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NEVER MIND the mayoral election, the great men and women seem to be saying, the members of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, as they face one another on the most elevated natural point in New York City. There are more important issues.
"Governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments," said William Penn, his words on a plaque underneath his corroding green face, one of about 100 busts that overlook a Bronx neighborhood called University Heights.
Edward deJesus agrees. A resident of the neighborhood for 25 years, he lives on Cedar Avenue, at the foot of University Park, right down the hill from the Hall of Fame, which was once one of the nation's biggest tourist attractions. He is the president of International Research Laboratory, Inc., which he says with a laugh, because it's just him and his tool and die machinery in a converted garage next to his house. But that is how the Wedtech Corporation started, too. The worst thing about the Wedtech scandal, deJesus says, is "it hurt the people working in that factory; they all lost their jobs."
Some of his neighbors call deJesus, who is 75 years old, the Mayor of Cedar Avenue. He is not, however, interested in the mayor of New York. "Personally, I don't think it will make a difference. The city is so far gone it will be too big a job to turn it around." The last mayor he truly admired was Fiorello LaGuardia: "He was quite a guy. And he died broke!" he says, impressed with the novelty of it. "He did something for the people." The last mayor he voted for was "that actor, [John! Lindsay." He has since changed his registration to Massachusetts, where he owns some property.
It may not be too surprising that in a borough where two congressmen, a borough president, and a Democratic party leader are all in jail or about to be sentenced, the residents look at the problems around them and grow skeptical of leadership.
Few people in the neighborhood seem to have given up on local politics as completely as deJesus, but even those actively involved exhibit more passion about the area's problems, and possible solutions, than about the candidates.
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