1933 - 1941: Joseph V. McKee (Recovery Party)[1]
1941 - 1957: Thomas E. Dewey (Republican-Liberal) [2]
1957 - 1960: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. (Liberal Party) [3]
1960 - 1968: John Lindsay (Republican Party) [4]
1968 - 1980: Mario Procaccino (Democrat Party) [5]
1980 - 1984: William F. Buckley Jr. (Republican Party/Conservative Party) [6]
1984 - 1992: David Dinkins (Liberal Party) [7]
1992 - 1994: Guy Molinari (Republican Party) [8]
1994 - 1998: Betsy Gotbaum (Democrat Party) [9]
1998 - 2010:
2010 - 2018:
2018 - XXXX:
[1] Following Jimmy Walker's scandal induced resignation and exile to Europe Joseph McKee had actually been acting Mayor for 4 months, before a special election had resulted in the Tammany Hall backed Joseph O'Brien taking over to complete the remaining year left of Walkers original term. McKee had been content to sit out the 1933 contest, which was to pit O'Brien against the Republican nominee Fiorello La Guardia. However cajoling from Bronx Democrat boss Ed Flynn and some secret encouragement from FDR, who wanted to break the back of Tammany in New York, convinced McKee to run as a 3rd Party candidate for the Recovery Party. No-one expected him to win, he was simply a spoiler to draw votes off O'Brien and let the liberal La Guardia win. However a combination of Republican infighting and indecision on supporting an Italian-American and middle class resentment of Tammany Hall influence ended up with McKee winning a squeaker.
McKee proved an able administrator, having been in the halls of power in NYC for sometime. Working closely with advisers such as Robert Moses and with close contact with the Democratic leadership, up to and including the President McKee was able to successfully bid for a large amount of the Civil Works Administration budget, some 25% of the national total in fact. Billions were poured into New York and massive public works programs were undertaken. NYC became a shining example of the new America being shaped by the New Deal and McKee was able to tie his coattails to those of the President.
However McKee was less successful in combating the graft that was a hold over from Walkers time. While he was never personally linked to corruption a number of his aides were caught up in a bribery scandal halfway through his second term and further investigation would expose a culture of kickbacks and patronage within the middle management of Civic Authority. McKee tried to avoid responsibility but his claims of having no knowledge of these crimes lacked credibility. While he was publicly claiming he would fight for a third term in private he was instructed by FDR's advisors to step down at the end of his second term to avoid further embarrassment to the White House. McKee eventually gave in and announced his 2nd term would be his last, leaving the Big Apple to his successor gleaming but with still a rotten core.
[2] For better or worse, few men have done more for New York City than Tom Dewey. The wunderkind mobbuster turned presidential hopefull had been beaten bloody by the Roosevelt machine the year before, but when it came to take on organized crime and corruption the New York Republican Party could not have asked for a better man. Waltzing through the 1941 election easily swating aside Tammany Democrats and starry-eyed American Labor types (the Recovery Party failing to field a candidate) left and right he carried all five borroughs and won over 60% of the vote.
The early Dewey years were in many ways a continuation of his DA days. Corrupt officials were cleaned out, the payrolls empitied of patronage jobs and the old boys network of fat, mob-connected irishmen given the boot. While the 1947 Academy Awards favorite The Mayor (starring Humphrey Bogart in his second role portraying a Dewey stand-in) took some liberites in its portrayal of a crusading young mayor who survives assassins and personally oversees the arrest of mafia-owned civil servants you wouldn't know it by asking New Yorkers who remember the early 40's. For a certain kind of New Yorker Thomas Dewey symbolises everything a politician is supposed to be. Had he died around 1947 he would likely have been remembered like that by all.
