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John B. OakesJohn B. Oakes
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Oakes:

Sure, I don't mind about that. When the Westway issue came up -- And I don't have to go into the whole story about Westway, do I?

Q:

We presume people will know.

Oakes:

Well, when the Westway issue came up, I was doubtful, dubious about and I felt uneasy about it because I was worried about the environmental problems that it involved. But I had placed great stock in the judgment, on a matter like this, of my editorial associate, Ada Louise Huxtable, whom I had gotten onto the editorial board of the Times because I was a great admirer of her writing in the field of architecture but much more than that, of general civic planning and the whole urban scene field.

When this issue of Westway came up, she persuaded me, and I place great reliance on her judgment on this kind of issue -- we had, for instance, been bitterly opposed to the expansion of the Metropolitan Museum into Central Park and all kinds of local, New York City issues that affected the physical appearance of New York, as well as of other parts of the country. Mrs. Huxtable was a very astute writer on this field. Even before she came onto the editorial board, I had her writing occasional editorials for us.

But she persuaded me that this whole Westway project was really a good thing because it did involve sensible -- as she felt -- good planning. It did involve some kind of park, a riverside parkway. I was dubious about it, but in any case, I went along, obviously, with the few -- there weren't very many, maybe -- well, I'm not going to guess because I don't remember how many, but there were very few editorials that we ran in that period of 1975, '76, on the subject.





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