Once let a man grow up amidst Brooklyn's cobblestones, with the odor of Newton Creek and Gowanus Canal ever in his nostrils, and there's no place in the world for him except Brooklyn.

And even if he don't grow up there; if he is born there and lives there only in his boyhood and then moves away, he is still beyond redemption.

In one of my speeches in the Legislature, I gave an example of this, and it's worth repeatin' now.

Soon after I became a leader on the West Side, a quarter of a century ago, I came across a bright boy, about seven years old, who had just been brought over from Brooklyn by his parents.

I took an interest in the boy, and when he grew up I brought him into politics.