b"How many people did you supervise, as a manager? In Jefferson Houses, I had six housing assistants, an assistant manager. Then there was a superintendent. Superin-tendent comes up a blue-collar line, I came up a white-collar line, but in the office, the super is there. He runs the physicalend of the building- the heat, the plant and everything else. Under him is an assistant super or two, supervisor of caretak-ers, supervisor of grounds men, caretakers. So, in one place I had overall supervision of about 60, 70 people.Was the superintendent a parallel line or was that position under you?Well, depending on who you talked to, supers think they're parallel. But technically, they were slightly lower. Somebody had to be the boss.[Laughs]What was most problematic for you working as a building assistant manager and manager?Well, the thing I liked least was running into some ugly situations like police do. They see the worst of people some-times. As a housing manager, you saw some things you didn't want to see. You saw people that did not take care of theirkids, or you saw people growing up in bad situations. Sometimes you were asked to intervene. In some cases, there was-n't a lot you could do. You had parents on drugs who weren't taking care of kids. They were problems for you across theboard, because they weren't paying their rent and their kids were always in trouble.Those situations bother you, yeah.What did you like best about your job? In many ways, working with the tenants was enjoyable. Especially as a manager, your whole year was cut up intowhat you had to do. In the summertime, you had to make sure your grounds were done, your trees were trimmed, what alandlord would do. You had to make sure your places were cleaned in the summer and winter. When in winter mode, youget your tractors going.You could take as much active hand as you wanted, as a manager. I did and I loved it. We wouldgo to nurseries and buy trees and shrubs to plant. You were a community person, you dealt with the tenants, the tenantleaders, you were somebody in the community. You weren't someone who just came to work there, you were part of thewhole community.Did you feel like you could make a difference?You could make a difference. Especially as a manager in those days, you pretty much could be independent. You didn't have to call the Borough for anything if you knew what you were doing. You were the guy people went to, you werethe person people wanted to see. You attended police meetings, housing tenant meetings, different meetings withpoliticians and everything else, you were the person that some people described it as the mayor of a little town. Right smack in the middle of Jefferson Houses where I worked, there was a public school. It was also around a CatholicChurch and school. It was the whole neighborhood. Jefferson Houses had 1700 apartments.How many people was that?Times three or four, the size of a little city, really of a little village. I went for an interview once, for the state, for doingsome sort of a housing job. The panel of 6 people that were interviewing me wanted to know what I did. None of themhad ever had my background. They asked How big is your Project? I told them 1700, they said: How many elevators?96 "