to be allowed by the assembly. He said, you know, he'd say, don't worry about it. It's not going to happen.
- [02:25]
Ben Nadiffer
That may have been what Molinari was saying, but something was clearly brewing. The movement was everywhere.
- [02:32]
Staten Island Cable Announcer
Welcome to our special Cable in the Classroom feature on the history of secession, produced exclusively by Staten Island Cable.
- [02:39]
Ben Nadiffer
The local cable station had even made tapes for classrooms to teach kids about secession.
- [02:44]
Staten Island Cable Announcer
The people know why they feel the way they do because they know the facts through learning and education.
- [02:49]
Ben Nadiffer
They were not exactly unbiased.
- [02:52]
Staten Island Cable Announcer
The future of Staten island is being decided now. History is being made. Be a part of it.
- [03:00]
Ben Nadiffer
David Goldfarb did not Want to be part of it. What was your nightmare situation here?
- [03:08]
David Goldfarb
I mean, would the North Shore end up like Northern Ireland with some of the communities on the North Shore that voted against it would not be included. It would be the same situation you have now where Staten island felt alienated from the city of New York. Parts of the north shore would felt alienated from the rest of Staten Island.
- [03:29]
Ben Nadiffer
The secessionists had to be stopped. You're listening to revisionist History. I'm Ben Nadiffery and this is the Staten Island Problem. Our series about the Staten island secession movement of the 1990s and more broadly about what we do when a democracy fractures. Last episode was about the psychology of secession. Who wants to leave and why. This episode is about the people who don't want to leave and the fight that ensued between them in the battle for Staten Island. This is episode three, the Tuvalu effect. As the secessionists marauded around the island and the cable news station went to work brainwashing the children, the people on Staten island who actually liked being part of New York City realized they had to get organized. So Goldfarb joined a group of like minded individuals, Staten Islanders for a unified New York Siphuni. The message of which was, what are you doing? This is going to ruin Staten Island.
- [04:47]
Dan Singletary
It'll be fairly.
- [04:48]
Debate Moderator
It'll be a free floating debate. The debaters will feel free to interrupt each other.
- [04:55]
Ben Nadiffer
One spring evening in 1993, Saifuni and the pro secessionists gathered at the College of Staten island for a debate. The space looks like a lecture hall. Four men in suits at a table with mics, heroes and cokes on a table in the back. A handful of students and concerned citizens sit in the audience and Goldfarb was front and center.
- [05:17]
Debate Moderator
Speaking against secession will be Mr. David Goldfarb, an attorney active in many local civic groups.
- [05:24]
Ben Nadiffer
In fact, all these people, Saifuni, went toe to toe with the secessionists all around the island again and again. The big secessionist organization was called Vote Yes, Inc.
- [05:35]
Debate Moderator
Speaking in favor of secession will be Mr. Dan Singletary, a local artist.
- [05:42]
Ben Nadiffer
Dan Singletary, the artist slash cowboy from last episode, represented them.
- [05:47]
Dan Singletary
If we start and we build a new city of Staten Island, a city for the first, for the 21st century, the first city of the 21st century we could be.
- [05:57]
Ben Nadiffer
Singletary was promoting a glorious vision of what the island could be. Goldfarb was bringing them back down to earth. If Staten island became an independent city, they were gonna have to take care of a whole lot of things for themselves, like a police department or a public school system. They'd finally have to build a jail. David Goldfarb had a lot to say about that.
- [06:20]
David Goldfarb (continued)
These are the things that you're just gonna have to lose because there's absolutely no way that Staten Island's gonna be able to add this to their capital budget because you're not going to be. When the police officer arrests somebody on Staten island, they're not going to be able to send that person to Rikers Island. They're not going to be able to send them to the, to the lockup overnight in Brooklyn. They're going to have to have a jail on Staten Island. The city of New York is not going to take our prisoners. These are costs you're going to have to face. I think it's going to be a major step backwards financially.
- [06:46]
Ben Nadiffer
Goldfarb, it's worth noting, has argued in front of the Supreme Court. Singletary fired back.
