On your left is the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. It might just look like an unassuming building from the outside, but inside, this place has been cooking up policies that have shaped everything from local police beats to the Oval Office.
The Institute was born in nineteen seventy-eight, founded by Antony Fisher and William J. Casey. Originally, it had the incredibly catchy, roll-off-the-tongue name of the International Center for Economic Policy Studies. Thankfully, they rebranded to the Manhattan Institute in nineteen eighty-one. Since then, it has operated as a major conservative think tank, a research group that develops and promotes specific public policies, firing out books, articles, and its quarterly magazine, City Journal.
During the nineteen eighties, the institute became a heavy hitter in Washington. In nineteen eighty-one, program director George Gilder published Wealth and Poverty. Reviewers literally called it the bible of the Reagan administration. It shot up the bestseller lists, selling over one million copies. The book boldly questioned the character of the poor, claiming they simply refused to work hard. Naturally, it sparked massive debate, with some calling it a brilliant creed for capitalism and others finding it highly questionable.
But the Manhattan Institute is not just about federal economics. They have deep roots in local urban affairs. If you remember the mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani in the nineteen nineties, you know his administration famously adopted the broken windows theory of policing. The idea was that cracking down on minor offenses like vandalism prevents major crimes. Well, Giuliani practically took tutorials from City Journal editors to build his campaign policies. Later, the institute even embedded experts into the Detroit Police Department to implement the exact same strategies, with home invasions there allegedly dropping twenty-six percent in a single year.
It is not just conservative politicians who have leaned on the Institute's research. Check out your screen for a surprising team-up. That is Cory Booker speaking at an institute event in two thousand and eight. Back when Booker was the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, he partnered with the Manhattan Institute to tackle the difficult issue of prisoner reentry. They used a work-first model to connect ex-offenders with immediate, paid jobs upon release. And it actually worked, placing over one thousand people in jobs paying an average of nine dollars and thirty-two cents an hour.
The institute also had a massive impact on the N-Y-P-D after the tragedy of September eleventh, two thousand and one. At the N-Y-P-D's request, they formed the Center for Tactical Counterterrorism to help officers pivot to becoming first preventers of mass-casualty attacks. They even warned against building a United Nations structure over the Queens Midtown Tunnel, pointing out it would basically gift wrap the tunnel as a terrorist target.
Love their politics or hate them, you cannot deny that the ideas born inside this organization have spilled out onto city streets and national stages for decades. Take a moment to let all that political history sink in. When you are ready, we can head to the next stop.
