FORWARD
The following series of articles are pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, a picture of New York City politics, grimy and corrupt. The story, still unfolding, about the Giuliani Administration, Home Depot, and Sports Authority building on heavily contaminated industrial
property. High levels of toxic waste have leached into the ground water, poisoning the
environment, and quite probably the community. Secrecy, deceit, big money campaign contributions, conflicts of interest, municipal and judicial corruption all center around the mayor's "Retail Strategy" - a scheme that gives zoning exemptions intended to protect mom and pop neighborhood shops to giant corporations which then crush the small stores, a scheme best summed up by a line from a
classic James Cagney gangster film, |