- [06:52]
Dan Singletary
You have just seen a perfect example, a classic example of what's being played out in what's called the politics of fear. He never said one good thing. Isn't there any hope? They don't have any hope.
- [07:10]
Ben Nadiffer
As I watched the tapes, I felt like Saifuni was pointing out the obvious. Being part of New York City was financially a great deal for a small island. Goldfarb was saying the future is unknown and probably worse. Singletary was arguing that the present was known and bad and the future might be a lot better to either you guys.
- [07:30]
Dan Singletary
I've asked this question before. Know how many agencies and commissions there are in New York City?
- [07:34]
David Goldfarb (continued)
Why don't you tell us, Dan?
- [07:35]
David Goldfarb
How many agencies?
- [07:36]
Dan Singletary
I have no idea and the mayor won't tell us either. But this is what's being funded. This is what's being funded. We have the last.
- [07:42]
Ben Nadiffer
Singletary holds up an ominous looking stack of papers.
- [07:48]
Dan Singletary
Anyway, this is a list of ancient cities and things that you've never heard of, never used. Why don't we start cutting this instead of these guys always saying essential services.
- [07:56]
Debate Moderator
Okay, let me just add follow up on his question. There we go. We may or may not, obviously the definition of essential services.
- [08:02]
Ben Nadiffer
Singletary was joined by Vote Yes Inc. S champion debater Robert Scammardella. You met him last episode too. He's the attorney who grew up on Staten island and remembers it pre bridge as an entirely different and better place. At the debate, he sat back in his chair, arms folded, looking a little grumpy.
- [08:21]
Dan Singletary
What I do know is this, that since the end of World War II, the city of New York has been in Economic decline. I believe that that economic decline will continue because New York, the city of New York, doesn't have the people or the willingness to embark upon those policies that are necessary to turn that decline around. The other thing I know is that Staten island has the highest per capita income of any borough in the city of New York. From that I deduce Staten island will have the economic resources to survive and to be in a position to make their own decisions about firemen and policemen and college professors and every other decision that affects me and everyone else who lives on Staten Island.
- [09:01]
Ben Nadiffer
Like the great American revolution, this secession debate was really all about taxes. Vote yes was saying, we'll figure it out. And who needs all those services anyways? Goldfarb was saying, you, you need more than you think and it's going to cost you.
- [09:15]
David Goldfarb (continued)
And that's fair because if it's a political decision and you're willing to pay those extra taxes, that's something that has to be considered. But let's talk about or maybe save
- [09:23]
Dan Singletary
on the lower taxes. Well, maybe. If you want to speculate, I'll speculate. The taxes will be low.
- [09:29]
Ben Nadiffer
This spilled out way beyond the debate stage. It was in the paper all the time. It was the hot topic of conversation all over the island. When I sat down with Scammardella, he remembered this one time he and his wife went to a wedding at the Staten, the island's grand catering hall.
- [09:45]
Robert Scammardella
Go out to a social event, a wedding, you're sitting at a table with people you don't know and the bride cuts the cake. Was irrelevant. Here we are talking about the secession movement.
- [09:57]
Ben Nadiffer
How did your wife feel about this?
- [09:58]
Robert Scammardella
Well, she was very upset. We're on the way home and she was like, you know, can't you just deal with the secession thing when you're at these debates, you gotta turn a wedding into a secession debate.
- [10:09]
Ben Nadiffer
I didn't start it.
- [10:10]
Robert Scammardella
They were gonna ask me the question. And here we went. So it was a bit of an embarrassing moment for me. I guess I regret that I did what I did. But the point is, it was a hot button issue.