A WASP Republican who never really left his small-c conservative midwesterness behind in a city that was none of those of things, it should come as no suprise that conflicts arose between the Mayor and his constituencies. In many respects Dewey continued of the liberal policies of his predecessors, which in combination of his work cleaning out city government and his statues as a national hero earned him reelection not only in 1945 but two more times after that. But as the years worse on the city began to chafe under his rule. Patronage might breed corrutpion and graft, but it also gave individual communities a say and stake in goverment. Tammany had based its rule as much on responsivness to local needs as on crime, and under Mayor Dewey city governance became an increasingly top-down affair, where experts and up-state apparatchiks held sway. Irish and Italian community leaders found themselves shut out, and as the years passed they were joined by their Jewish and Black counterparts. Tom Dewey might have been a friend of Harlem and New York Jewery, but there existed a strong cultural divide between the Mayor and his working-class constituents, Dewey's genuine good intentions notwithstanding. On the surface the city bloomed, with ultra-modern infrastructure projects and nation-leading social programs, but below discontent grew. Jokes that the only difference between Dewey's people and the goons they had replaced was that none of the new men came from NYC were not strictly speaking accurate, but they spoke of the sentiment that delivered the shock results of 1957. On the morning of November 6 Frances Dewey delivered a terse concession speech. Her husband, All America's Mayor, had locked himself into his private office and wouldn't be presentable to the world for another few days.
[3] The election of Roosevelt the younger surprised many, not only for the defeat it inflicted on Thomas Dewey, but also that it dealt the final blow for Tammany Hall that led to its dissolving in 1959. But the common theory remains that this would have happened to whoever managed to coalesce the factions that formed around the Liberal Party of NY in 1957, and the party itself might have been better off for it. FDR jr had sought the nomination as a vehicle to get his political career back on track, which had somewhat staggered after his Father's death and his failure in 1949 to win a seat in the House of Reps. And the Democrats outside the Tammany machine were by then desperate to break its back for good and all: they had seen its incompetence and lethargy to act during McKee's tenure and saw first hand the weight of corruption embedded in it as Dewey sent more than a few of its mobbed up members to the Big House. So the remaining Recovery Party, every Democrat that wasn't Irish or on the Mafia payroll, and even the American Labor Party each put their two dollars worth behind Roosevelt to see what would happen.
Through a combination of the family name, a hard fought grass roots level campaign and an electorate tired of its incumbent the Liberal Party won, or Roosevelt had won - which quickly became the problem of the day. Despite attempts to paint itself a NYC's New Deal Coalition, the Roosevelt jr Mayoral ticket was nothing so stable, and cracks quickly began to appear. Part of the problem was that the candidate himself did not see his new office as a permanent one, merely a stepping stone for higher office, and he had failed to provide clear direction for what his plans for the city were to be, which consequently meant that as policy slowly trickled out of the Mayor's office it almost always failed to please.
When "business as usual" was planned for the economy, the union support and ALP flipped its collective lid: the top down nature of Dewey's tenure had created an increasing wage gap, especially in Construction workers, which the Unions demanded needing addressing. Eventually, Mayor Roosevelt promised to do something (what was never established) the Democrat fellow travellers in his camp forced him to put the breaks on it. The late 50s were boom time for America and everyone knew, who really cared if Unions were moaning a small wage? It would probably fix itself in a few months. Even on FDR jr's specialist area of civil rights, his Office bungled it again as the racial and ethnic issues of America effectively became a pressure cooker in New York: his continuation of Dewey's crime policies meant that Italian 'Community Leaders' could not be persuaded to sit down and ease off their antagonism of African-Americans; who, with the South and MLK in superdrive by now, were tired of being talked down to by rich white men, no matter who his daddy was; the Irish remained in the pocket of the individuals that had been the Tammany machine, who promptly defended the Italian's right to demonstrate against 'black infringement'.
By 1960, Roosevelt jr could see the cracks had started leaking, as crime rose for the first time in years and a new President who ready to do something on civil rights - no matter the cost - and a local economy showing the signs that it might be overheating. So he took the first out he could find, eventually his brothers James and John worked to get him a nomination for a seat in the House. Uprooting to the other side of the country was not Junior's preferred option, but he felt it better to go sooner than later knowing that he hadn't exactly improved the city that he had been custodian of for three years. Announcing his resignation, an emergency election was called, and the only thing immediately clear is that Liberal Party was going to suffer the most, as the ALP cut all ties and (with Tammany Hall officially dead and buried) the Democrats tried to get their house back in order and decide what their post-Tammany future meant.
