Richard Ravitch: Former MTA chairman, lieutenant governor helped save bankrupt New York City

ALBANY — Richard Ravitch, who played critical roles in saving New York City and its mass transit system from financial ruin beginning in the 1970s before helping to save state government politically in 2009 as lieutenant governor, has died.

Ravitch was among the most influential New Yorkers that many residents didn't know.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday that Ravitch, 89, left “an indelible mark on our state The raspy-voiced, hardworking business owner was repeatedly pulled into state crises by governors seeking his help in seemingly intractable problems. Those included the near bankruptcy of the city and near collapse of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority."

Hochul, a Democrat, called Ravitch "a titan of New York's civic world. From steering the MTA through a critical time to serving as lieutenant governor, he was a steady, savvy, and brilliant leader and a public servant in the truest sense of the term."

MTA chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said Ravitch "was the chairman of the MTA at maybe the lowest moment in the history of at least the subway system, and certainly the mass transit system in New York … And in many ways, he is one of the fathers of the mass transit system that we have today, which we celebrate in so many different ways and try to continue to improve in his spirit

In 1975, Democratic Gov. Hugh Carey called on Ravitch after banks said they would no longer underwrite New York City’s debt, which likely would have led to the city’s fiscal collapse. President Gerald Ford refused to bail out the city, leading to the famous Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

But Carey’s and Ravitch’s efforts with support by leading Republicans in Albany worked, and helped enable the renaissance of the city.

In 2009, then-Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat, appointed Ravitch as lieutenant governor. The move allowed Ravitch, a Democrat, to cast the deciding vote in a State Senate that had been paralyzed by a coup orchestrated by a small group of Democrats who tried to play tiebreakers in the evenly divided chamber.

In an interview Monday, Paterson called Ravitch a throwback figure in a sharply partisan political world.

When Paterson appointed Ravitch, even Republican leaders praised the choice, although they challenged Paterson’s power to appoint a lieutenant governor, given that Paterson took over the governor's office after Democrat Eliot Spitzer resigned. The state's high court, the Court of Appeals, sided with Paterson, setting an important precedent.

“It was his worldview that I was looking for,” Paterson said. “He would listen to everyone, try to take into account everyone’s problems, and then try to solve them.”

Paterson said Ravitch occasionally talked about his role as a witness to history, including dining with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on his visits to the city in the 1960s.

“He was about what is the right thing to do, rather than what was the easy thing,” Paterson said.

“I feel like it’s the end of an era,” Stephanie Miner, a close friend and former Democratic mayor of Syracuse, said of Ravitch.

“He was one of those people in American history — a wise man who was willing to devote his energies and thoughts not for himself, but only for civic enrichment,” said Miner, the visiting chair of government and jurisprudence in the political science department at at Colgate University in Hamilton.

Ravitch’s grandfather emigrated from Russia at age 17 to escape the pogroms. He made a living making manhole covers and helped the family prosper for generations.

“Many of my friends,” Ravitch stated in his “So Much to Do” autobiography, “say they are jealous of the many different lives I’ve led … what has been constant is the gratification of having been able to match my good fortune with contributions to the community — although New York has been so generous to five generations of Ravitches that there’s no way I could ever have given as much as I got.”

In recent years he became a doting grandfather, taking frequent fishing trips with the grandkids on Long Island, where he long had a vacation home.

But he never retired. He and his friend Paul Volker, the former Federal Reserve chairman, helped cities and states around the country deal with their own fiscal crises as leaders of a nonpartisan think tank called the State Budget Crisis Task Force.

In his autobiography, Ravitch slammed the tone of politics in recent years as “resigned, condescending, dismissive or outraged.” 

Ravitch wrote: "The amelioration begins with respect for the political process, despite its frustrations and occasional corruptions. It is the only way democracy can work."

By Michael Gormley

michael.gormley@newsday.com@GormleyAlbany

Michael Gormley has worked for Newsday since 2013, covering state government, politics and issues. He has covered Albany since 2001.