Boom and Bust with Ed Koch

When the American Telephone and Telegraph Company announced on March 26th
of this year that it would move 1,000 employees from its new Madison Avenue
headquarters to Basking Ridge, New Jersey, the Koch administration’s fury was tempered only by its embarrassment. Fury, because A.T.&T. had received $42 million in property tax abatements in exchange for a promise to keep jobs in the city; embarrassment, because no one had taken the trouble to get the promise in writing.