He has been reaching out to Blacks, Democrats, women, and labor. And he has put together a smart, experienced, loyal team of Washington insiders.
No, alas, not freshly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump.
Those were words used in a Jan. 23 article in the New Haven Register to describe George H.W. Bush, as Nutmeggers celebrated one of their own, or at least a Phi Beta Kappa economics major from Yale, as he ascended to the highest office in the land and began to strut his stuff in the first week of his presidency in January back in 1989.
The stark contrast between the current president’s first days on the job and those of his predecessors emerged on “This Day In New Haven History,” our time travel program on WNHH, on which I am joined by my regular co-pilot Jason Bischoff-Wurstle of the New Haven Museum. (Click on the file above to listen to or download the show.)
This week we zoom back not only to this week in 1989 but also to 1993. and then deep in the 1970s, when there was also lots of grim predictions to share.
But first, January 1993. That’s when another Yalie, Bill Clinton, having beaten Bush, in his initial days “captured the optimism out there,” in the words of Rosa DeLauro, who was already in Congress representing the Third District.
One of the clever phrases from Clinton’s inaugural address — you fix what’s wrong with American by what’s right with America — also tickled our then senators, Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman.
All that optimism was in stark contrast to the third week in January back in 1973. Our then governor, “tough Tommy” Meskill, appeared happy enough to put the kibosh on any more low-income, federally financed housing, because that’s precisely the directive that newly re-elected President Nixon had just sent down from Washington.
No wonder things were tough over at the Church Street South Tenants Association — then still in its hopeful beginnings, but already mired in conditions that caused residents to complain about the place having been built “with the cheapest materials available.”
All that percolates through a 40-minute week-in-New Haven History, our new format, which this week also ends with a look at our not-so-beloved New Haven Blades.
Or as the dearly departed local lefty journal Modern Times put it on Jan. 27, 1971, bringing together vivid insights into both local housing and local sports: “A New Haven Blades hockey game without a fight is like the Redevelopment Agency solving the local housing crisis — both highly unlikely.”