[4] The Republicans wanted to head the Democrats off at the pass and sent in Lindsay, a man making a name for himself in the Department of Justice with civil rights, as someone who might filch part of that constituency. He turned out to be far more liberal than they'd expected - and having got straight to such a powerful position, quite starry-eyed about that power and uninclined to play internal politics. Lindsay pushed hard on civil rights, pleasing the president; gave school boards more power so the communities could have more say; and pushed to raise tax for both civil rights reforms and to boost the police against crime.
All three things at once was a tall order. Teacher's unions, his own party people, the Italian communities, black activist groups, and the police - all needed reassuring. They couldn't all have it. Lindsay talked to the teachers and the Italians, assuming the other three would be fine. The result was that for the rest of his term, much of the New York Republicans were bitterly at odds with Lindsay, forcing him to work with the Liberals (and have secret backdoor deals with some Democrats without being seen to deal with the party, which crossed the line into bribes). The rise in crime was suppressed, civil rights and community relations improved for black New Yorkers... and after that, he struggled to get anything else done. This didn't harm him in the 1964 election, as he was able to promote himself more than his party, but his second would be dogged with inability to get to grips with poverty and a slow rise in crime once more.
If he'd fixed relations with his own party, he would later admit, things could have been fixed, or if he'd defected to the Liberals and openly worked with Democrats. But things were too far gone for his pride to take the former - HE'D been elected becasue of what HE did, not the party! - and he was too stubborn for the latter. New Yorkers assumed he was doing his best and he was seen as keeping riots from hitting the city after Doctor King's murder, but they wanted a mayor who had the power to get more done.
[5] For the first time in over 30 years the Democrats were back, led back to the promised land by the popular city comptroller Mario Procaccino. The Democrats had run a targeted campaign at the urban working class promising an increased standard of living, improved law and order to deal and a move back towards, as Procaccino called them, traditional values. What this actually meant was nebulous but it was enough to win over wavering Democrat voters outside Procaccino's core vote in Brooklyn and the Bronx, though it was another tight race, with the Dems only winning by 1,543 votes.
Procaccino barely had time to make himself comfortable in City Hall before he was hit with his first crisis, the 1969 Nor'easter storm. NYC took the brunt of the winter blast and for two days the city was in a state of paralysis. Realizing this first test would set the tone for his mayoral-ship Procaccino was dynamic and forceful in his response, demanding round the clock work by municipal employees to help get the city up and running. Mario himself was no slouch, visiting each Borough frequently and never afraid to be seen to pick up a shovel and mucking in with the residents. His quick response and that of the city infrastructure as a whole was seen as exemplary and Procaccino's warm and folksy manner won him a great deal of affection, quickly becoming known as "Our Mario".
However it wasn't all plain sailing for Mario, his condoning of the "Hard Hat" riot and apparent dismissal of suspected police brutality in Black neighborhoods contrasted poorly with Mayor Lindsay's more deft handling of the citys racial issues. It didn't seem to hurt with his base however and he was able to turn the tables on what he called his "Limousine Liberal" critics, painting them as an out of touch elite, blind to the concerns of the common man. In fact he was re-elected with a much increased majority in 1972, the future looking rosy.
However it was in his second term that chickens came home to roost. The price for the rapid response to the Winter of 68/69 had been achieved by agreements with the unions for large pay increases and improved terms and conditions, this in conjunction with increased funding for the police and local communities (the ones who supported the Democrats anyway) put a massive strain on an already loaded budget. The New York deficit began to spiral out of control and happening snap bang in the middle of the growing energy crisis threw the city into a full scale emergency. City Hall responded with panic and began a general reduction of funding to all services, Procaccino gambled he could sell it as everyone taking a hit for the good of the city, he was wrong.
The already frayed social bonds between the various communities finally began to break down in earnest, crime shot up and strikes erupted. New York had been unknowingly sitting on a powder keg for at least a decade, with the lid kept on by unsustainable social spending. As the money ran out old grievances spilled out into the open, few will forget Walter Cronkite's famous line "ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning" while footage showed striking cops aimlessly watching widespread looting and wanton violence. In a notorious case the transport polices inept bungling of a bizarre subway hijack led to the massacre of 20 people and the escape of the hostage takers with the one million dollar ransom. All this played out on TV screens across America, leading New York to be dubbed "America's shame".
Procaccino should have been a goner in '76 election, his attempts to tie his election campaign to the national bicentennial seen a cynical attempt to deny any attachment to NYC. Two things went in his favour however. One was the quixotic independent campaign of John Lindsay, looking to come back and, as he put it, "save my city", this led to a split in the Republican-Liberal vote. The other would not be known about until long after Procaccino's death, his quid pro quo with organised crime to push out the Irish and Italians vote in exchange for a hands off policy on their interests, especially around the seedy 42nd Street and Times Square grindhouse district. This was capped off by a now known to be staged assassination attempt during a Brooklyn street festival by an apparent "Black Nationalist" (in reality a paid ex-con) to garner sympathy. The unfortunate side effect being a revenge mass shooting in Harlem leaving 12 dead and racial tension once again pushed to breaking point.
Procaccino's last term continued to go from worse to worse, presiding over a crime ridden city, covered in muck and grime from an umpteenth sanitation strike while "white flight" increased exponentially leaving a poor, desolate city behind. The final nail in the coffin was the cities bankruptcy and Mayor Procaccino had to go cap in hand to the Federal government for a bailout, one of the conditions being he was not to run for re-election. Frankly this suited Mario as he was worn down, tired and miserable.
So in 1979 he packed up and left the Mayor's official residence, the New York Post running with a front page of a tearful, broken Procaccino and a play on his long discarded nickname "Out Mario".
[6] The 1980 mayoral election was not only a battle for 'the soul of New York', but also for the soul of the Republican Party. 'Out Mario' meant that the Democrats were out of the running for a chance of office, which to the opportunistic, beacon of the American conservatives was a chance to wrestle control of the Republican Party in New York away from its liberal faction. The contest was hard fought, but decision of the liberal Republicans to put up David Rockefeller was felt a cynical ploy acting on Nelson's death, who David certainly wasn't, so naturally Buckley dominated the debates, effectively campaign on the need for a "conservative revolution in city finances", dodging the negative connotations of the race question while promising to do whatever was necessary to bring back law & order, finally avoiding the Rockefeller nepotism accusations by keeping his brother the Senator at arms length for the duration.
In his own way, Buckley more or less fulfilled his exact promises of his election. City spending was cut so thoroughly to the bone - making the slow, fazed reductions of previous years seem tame - that it sent an almost immediate shock throughout the city, which initially exacerbated every other problem it had going for it: Harlem and the Bronx blew up in another spout of racial violence; those small business in with organised crime could no longer afford to pay their protection without city financial support, which led to a spike in arson, shootings, 'bust-outs' and suicides; finally a left-wing protest turned into an all out riot on Wall Street. Not that Buckley especially minded, he had planned for it and considered all these to be his enemy, and a NYPD suddenly flush with cash from cut services rolled in and put the smackdown on everyone. Even national guard elements were mobilised to support the police as they restored order, but things admittedly getting out of hand with over zealous police - NYPD's breakup of protesters outside the New York Stock Exchange memorised as the Second Wall Street Crash. This kind of hardball, 'walk the line' police work continued and remains perhaps the most personally contentious part Buckley's term in office for many, but the man himself stood by his record as for every black kid that got "a bit too much of a kicking", he could at least hold up another Frank Lucas or Angelo Bruno to show his war on crime was working.
As the city began to prove a safer place, investment returned to NYC, which Mayor Buckley was glad to endorse and support. He even threw in sweeteners to help in the selling off of City services, which had already been going underfunded enough to make most of them 'fiscally irresponsible'. The Market rolled in and by 1983, for better or worse, New York had gone from being almost Fabian or social democratic to a Friedmanite's wet dream. Although it took a backseat for the most part, Buckley also became increasingly determined to increase the power of Church and the Family, which he found surprising aid from the city's Synagogues and Black Churches. This helped breach the gap Buckley had between himself and the City minorities, and meant he could tackle the inequality and poverty problem of NYC without having to resort to state or federal welfare, as Buckley ensure the religious charities had a steady flow of charitable, mega-bucks donations through every connection he could pull - however this had the unforeseen effect of contributing to the stigma against homosexuals and transgender peoples as the AIDS crisis deepened.