- [10:28]
Ben Nadiffer
An interesting fact I learned about city secession movements at large is most of the time it's about taxes. A rich area thinks, why should we pay for all those services the poor people are getting? If we just hoarded our resources, we could have it so much better here. What's weird about Staten Island's secession is that multiple studies by New York City and the secessionists agreed that Staten island got more in tax revenue than it paid the secession movement you'd expect from New York City is that Manhattan, with all that Wall street money, leaves the other four boroughs, not Staten Island. Goldfarb was raising kind of a good point. What was the long game here? What was the tax base? How were they going to close the dump if that was Staten Island's most valuable asset? Also, what about the fact that New York City controlled their water supply? So Goldfarb, I think, was right, but the momentum was not at all on his side, because something else was going on here, something hiding in plain sight having to do with a remote Polynesian island called Tuvalu. We'll be right back.
- [11:50]
Staten Island Cable Announcer
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- [12:22]
Ben Nadiffer
I have this feeling that nothing holds anymore. Like, I work in media and where a career used to mean you go work at a big newspaper or magazine, these days it's starting your own newsletter or podcast. One person, maybe two, and a mic. Or take international affairsthe United nations, NATO, the European Union, Brexit. There's this mass loss of faith in the ability of people or nations to form groups that work for the benefit of everyone. Put another way, we seem to be living in an era defined by the principle that every man is an island. So I started thinking, maybe the best way to understand the world and the Staten island problem, bedeviling it, is to speak to an authority on islands. What even is island studies?
- [13:08]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Okay, so, I mean, I'm in Malta, so Malta is itself an archipelago.
- [13:12]
Dan Singletary
Right.
- [13:13]
Godfrey Baldacchino
It's actually the 10th smallest country in the world by land area.
- [13:18]
Ben Nadiffer
Godfrey Baldacchino professor of island studies, which maybe should be called archipelago studies, and which took me down a deep but very necessary rabbit hole. Join me.
- [13:30]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Most islands are islands, plural. It is very rare that we find a single island. In fact, of the world's 48 island countries, only five are single islands.
- [13:45]
Robert Scammardella
Wow.
- [13:46]
Godfrey Baldacchino
So we're talking in the plural, and therefore in some of these configurations, there is a very interesting dynamic going on within. Within the archipelago.
- [13:56]
David Goldfarb (continued)
Right.
- [13:58]
Ben Nadiffer
Most archipelago states have a strict hierarchy, beginning with the mainland that dominates the other islands. New York City is an archipelago, and it Turns out that the weird thing happening in New York in the 90s is actually entirely in line with weird things that happen on other archipelagos all the time. For instance, the trash island,
- [14:22]
Godfrey Baldacchino
where you have archipelagos, the tendency has been to export the waste from the mainland where the bulk of the population lives, where the bulk of the waste is produced, and you export it to another island in the archipelago. Sometimes you dedicate an island to waste. The classic example is in the Maldives. The Maldives is a fantastic tourism destination in the Indian Ocean, but it also has a waste island.
- [14:47]
Ben Nadiffer
Really? Just an entire island? That's just an entire island.
- [14:50]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Yeah. Tilafousi is the name.
- [14:51]
Ben Nadiffer
But so what about when the waste island is inhabited but by a political minority and a population minority, the temptation
- [14:59]
Godfrey Baldacchino
to use it to dump is massive. Not necessarily municipal waste. It could be human waste. Convicts, for example. Prisons. Islands have tended to be associated with prisons, with quarantine stations, with leper stations. Right.
- [15:16]
Ben Nadiffer
Staten island had all those things.
- [15:17]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Okay, there you are.
- [15:23]
Ben Nadiffer
Australia was Britain's prison island. Tasmania was Australia's prison island. And then off of Tasmania, there were even smaller islands that were their prison island. It's all islands all the way down islands, putting things they don't want on other islands, escaping to yet further islands. One of the ways to stop that island cascade is theoretically a bridge, like what Staten island got.
- [15:46]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Bridges create what is called distance decay.
- [15:50]
David Goldfarb (continued)
Right.
- [15:51]
Godfrey Baldacchino
So the islands have become closer.
- [15:54]
Ben Nadiffer
The bridge was finally supposed to tie the islands of New York together, But this bridge became yet another problem for Staten island, not least of all because of its toll.
