Richard Ravitch once got the subway trains to run on time in New York City.
Now he is taking on the more difficult task of getting the New York Senate to run at all.
In a move that has already been challenged, New York Gov. David A. Paterson Wednesday named Ravitch, 76, the state’s lieutenant governor.
Ravitch took the oath of office later in the day at the Peter Lugar Steakhouse in Brooklyn, signing the papers a few hours before Republicans got a restraining order blocking the appointment.
Matters were further confused Thursday when State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. of Queens, who had created a 31-31 deadlock in the Senate by defecting to the Republicans, returned to the Democratic camp, giving it a 32-30 majority. He will serve as Senate majority leader.
Reportedly, Ravitch will not start performing the duties of office until the court issue is resolved. Andrew Cuomo, the state’s attorney general, has ruled that the state’s constitution does not allow the appointment.
As lieutenant governor, Ravitch could break tie votes in the Senate.
He would fill a position that has been vacant since March 2008 when then Lt. Gov. Paterson became governor after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer.
Ravitch is accustomed to straightening out messes, so much so that Clyde Haberman of The New York Times once referred to him as “the designated rescuer.”
A Yale Law School graduate, Ravitch chaired his family’s construction company, a builder of affordable housing, in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1975, New York Gov. Hugh Carey, a Democrat, named Ravitch chairman of the state’s insolvent Urban Development Corporation. Ravitch led a bailout that saved the corporation.
In 1979, Ravitch became the chairman and CEO of New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority at a time when subway service was in disarray.
Ravitch devised ways to raise the money that was needed to overhaul the system.
Paterson turned to Ravitch last year to head a commission charged with coming up with ways to save the MTA once again.
The legislature approved a rescue plan this May, before the current crisis in the Senate began the next month.
Republicans took the Senate when Espada and Hiram Monserrate, of Queens, voted with them to depose the Democratic leadership.
Dean G. Skelos, a Republican, became the new majority leader. Espada was named Senate president, making him first in line to succeed Paterson, should Paterson leave office.
The Republicans control held for a few days. Then Monserrate chose to vote with the Democrats again, creating the 31-31 deadlock.
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