Jabari Bell

“For the first time in twenty-five years there was no Person of Color on the Board of Estimate, whatever traditional roles they’d had in City government erased. Squeezed by growing immigration, the breakdown of old political networks, a changing economy and soon, waves of drugs, crime, and disease, New York’s African Americans would be forced over the next thirty-five years into new cultural and social strategies that would in turn change the world.”
― Thomas Dyja, New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation

“The development of the forces of production was never an end in itself for Marx. The saving of labour-time, he said, should in the last analysis result in a restructuring of man: The free time – which is both leisure time and time for higher activity – has naturally changed its owner into another Subject, and as this other Subject he then enters directly into the process of production.70 Thilo Ramm points out correctly that this theory of the origin of a new man constitutes the innermost kernel of Marx’s teaching.”
― Alfred Schmidt, The Concept Of Nature In Marx

“More than ever, balancing public and private, inside and out, me and we, will be central tensions of New York, and if we intend to hand a peaceful, prosperous, and generative city to our children, then we must all play active roles in its next evolution and consciously participate in civil life beyond work, shopping, and leisure. We will have to rethink our networks; our own personal networks—who’s in them and what are they connected to—but also carefully and inclusively rebuild collective powers to confront the ones that have torn us apart, ones that can guarantee everyone access to basic resources like health care, housing, and justice.”
― Thomas Dyja, New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation

“The gameboard became what I imagine as a galaxy of 8 ½ million lives connected to each other in ways beyond counting: those with the most connections—and therefore the most access to favors, advice, job tips, and string pulling—shone the brightest, and the reconnection and reorganization of New Yorkers sent new tastes, ideas, resources, and behaviors coursing through every borough, unleashing financial, human, and social capital. Like a giant brain, the more connections, the more synapses firing, the higher functioning New York became. Those without wide connections, or with none at all, were left behind.”
― Thomas Dyja, New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation