Houghmagandie, I'd always wondered the same - if Paul Simon's reference was to that historic Al.

For me, the song changed its meaning as I matured. As a child, I thought the singer had been a wealthy man who paid for the building of giant structures; when I got into the workforce I saw it as the destruction of the working man's dignity - once he'd been proud to build the great structures of New York; now he's queueing on a breadline, thankful for a bowl of soup, but enraged at the profiteering that's sent him there and now requires him to beg.