Viewsday

New York City "makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin -- the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled," wrote the incomparable E.B. White in 1948. On good days, I think he's still right. On others, I think his notion is a cruel joke.

Consider the taxi wars.

Here's...

We've always known New York City is not a normal place. Minneapolis is normal. Omaha is normal. New York is a town whose lurid eccentricities have a disturbing way of massing into destructive madness -- like Sandy roaring into town under a full moon at high tide. The resulting chaos is not a sight for the squeamish or for tiny school children or for civics teachers.

As the city's election...

The No. 1 issue on the minds of likely voters in New York City’s upcoming elections is not the stop-and-frisk imbroglio. It’s not the tough, elusive struggle for better outcomes in programs for the homeless and mentally ill. It’s not the shockingly sorry status of more than a few city parks. It is education, said a speaker at a Manhattan Institute forum this morning, citing a recent Zogby poll the...

In firing scandal-tarred lawyer Joseph Savino, Clarkstown leaders acted swiftly in dealing with a potentially explosive situation.

But let's not break out the good government awards just yet.

Savino is the Bronx Republican Party boss whose White Plains-based law firm was hired by Clarkstown last year to handle tax-challenge cases even though he apparently had little expertise in that...

Mayor Edward Irving Koch, who reigned over New York City from 1978 though 1989, was as irrepressible as the town he led. He was intensely proud of his role in guiding the city away from bankruptcy in the 1970s and for starting a system of merit selection for city judges. He had a right to be.

Without his driven, muscular leadership, New York might never have turned around its rapid deterioration...