Buckley shocked many when he refused to run for another term in 1984, claiming he had missed his time on television and Firing Line. He returned for another series of his celebrated programme before standing as Republican candidate for Governor of New York state. He held the position until his retirement in 1998.
[7] With the Democrats still in disarray and the Republicans scrambling to replace Buckley, the Liberals had their shot and they had their man: Dinkins had been a Democrat until he'd switched parties in dismay at Procaccino's mayoralty, and he still had ties to the black community from that time. He promised to retain the fall in crime "with dignity", and to try and bring harmony to the city.
First, he began to increase the city's welfare programs, upped the funding of the services Buckley hadn't sold off, and planned a renewal project of run-down housing. Middle-class taxpayers were unhappy about paying, the churches were unhappy at being cut out (and Dinkins made sure to schmooze the black ones), but the people seeing improvements to their neighbourhoods sure appreciated it. A slow, steady transformation of the city began - and ended in 1986, when Buckley became governor.
The rest of Dinkins' term is infamous in New York political history. The mayor and the governor disagreed on nearly everything, but the mayor needed to get the extra cash from the governor, and there constant fights, constant deals, constant sudden changes of policy, constant attempts to raise city-specific revenue. (Dinkins took advantage of rap's popularity and New York origins to make it easier for rap concerts to take place - so the city could tax the damn things) Cartoonists and SNL sketches compared Dinkins and Buckley to the Cold War powers engaged in SALT negotiations. The city bodged along under this, gradually changing but never in the way either men wanted it.
There were two exceptions to this. The first was AIDS and the need for better treatment clinics & education, a fight Dinkins won by starting a public campaign about the risk of AIDS infecting anyone. "It Can Happen Here" said the famous posters, and New Yorkers were shocked - it wasn't just the gays and junkies?! - and Buckley bowed to the public fear. (This, due to taking place in the country's media hub, is also responsible for bouncing the president into approving similar measures)
Exception two was a big crackdown on the mobs after the horrific Times Square Massacre in '89. Buckley and Dinkins had both followed Procaccino's "hands off" approach, taking the tax revenue and getting used to the idea the Square, often seen as an eyesore, was 'contained' - up until a mob shootout killed seventeen people, eleven of them innocent bystanders. Sickened by what they'd allowed to fester, both men ordered the police to blitz the area. The resulting prosecutions gave rise to three smaller-scale shootings of the next two years but also broke the back of the mafia in the city. Dinkins hoped to greatly renovate Times Square after this but there was only the money for half of it.
If there hadn't been a national recession in 1992, Dinkins may have won his fourth term but there was - and it meant the renovated half of Times Square became a renovated quarter - and more people needed those welfare services. Unable to get extra cash, Dinkins had to spend more money than the city had available and this left him open to attacks that he would Bankrupt The City and Raise Your Taxes.
[8] There was little love lost between the King of State Island and the rest of the city, and few suspected that Guy Molinari would ever attempt to and much less succeed to run in an election where the vast majority of the voters lived in the degenerate jungle that was New York City outside Richmond County. But then 1992 rolled around, and Molinari, as chief of the most Republican section of a largely Democratic city (on the federal lever, at least) found himself without suitable recruits to send against Dinkins. Had any other man been Mayor they would just have drummed up some poor fool to send to the slaughter, but Molinari hated the incumbent with a fervor not seen in mayoral politics since the days of Lindsay and Procaccino and would be damned if he saw Dinkin sail smoothly to reelection. So he ran himself, fully expecing to lose but hoping to get some solid hits on the way. Then the recession hit.
Molinari might have been a Staten Island Republican, but he also had a well deserved reputation for practically sweating effective (if ruthless) public administration. He'd clean up Time Square and keep city services running without spending money he didn't have on shit we don't need. His social conservatism might not have played well on Manhattan, but no one runs against David Dinkins expecting to take Harlem and the Greenwich Village, and it was often low-key enough to find itself quite at home in outer boroughs. So after a surprisingly mellow and issues-focused campaign Walked into office on 40% of the vote (more than enough in a race where the city's four "main" parties as well one independent all won at least a tenth of the vote).