- [16:05]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Wherever there are tolls, the argument goes, especially from the islander's point of view, they're not crossing over to go on a holiday. They're not tourists. Sometimes they have to cross over for work, for school, visiting relatives. So this is not an adventure. This is a way of life. So the toll becomes a mobility tax.
- [16:32]
Ben Nadiffer
Island theorists have a name for this. It's called the Tuvalu Effect, named after a small Polynesian island. It's meant to describe the quote unquote centrifugal tendency of islands in archipelago states to secede from each other.
- [16:48]
Godfrey Baldacchino
There's nothing worse than having two islands next to each other. We can't stand them. This psychology has also a habit of spilling over into politics. So the Tubalo Effect is a way of trying to explain all this.
- [17:07]
Ben Nadiffer
Islands and archipelagos are almost always pulling apart from each other. Baldacchino's list went on and on. Aruba from the Dutch Antilles, Anguilla from St. Kitts. Nevis. Nevis from St. Kitts. Nevis. Or at least they're trying to. Jamaica, then Trinidad and Tobago, then Barbados from the West Indies Federation, the island of Chuuk from the Federated States of Micronesia. And why is Chuk trying to secede?
- [17:35]
Godfrey Baldacchino
Because it finds its. It claims to find itself discriminated. I mean, again, much of this is psychology. So the Tuvalu effect has been both preceded and followed by similar examples, and there is no end in sight.
- [17:56]
Ben Nadiffer
When we talk about reactionary politics, the word insular comes up a lot. Insular comes from the Latin insula, which literally means island. The world is full of insular islands that are centrifugally spinning away from each other. And in the pantheon of reactionary communities, Staten island is the definition. The place that feels at threat, that has lost something. The trash island in the archipelago.
- [18:24]
Brian Leyline
I don't think people just said, well, we'll do our Staten Island. They never even thought about us.
- [18:29]
Ben Nadiffer
Brian Leyline has been editing the newspaper, the Staten island advance, since the 1990s. And for any Staten Islanders out there who think it's pronounced advance, he told me its advance. Leyline grew up on the island. He's maybe the world expert on its version of the island psyche.
- [18:47]
Brian Leyline
Our house was right at the beach, so we used to go to the. You could see it from the street, the bridge, you know, the bridge being built. Robert Moses saw Staten island as a gateway, either if you were coming north from New Jersey and south to Long island or Manhattan and the other way around.
- [19:05]
Ben Nadiffer
It's like the New York City equivalent of flyover country.
- [19:08]
Brian Leyline
Exactly.
- [19:10]
Ben Nadiffer
This is what caught my ear about Godfrey Baldacchino's island theory. It describes Staten island, but it also describes places that are resentful because they feel remote, even if they're landlocked. It's the psychology of distance plus misunderstanding, which leads to resentment.
- [19:28]
Brian Leyline
I've always said that we have this dirty little secret on Staten Island. We pat ourselves on the back, that with this mom and pop community, no crime, great schools, call it what you will. There's an intolerance here. You can say there's racism here. There's no doubt about that. And there is today, the way it was then and it has been my whole life.
- [19:49]
Ben Nadiffer
Leyline's deep understanding of Staten island had given him an almost prophetic understanding of American politics today.
- [19:56]
Brian Leyline
I knew that Donald Trump was going to win the election in 16. I know it.
- [20:02]
Ben Nadiffer
How'd you know it?
- [20:02]
Brian Leyline
Because I. Because I live on Staten island, and Staten island is much like Middle America, this is not New York City. Here we may be called part of New York City but we are. The mood here is what the mood was in middle America. You know, this whole make America great thing for who?
- [20:28]
Ben Nadiffer
And some of the same dynamics were in play with the election of Trump as they were for people voting for secession.
- [20:35]
Brian Leyline
I think the motives behind secession were good. I think that John Markey, state senator think he did it for the purest reasons of self governance. I think the community of Staten island looked at it another way. I've always felt that when the bridge was built it gave people access to a community that was, it was like virgin territory and they could come here and make a new life for themselves and escape whatever they wanted to escape and they brought that attitude here with them.
