New York State’s Governor David Paterson delivered his first State of the State address on Wednesday and gave residents of the Big Apple his grim yet honest opinion of the state’s financial outlook, according to The New York Times.
“The pillars of Wall Street have crumbled. We know this is the greatest contraction since the Great Depression,” Paterson said. But the mood was not completely grim. The speech was an important, if largely ceremonial, turning point in the history of state politics. It was the first time, two of the “three men in a room” who control the machinery of the Empire state’s government were African-American: Mr. Paterson and Malcolm A. Smith, the new Senate majority leader.-BB