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An Interview with Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut (1999)

Kurt greeted us in his beautiful 19th century house and in his bare feet (of which more later). As the interview progressed it grew sort of

As their ferry is pulling away from Manhattan, they’re looking back at this ugly mud flat with trains going along it and dense smoke, and Frances Perkins hears this young man standing beside her suddenly say, “Frances, couldn’t this waterfront be the most beautiful thing in the world?” And she says, in her oral history, “All of a sudden it came pouring out of him, how you could have this great highway going uptown along the water-that’s the West Side Highway-next to it you have this park-that’s Riverside Park-and if you covered the tracks with the highway you wouldn’t have the smoke,” and, she continued, “the thing that got me was he had it all figured out-the exact locations of the tennis courts and the 79th Street Marina. He was 24 or 25 years old, he was a researcher for a municipal reform organization, he was really a professional nothing, a very low level employee, and yet he had thought out in his mind what is today the whole western shore of Manhattan Island-Riverside Park and the West Side Highway-down to the last detail.” BARBARA STONE You must be an easier mate to live with because having done your research, you have your notes and you ‘re not carrying that load around in your head for fear that if you enter into an argument or a discussion about what color shall we paint the walls-

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