Mayor Molinari was no revolutionary, and once all Dinkin's apparatchiks were replaced by sound Republicans he sat out to do exactly what he promised. A strict regimen of austerity was enacted to get the city's finances back in order, and spending was cut to get the books out the red, but the reforms were not at all as strict as many had feared and/or hoped, and the Mayor would find broad popular support for his policies. There is today nothing suggestion we will not be reelected when that time co-
"We now return to the main news of this morning, the apparent bombing of the O'Dwyer Center and the 1994 World Exposition in New York City. The White House just confirmed that among the casulties were both Vice President Dianne Feinstein and New York City Mayor Guy Molinari. President Ravenel, currently in the air, is expected to speak to the nation shortly. We will continue to follow the development in New York as reports come in."
[8] Cometh the hour, cometh the woman: Gotbaum was a decades-long civil servant who'd worked in education and the Parks Department before being voted in as the President of the City Council, a lackluster tie-breaking ceremonial position. But it was the first down the list in the line of succession, and so Acting-Mayor Gotbaum was rushed to the office as New York dealt with the horrific events of the Exposition Bombing. Ninety eight New Yorkers were dead, along with 204 other Americans and foreign nationals, and the city needed to be assured all was well. Gotbaum's steely calm (or so it was taken) and adept planning won her national acclaim.
Then came everything else. Her first task was to organise a new election, feeling she needed to have a dependable mandate - or, for opponents, was taking advantage to double her time in office. She handily romped home. This left her as mayor during America's new focus on counterterror: new global alliances, intelligence sharing, stronger apparatus at home, and airport security. The FBI and the new Office of Domestic Security were soon accused of aggressive acts against Muslim Americans and, later, activists protesting against counterterrorism airstrikes in Sudan. Gotbaum's term was dominated by the need to walk a tightrope between protecting civil liberties and not being seen by New Yorkers as being 'soft' on people who'd killed 98 of them. She also had to walk a tightrope when the NYPD clashed with the new ODS over jurisdictional issues, having to keep the city's police on-side while not stumbling into feuds with the White House.
Feeling increasingly unsuited to the role - her attempts at further public arts programmes and education were overshadowed by the constant security clashes - she announced she would not seek reelection in 1997. She spent her last year trying to finish the 'cleaning up' of Times Square, while agreeing to leave a (also cleaner) remnant of the old days as "Old Times Square" to appease those worried the city was becoming gentrified.
1941 - 1957: Thomas E. Dewey (Republican-Liberal) [2]
1957 - 1960: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. (Liberal Party) [3]
1960 - 1968: John Lindsay (Republican Party) [4]
1968 - 1980: Mario Procaccino (Democrat Party) [5]
1980 - 1984: William F. Buckley Jr. (Republican Party/Conservative Party) [6]
1984 - 1992: David Dinkins (Liberal Party) [7]
1992 - 1994: Guy Molinari (Republican Party) [8]
1994 - 1998: Betsy Gotbaum (Democrat Party) [9]
1998 - 2010:
2010 - 2018:
2018 - XXXX:
[1] Following Jimmy Walker's scandal induced resignation and exile to Europe Joseph McKee had actually been acting Mayor for 4 months, before a special election had resulted in the Tammany Hall backed Joseph O'Brien taking over to complete the remaining year left of Walkers original term. McKee had been content to sit out the 1933 contest, which was to pit O'Brien against the Republican nominee Fiorello La Guardia. However cajoling from Bronx Democrat boss Ed Flynn and some secret encouragement from FDR, who wanted to break the back of Tammany in New York, convinced McKee to run as a 3rd Party candidate for the Recovery Party. No-one expected him to win, he was simply a spoiler to draw votes off O'Brien and let the liberal La Guardia win. However a combination of Republican infighting and indecision on supporting an Italian-American and middle class resentment of Tammany Hall influence ended up with McKee winning a squeaker.
