Paul Volcker and Felix Rohatyn Are Remembered in NYC for Decades of Service
Volcker was Fed chairman during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
(Bloomberg) -- The funerals of Paul Volcker and Felix Rohatyn, which took place concurrently on Tuesday just eight blocks apart on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, celebrated the men’s service to their country.
At Volcker’s service, which began at noon, Ray Dalio, Antonio Weiss, Henry Kissinger, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Tom Brokaw occupied pews at Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, while Bill Bradley delivered one of the eulogies.
“No one has made a bigger contribution to shaping the American economy over the past 50 years than Paul Volcker,” said Bradley, a former U.S. senator and member of the NBA Hall of Fame. “He saved the financial system four times.”
Volcker was Fed chairman during the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan; led President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, creating the Volcker Rule; and founded the Volcker Alliance to advocate for effective government.
Bradley recalled a routine the pair shared when Volcker was Fed chairman and Bradley was in the Senate.
“We’d often take the Friday night Eastern Airlines shuttle back to New York from Washington,” Bradley said. “One night virtually all the seats were taken on the plane. So there we were, two Princeton basketball players, one 6-foot-7, one 6-foot-5, squeezed into the center and window seat of row 21.”
The experience led to a reflection on “what public service is all about: Public devotion, private sacrifice. In America, the honor is not the perks, but the service.”
Volcker died Dec. 8 at age 92 and Rohatyn died Dec. 14 at 91.
Remembrances at Rohatyn’s funeral at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel touched on his Wall Street career and time as ambassador to France. But they mainly focused on his role as chairman of New York’s Municipal Assistance Corp. for two decades, starting in the 1970s.
“Felix didn’t have a lot of buildings named after him, or laws named after him, but I think it’s fair to say he did more to shape New York or any city, perhaps, than most,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, who served three terms as New York’s mayor and is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP. He is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.
Former New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said saving the city from bankruptcy brought Rohatyn together with her late husband, Victor Gotbaum, the labor leader in charge of its municipal employees’ union.
“I do think that Felix, way underneath, would have loved to be a labor leader for one day and that Victor would have loved to be a titan of Wall Street for half a day,” Gotbaum said. “If they are to meet upstairs, I think maybe they can get us out of this mess that we’re in today.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Peter Eichenbaum
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