Video, Audio, & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Delivers Remarks at General Contractors Association of New York Annual Luncheon

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul delivered remarks at the General Contractors Association of New York Annual Luncheon.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:

Michael, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to meet the movers and shakers of New York, or shall I say the people who are going to help us build back our city and our state. And I want to thank all of you for hanging in there during this pandemic. No one could have foreseen what we went through.

No one could have ever planned that in a million years, that we would have been brought down so hard and particularly the city of New York. But I can tell you, as sure as I am standing here, I see the recovery. I see the rebirth. And it's in rooms like these all over New York where people are saying, yes, we can do this.

And I feel very confident in all the people in this room and GCA. I want to thank you for hanging in there and for being part of our recovery in such an impactful way, because we're just getting started. So thank you. And also to Robert Wessels, we've seen each other many times over the last few months, and I want to thank him for his leadership.

As well as your board members. I also see Rick Cotton where are you Rick? Rick Cotton. He is the dynamo. He's the one they'll be talking about. Robert Moses has nothing on Rick Cotton in terms of building and the legacy that he's doing. And I'm so proud to work with him. Let's give him a round of applause.

Janno Lieber, from the MTA, may be meeting or joining us. I met with him yesterday to talk about all the great things we're going to do. So I want to thank your members. I want to also thank the men and women of labor who are here today. You may know this about me, but I come from a strong labor family. You come from Buffalo that's about all you're going to have is your family is going to be involved in labor. Whether it's dad and grandpa working at the steel plant and uncles working as longshoremen and carpenters. And my husband's father was a carpenter. So you know - these are the people we understand. This is why I can handle this rough and tough business.

I have steel running through my veins so I can handle this. So without any problem, and I'm so proud to be your governor. And people say, well, how, what's it like to step in during these really tumultuous times? And you can handle this. Like I've got this, when you're a Lieutenant Governor for seven years, longest serving in America, you're basically the understudy.

And when the lead role opens, you know what you're doing. So I want you to know that I've given a great deal of thought, not just in the last few months, but for literally my entire public life and how important it is for us to partner with the businesses, as well as the builders, to do everything that we've done since I was a Town Board member.

I work closely with the men and women of labor and our business community to help build back significant infrastructure, way back when I was trying to just get money from the state for simple sewer improvements in a town that was 150 years old. I know how frustrating that was. And I don't want my local governments to have to struggle anymore.

These are investments that should be made with assistance from the state government, as well as the federal government. And I have a perspective that most do not have having served as an attorney on Senator Moynihan's staff. He was the king of infrastructure, he wanted to build. And can you imagine a time not that long ago when we actually could get infrastructure passed in Congress without it being an epic political battle?

That's the era I came out of. This is what we call no-brainer - that you have to get the money out to the states and local governments, so they can rebuild and to build resiliency and to make sure that our, our underground systems are working for people. That's just the underground part. And that's what I've worked on most of my life, what I'm really excited about now as your governor, to build up.

To be able to continue many of the projects, the signature projects that were started under my predecessor, who did an enormous amount of building and particularly addressing the needs of our airports and our ports and making sure that we no longer are the laughing stock of anyone else who has ever questioned how beautiful LaGuardia could be, because now it is a gorgeous airport. And I want to thank all the people who are involved in that project.

As Lieutenant Governor, I went through the airports more than anybody in this country. That was my daily commute. And so I watched the transformation and again, to Rick and his team with others who are all part of that, that was just getting us warmed up. We are going to continue those investments at JFK.

I want to get Terminal One underway and finished. I think that's something that this community deserves and our visitors deserve, also I have a long list of projects here. I'm going to start ticking these off because you're going to get excited.

So we're going to continue that and we're going to cut the ribbon on Delta's brand new Terminal C. I'm looking forward to that. We're going to continue the transformation of JFK. And as I mentioned, Terminal Four is going to be a $1.5 billion expansion, we're breaking ground on that. $4 billion at Terminal Six. Well, let me take this out of here. This is going to anchor the north side of the airport. So that's what's happening at the airport.

How about getting phase two of the Second Avenue subway, extending from 96th street to 125th. Finally making good on that promise from long ago that we've made to Harlem in 1940, that this would get done. Yeah, about time. My friends, you weren't even born then. Right? You all look so young.

Also the Gateway Tunnel. I had a meeting on this yesterday. I want that Gateway tunnel done, but you know what I want even more so right now? I want Penn Station to look as gorgeous as Moynihan station.

There is no reason why that the people who come through Penn station should ever wonder if they're ever going to get out of there. It can be a scary place that, I said this not that long ago. The proprietors of that station said, did you really have to say that? I said, yeah, I did. I had to call it out because then you will know the sense of urgency I bring to getting this done.

And I literally met with Amtrak one day ago, to talk about how I want that jump-started, and I don't want this to be at the end of the Gateway Tunnel in 2035, okay? I can't even fathom how far into the future that is. At my age that's a long time. I want to get things done now. So you sense my urgency. I want to get Penn Station itself redone. We will work on the expansion. We will get Gateway Tunnel done. We can do it all. And this is how we're going to come back. These kinds of infrastructure projects, long overdue, as well as the Port Authority Bus Terminal. How scary is that place? Let's just admit it. Do we want to drop your kids off to go off to college at that bus station? You're not, if you love them, you don't! I couldn't wait to say goodbye to mine, but that's another whole story, they know that too.

Our commuter train lines, we can do so much with them, Metro North commuters, they deserve this. They should be able to travel to Penn Station with access to the West Side. We're going to create those four new stations we've been talking about for a long time in the Bronx as well. New transportation for really an underserved community. Our Long Island railroad passengers. They deserve to have the long awaited East Side access project, the MTAs largest capital project. The third track on the main line, I've been out there for many of the ribbon cuttings as we first proposed this back in 1947. So I'm just getting warmed up. I'm working on my State of the State Address. It is going to be transformative, you're going to have a "wow factor" associated with this, because as you know, I want to get things done and I didn't play with dolls when I was little, I played with Legos. And that's why I want to keep building and making sure that New Yorkers are proud. And I believe this is the key to our recovery. We get thousands and thousands of men and women the skills they need to step into these jobs because that's a challenge we face. Get them the skills they need. They're ready. The contracts are signed, the jobs begin. And just as I saw coming over here this morning, I'm seeing so much more activity.

I love the sound of the trucks and the construction vehicles, all making their sounds, because I know something good is happening. People are working, people are getting good paychecks and we're building back the city in a way that 100 years from now, when they say "boy, how did New York city, the epicenter of the pandemic, the place that was the hardest hit, how did they come back, literally less than two years later? How did they begin that?" And we'll say they did it to the same way we did after 9/11. The same we did after Hurricane Sandy, the same way we did after the Great Depression, the Crash of '29. We built our way back, and you my friends, are the builders making that happen.

And I want to thank you. You'll have in me a very willing partner. I want to see progress. I want to see jobs. I want to see people proud of their city and their state again. So thank you for being true believers. We are in this together, and I look forward to announcing more projects, having you get them done. And as a Lieutenant Governor who cut more ribbons than anybody in this history of the state, I look forward to bringing a really big pair of scissors and showing up at all your events. So thank you very much everyone.