McKee proved an able administrator, having been in the halls of power in NYC for sometime. Working closely with advisers such as Robert Moses and with close contact with the Democratic leadership, up to and including the President McKee was able to successfully bid for a large amount of the Civil Works Administration budget, some 25% of the national total in fact. Billions were poured into New York and massive public works programs were undertaken. NYC became a shining example of the new America being shaped by the New Deal and McKee was able to tie his coattails to those of the President.
However McKee was less successful in combating the graft that was a hold over from Walkers time. While he was never personally linked to corruption a number of his aides were caught up in a bribery scandal halfway through his second term and further investigation would expose a culture of kickbacks and patronage within the middle management of Civic Authority. McKee tried to avoid responsibility but his claims of having no knowledge of these crimes lacked credibility. While he was publicly claiming he would fight for a third term in private he was instructed by FDR's advisors to step down at the end of his second term to avoid further embarrassment to the White House. McKee eventually gave in and announced his 2nd term would be his last, leaving the Big Apple to his successor gleaming but with still a rotten core.
[2] For better or worse, few men have done more for New York City than Tom Dewey. The wunderkind mobbuster turned presidential hopefull had been beaten bloody by the Roosevelt machine the year before, but when it came to take on organized crime and corruption the New York Republican Party could not have asked for a better man. Waltzing through the 1941 election easily swating aside Tammany Democrats and starry-eyed American Labor types (the Recovery Party failing to field a candidate) left and right he carried all five borroughs and won over 60% of the vote.
The early Dewey years were in many ways a continuation of his DA days. Corrupt officials were cleaned out, the payrolls empitied of patronage jobs and the old boys network of fat, mob-connected irishmen given the boot. While the 1947 Academy Awards favorite The Mayor (starring Humphrey Bogart in his second role portraying a Dewey stand-in) took some liberites in its portrayal of a crusading young mayor who survives assassins and personally oversees the arrest of mafia-owned civil servants you wouldn't know it by asking New Yorkers who remember the early 40's. For a certain kind of New Yorker Thomas Dewey symbolises everything a politician is supposed to be. Had he died around 1947 he would likely have been remembered like that by all.
A WASP Republican who never really left his small-c conservative midwesterness behind in a city that was none of those of things, it should come as no suprise that conflicts arose between the Mayor and his constituencies. In many respects Dewey continued of the liberal policies of his predecessors, which in combination of his work cleaning out city government and his statues as a national hero earned him reelection not only in 1945 but two more times after that. But as the years worse on the city began to chafe under his rule. Patronage might breed corrutpion and graft, but it also gave individual communities a say and stake in goverment. Tammany had based its rule as much on responsivness to local needs as on crime, and under Mayor Dewey city governance became an increasingly top-down affair, where experts and up-state apparatchiks held sway. Irish and Italian community leaders found themselves shut out, and as the years passed they were joined by their Jewish and Black counterparts. Tom Dewey might have been a friend of Harlem and New York Jewery, but there existed a strong cultural divide between the Mayor and his working-class constituents, Dewey's genuine good intentions notwithstanding. On the surface the city bloomed, with ultra-modern infrastructure projects and nation-leading social programs, but below discontent grew. Jokes that the only difference between Dewey's people and the goons they had replaced was that none of the new men came from NYC were not strictly speaking accurate, but they spoke of the sentiment that delivered the shock results of 1957. On the morning of November 6 Frances Dewey delivered a terse concession speech. Her husband, All America's Mayor, had locked himself into his private office and wouldn't be presentable to the world for another few days.
[3] The election of Roosevelt the younger surprised many, not only for the defeat it inflicted on Thomas Dewey, but also that it dealt the final blow for Tammany Hall that led to its dissolving in 1959. But the common theory remains that this would have happened to whoever managed to coalesce the factions that formed around the Liberal Party of NY in 1957, and the party itself might have been better off for it. FDR jr had sought the nomination as a vehicle to get his political career back on track, which had somewhat staggered after his Father's death and his failure in 1949 to win a seat in the House of Reps. And the Democrats outside the Tammany machine were by then desperate to break its back for good and all: they had seen its incompetence and lethargy to act during McKee's tenure and saw first hand the weight of corruption embedded in it as Dewey sent more than a few of its mobbed up members to the Big House. So the remaining Recovery Party, every Democrat that wasn't Irish or on the Mafia payroll, and even the American Labor Party each put their two dollars worth behind Roosevelt to see what would happen.
