The Morgenthaus

Ever wonder why 96th Street is an express stop on the Broadway Line, and not say 88th Street? If Jimmy Breslin is to believed in his biography of Damon Runyon, then it was due to Robert Morgenthau's grandfather, Henry Morgenthau Sr., who, as a NYC developer around the turn-of-the-last-century, among other things, lobbied the Interborough Radid Transit Company (IRT) to make 96th Street an express stop because he was going to be building apartments in the area, and what better appeal could there be to time-sensitive New Yorkers (even then) than to tell them they could live within a traffic light of an express train stop that would whisk them downtown faster than ever?

I love reading about the famously departed whose grandfatherly ancestry predates the light bulb. Robert Morgenthau, Federal and NYC prosecutor, has passed away at 99. His grandfather was born in 1856. That is some stretch of time to only go back two generations.

Robert M. gets the full-Monty obituary treatment in today's NYT obituaries section. Or, very nearly the full-Monty. Sure it's a six column full-page narrative of the highs and lows, but there was no front page obit placement, or even a teaser that his obit would be found further inside the edition. Perhaps it was the late Sunday passing that kept the 21-gun salute off the front page.

Regardless, I remember his father's signature on United States currency still in circulation in the '50s and '60s, because Henry Jr. was FDR's Secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945. Turns out the grandfather, along with building buildings in Manhattan, was President Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, that very large tract of the globe that existed prior to
World War I. You need an old map these days to find the Ottoman Empire.

If Texas Governor Ann Richards said of George H.W. Bush that he was born with a silver foot in his mouth, then it would seem Robert Morgenthau would have been born in a voting booth. But election to any office other than District Attorney of New York was never where Mr. Morgenthau found employment.

Over the years there were always stories in the paper about Robert's non-official life. His living upstate near where he was born and raising chickens. His boat ride with his second wife through the Erie Canal locks. How, despite his leading major prosecutorial offices in New York, he never prosecuted a case himself.

Some of us are just born to be administrators. 

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