BIG mistake to assume that the beach towel-size map spread on a table in Peter S. Kalikow's Midtown office is a state-of-the-art chart of New York City's subway, bus and rail systems. Or, to put it in the lingo of Mr. Kalikow, a master of overstatement and the occasional grand, ungainly gesture - like buying The New York Post for $35 million in 1988 and filing for bankruptcy protection three years and $200 wasted millions later - it would be a mega-mistake to assume the obvious. He's not that obvious.
Just because Mr. Kalikow, who grudgingly admits to being 62, is the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not mean he spends every waking hour thinking about the deployment of No. 4 trains (his favorite line, as it goes to Yankee Stadium) or the saga of the West Side railyard/stadium after a fraught bidding process he recaps with a smattering of mild expletives.
"Usually when I do a real estate deal I get paid for it," grumbles Mr. Kalikow, popping a miniature Tootsie Roll in his mouth as an alternative to the tobacco habit he thinks he's outgrown (unlike an addiction to Ferraris, which he hasn't). He made and later inherited millions via the family real estate business, H. J. Kalikow & Company, built over six decades by his grandfather and father and consolidated in recent years to this flagship building at 101 Park Avenue and 10 less consequential properties.
"I'm no longer active in real estate development," he says, "but I still do deals." Clearly. The much-scrutinized deal he and his board made with the New York Jets and by extension, City Hall, will put $250 million in the transportation authority's coffers, and yield a westward spike of the No. 7 subway line with $2 billion in city funds pledged by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, if the proposed stadium wins final approval.
Mr. Kalikow is not a Jets fan. "And I'm not a Giants fan, either," he says. "But I always thought the stadium was a good idea; however, it was not a good idea for free, which is what they were offering for the property the first time they came around. It's a problem solved."
So is the $16 billion designated for the M.T.A.'s core operations in the budget pitched by Mr. Kalikow's pal, George E. Pataki, the governor who appointed him M.T.A. chairman in 2001 and whom he has championed since they met in Mr. Pataki's Mayor-of-Peekskill phase. No sweat that Mr. Kalikow wanted $17.2 billion: "When a guy gives you 93 percent of what you asked for, you can't be mad at him," he says. "The core is looking real good."
Not so the outlook for expansion: "This is the area that makes my ears turn red," says Mr. Kalikow, whose lobbying for state and federal money has come up several billions short despite his "you're dead without mass transit" message. Growing up in Queens, he rode a city bus to junior high and took the subway to high school, and into Manhattan. It is not lost on him that his family made its fortune building on transportation hubs.
"I understand not only how mass transit works because I rode it, but I know transit is an economic issue, a growth issue, a business issue," he says. Riders should be less steamed about fare increases and more steamed about politicians' reluctance to bankroll capital improvements. "I mean, would you buy a car with bald tires? I'll take the abuse I've got to take on this stuff. I know I'm right."
Mr. Kalikow backs the sentiment with a plaque that reads: "Be reasonable, do it my way." His other plaque, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," seems less appropriate, given that he presides over "a great system that is a hundred years old; we still have the 1900 technology."
Last week the M.T.A. board voted to scale back its capital plan for 2005-2009, including "mega-projects" like the Second Avenue subway, the link between the Long Island Rail Road and Grand Central Terminal, and the rail link from downtown to Kennedy Airport. Mr. Kalikow says they will happen, just not soon. He predicts a Second Avenue subway by 2012, and the Long Island link by 2013. He is cavalier about a projected deficit of $400 million by 2008. "We'll fix that by then," he says. His term expires in 2006.
He is confident that he can cajole more money from Albany and Washington: "People in Washington think I'm some kind of nut: here's a Republican asking for mass transit money. It doesn't quite fit the mold."
BUT first, he's taking a break.
The gigantic map spread out in his office is of Italy, where Mr. Kalikow is about to go on vacation. At 28, he moved there to open a factory. The product was cars, his first love. He built a dozen Momo Miracles, named for the Italian designer Alfred Momo, and still owns four. Plus Ferraris and BMW's. When the Miracle startup stalled after a few years, he moved home and joined the family firm, which he inherited in 1987; he and his wife live on Fifth Avenue opposite the Metropolitan Museum and have two children.
He bought The Post on impulse: "I had a fixation I could make it work, but I couldn't. It was murder." He sold the paper in 1993, but the American flag from its lobby decorates his office here.
"I liberated it," he says.
He swiped it? "Come on, I paid for it 300,000 times over."