- [21:18]
Ben Nadiffer
What they wanted to escape was often people of color and poor people. If New York City had always represented the dream of liberalism, this was the final chance to leave that dream behind to be Staten Islanders, not New Yorkers. That identity ran deeper and stronger than David Dinkins idea that the city was a mosaic. It was much more emotionally resonant than David Goldfarb's reasoning about the facts and figures or even everyone's complaints about the dump and the voting structure of New York City. And the word that expressed it best was secession. We'll be back. On October 5, 1993. The vote yes and the vote no. People gathered at the Staten, the island's catering hall for climactic debate. It was just weeks before the vote that would decide the fate of Staten island and New York City.
- [22:30]
Debate Moderator
Welcome back to our forum on secession. It is an evening in which we're trying to get answers to the question whether or not Staten island should secede from the city of New York.
- [22:47]
Ben Nadiffer
It was the big show now broadcast live on Staten island cable and the city had sent one of its officials, a Staten Islander named Bob Federa who argued that Staten island should not secede.
- [23:00]
Debate Moderator
While some people may believe that secession represents a panacea that will cure all of Staten Island's problems, I do not believe it is the answer.
- [23:09]
Ben Nadiffer
There were questions from the audience I'd like to.
- [23:13]
Debate Moderator
All right, yeah.
- [23:14]
Ben Nadiffer
A guy in tinted shades with slicked back hair stands up.
- [23:18]
Debate Moderator
Whether it be true or not, secession can be viewed as racist by minorities.
- [23:24]
Bob Stranieri
For those who live here and for
- [23:26]
Debate Moderator
those who don't, it will certainly add to what look like white flight. Can somebody respond to that? What I have heard within those groups is that they attach on to groups in the other boroughs because some of the island representatives will not even open the door to them. In many ways, the minority communities will lose that connection with the rest of the city, the connection in which they really see the source of their power. And secession ultimately would cut that power.
- [24:04]
Ben Nadiffer
This question seems like it should be a grand slam for Federa, but actually he's in a very tight spot as a representative of the first black mayor of New York City. On the one hand, a lot of the Dinkins administration seemed to think that, yes, secession was racist, but on the other hand, they couldn't be seen to be playing the race card all the time. They were caught between a rock and a hard place. Meanwhile, Dan Singletary and the vote yes crew kept bringing the discussion back to how much better Staten island would be without the big city looming over it.
- [24:37]
Dan Singletary
What will happen is that these regulations that fine small businesses when somebody drops a stick of gum or a gum wrapper and five minutes later an inspector comes by and gives them a very large ticket, that will not happen in the new city of Staten Island.
- [24:51]
Ben Nadiffer
It didn't help that the anti secessionists had tremendous narc energy.
- [24:56]
Debate Moderator
Frankly, if you drop a stick of gum wrapper on the sidewalk, I hope to give you a ticket worth about $1,000.
- [25:02]
Ben Nadiffer
The audience was starting to get frustrated with the vote no people.
- [25:06]
Debate Moderator
The things that we have to say are not necessarily popular things. Now, if castor oil is something that's unpleasant to take, sometimes it's necessary. And this was supposed to not be a popularity contest. This was supposed to be a frank and open exchange. So I'm asking you to. Let's just get back to what this forum was supposed to originally be about.
- [25:30]
Ben Nadiffer
It was down to closing statements from vote no.
- [25:34]
Dan Singletary
Are we going to believe that after
- [25:36]
Debate Moderator
we leave the city of New York, there's going to be a paradise here on Staten Island?
- [25:42]
Ben Nadiffer
And vote yes.
- [25:43]
Dan Singletary
Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors and the people in Staten island, or will you trust the people five miles overseas?
- [25:50]
Ben Nadiffer
The people overseas. It was facts and figures versus the Tuvalu effect. There was no chance.
- [25:58]
Debate Moderator
And now I would ask you to raise your hands.
- [26:03]
Ben Nadiffer
The moderator from Staten island cable took a straw poll just to get a sneak peek of the of what was gonna happen on the day of the vote less than a month away.
