“The prospects of an early agreement between [New York City] and its bankers on an economy program … to avert payroll and interest defaults … remained doubtful yesterday.
“While the city and its bankers, with Governor Lehman sitting in, were striving to compose their differences, the city’s troubles were augmented by indications that the New York Stock Exchange was determined to carry out its threat to move to New Jersey rather than submit to … a 4-cent tax on stock transfers and a tax on brokers.
“… Governor Lehman’s conference … was concerned … with the single complex problem of rehabilitation of city credit by reducing expenditures to a ‘hard-times’ minimum. … The bankers … made it clear that they wanted the city to give up its ‘spendthrift’ habits immediately. … There was no talk of a higher transit fare ….” — New York Times, September 23, 1933