No one alive today saw the last transit, he said, and seeing the next two will be the only chance most people have.
The British Admiralty sent a lieutenant, James Cook, to Tahiti, bringing scientists to watch the 1769 transit; he then explored the South Seas (and became a captain).
But, Professor Freeman said, because City Hall is not as closely associated with the theaters and their employees as it is with, for instance, the transit union, "he doesn't have as partisan an interest as he does in those kinds of issues".
"We can't have an opposition in the transit lounge," he said.
The company has received about $6.4 million from the transit authority, he said.
The vote against the transit center, he said, looks like "cutting off your nose to spite your face".
The police plan to record it to use in workshops for officers who patrol the transit network, he said.
In 1980, in the midst of the transit strike, he publicly used the word "gridlock" for the first time, thus coining one of the great modern neologisms.
Among those appointed to the top jobs were George Brown, who had been chief of the transit bureau; he will succeed Martin B. O'Boyle, chief of the organized crime control bureau.
One fan slunk his way into Valentine's office -- "I work for the transit authority," he said, by way of introduction -- but the warmth of the clubhouse was otherwise off limits to the fans who showed up at Shea.