- [26:12]
Debate Moderator
All of you who are in favor of seceding from the city of New York, would you please raise your hands?
- [26:20]
Ben Nadiffer
All of the hands you can see on the screen go up.
- [26:24]
Debate Moderator
Thank you. All those opposed to seceding from the city of New York, please raise your hands.
- [26:33]
Ben Nadiffer
The vote no guys raise their Hands and no one else. Larry, can I ask you a question?
- [26:39]
Debate Moderator
No, Mark. I hope that was definitive enough for you.
- [26:49]
Ben Nadiffer
It was definitive enough for someone else too. Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari. He was a very canny politician and yet he had not come out in favor of secession, which I think mattered. How real could all this have been if the borough president for Staten island wasn't even behind it?
- [27:08]
Bob Stranieri
The only one who was lukewarm was Guy Molinari.
- [27:11]
Ben Nadiffer
This is Bob Strineri. If you're keeping count, that's the third Bob in this episode. He was a Staten island assemblyman at
- [27:18]
Bob Stranieri
the time for some reason. You know why? It wasn't his issue. I mean, I'm telling you, it wasn't his issue. So he never really got behind it.
- [27:30]
Ben Nadiffer
Stranari and Molinari were not friends. At one point, Straenari left the island and started a hot dog business in Manhattan. When he tried to come back to run for office again, Molinari wasn't having it. As the New York Times reported.
- [27:44]
Bob Stranieri
He never explained what it was that I ever did that made him so against me personally and politically.
- [27:55]
Ben Nadiffer
The quote is, we threw him out of office and got him off of Staten island and we don't want him back.
- [27:59]
Bob Stranieri
Yeah, nice. You know, there's a lot of Donald Trump in the Guy Molinaries style of politics.
- [28:04]
Ben Nadiffer
How so?
- [28:06]
Bob Stranieri
They're very dominating and they're intolerant of people who disagree with them. Absolutely intolerant.
- [28:18]
Ben Nadiffer
Molinari saw where things were headed with secession and I think he saw it as an opportunity to get something else. He wanted even more. Eight days after that forum, he finally issued a statement on his. After 100 years of marriage to Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, the borough of Staten island is seeking a divorce. We neither love, honor nor, nor care to obey the dictates of a city administration which treats us unfairly and remains unresponsive to our needs. I support secession wholeheartedly. End quote. It was a huge boost and the spirit of secession was spreading. It was getting national media attention. Queens had been inspired by Staten island to start their own secession movement. I found a letter in the municipal archives from a Dinkins person who said a close associate of New York's governor told him that if secession got a strong yes vote on Staten island, they would have to, quote, take a broad look at the governance of all five boroughs, not just the issue of Staten Island. In the chess match between Staten island and New York City, Molinari had just played a crucial move, one that was going to get Staten island everything it wanted, but not the way anyone expected. The fate of the New York City archipelago hung in the balance on November 2, 1993. The voters would decide it. But before the election, we have to make a brief detour to a place called Shaolin. I hear a knock on the studio door. I open it and there's five dudes out there, and they're not smiling. People like, where are you from? So I used to say, if I tell you, I have to kill you. And they're like, why? And then I'm like, staten Island. He took the whole mythology that was in the movies and he appropriated it to his current conditions of a black man living in Staten island doing battle in this game called rap against the music industry. That's coming up in our next episode. The Staten Island Problem is written and reported by me, Ben Natafaffery. It was produced by Lucy Sullivan with Nina Bird Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Shakurji. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Fact checking by Sam Russick. Sound design and mastering by Jake Gorski. Original music by Stellwagen Symphonet, Luis Guerra and Jake Gorski. Special thanks to Todd Reynolds for his track the Solution from the album Outer Borough. And to the College of Staten island and the New York City Municipal Archives for all of the amazing tape. And to David Schleicher for sharing his expertise on municipal secessions with me. And thanks, of course, to Malcolm Gladwell. I'm Ben Nadifafry, SA.