Through a combination of the family name, a hard fought grass roots level campaign and an electorate tired of its incumbent the Liberal Party won, or Roosevelt had won - which quickly became the problem of the day. Despite attempts to paint itself a NYC's New Deal Coalition, the Roosevelt jr Mayoral ticket was nothing so stable, and cracks quickly began to appear. Part of the problem was that the candidate himself did not see his new office as a permanent one, merely a stepping stone for higher office, and he had failed to provide clear direction for what his plans for the city were to be, which consequently meant that as policy slowly trickled out of the Mayor's office it almost always failed to please.
When "business as usual" was planned for the economy, the union support and ALP flipped its collective lid: the top down nature of Dewey's tenure had created an increasing wage gap, especially in Construction workers, which the Unions demanded needing addressing. Eventually, Mayor Roosevelt promised to do something (what was never established) the Democrat fellow travellers in his camp forced him to put the breaks on it. The late 50s were boom time for America and everyone knew, who really cared if Unions were moaning a small wage? It would probably fix itself in a few months. Even on FDR jr's specialist area of civil rights, his Office bungled it again as the racial and ethnic issues of America effectively became a pressure cooker in New York: his continuation of Dewey's crime policies meant that Italian 'Community Leaders' could not be persuaded to sit down and ease off their antagonism of African-Americans; who, with the South and MLK in superdrive by now, were tired of being talked down to by rich white men, no matter who his daddy was; the Irish remained in the pocket of the individuals that had been the Tammany machine, who promptly defended the Italian's right to demonstrate against 'black infringement'.
By 1960, Roosevelt jr could see the cracks had started leaking, as crime rose for the first time in years and a new President who ready to do something on civil rights - no matter the cost - and a local economy showing the signs that it might be overheating. So he took the first out he could find, eventually his brothers James and John worked to get him a nomination for a seat in the House. Uprooting to the other side of the country was not Junior's preferred option, but he felt it better to go sooner than later knowing that he hadn't exactly improved the city that he had been custodian of for three years. Announcing his resignation, an emergency election was called, and the only thing immediately clear is that Liberal Party was going to suffer the most, as the ALP cut all ties and (with Tammany Hall officially dead and buried) the Democrats tried to get their house back in order and decide what their post-Tammany future meant.
[4] The Republicans wanted to head the Democrats off at the pass and sent in Lindsay, a man making a name for himself in the Department of Justice with civil rights, as someone who might filch part of that constituency. He turned out to be far more liberal than they'd expected - and having got straight to such a powerful position, quite starry-eyed about that power and uninclined to play internal politics. Lindsay pushed hard on civil rights, pleasing the president; gave school boards more power so the communities could have more say; and pushed to raise tax for both civil rights reforms and to boost the police against crime.
All three things at once was a tall order. Teacher's unions, his own party people, the Italian communities, black activist groups, and the police - all needed reassuring. They couldn't all have it. Lindsay talked to the teachers and the Italians, assuming the other three would be fine. The result was that for the rest of his term, much of the New York Republicans were bitterly at odds with Lindsay, forcing him to work with the Liberals (and have secret backdoor deals with some Democrats without being seen to deal with the party, which crossed the line into bribes). The rise in crime was suppressed, civil rights and community relations improved for black New Yorkers... and after that, he struggled to get anything else done. This didn't harm him in the 1964 election, as he was able to promote himself more than his party, but his second would be dogged with inability to get to grips with poverty and a slow rise in crime once more.
If he'd fixed relations with his own party, he would later admit, things could have been fixed, or if he'd defected to the Liberals and openly worked with Democrats. But things were too far gone for his pride to take the former - HE'D been elected becasue of what HE did, not the party! - and he was too stubborn for the latter. New Yorkers assumed he was doing his best and he was seen as keeping riots from hitting the city after Doctor King's murder, but they wanted a mayor who had the power to get more done.
[5] For the first time in over 30 years the Democrats were back, led back to the promised land by the popular city comptroller Mario Procaccino. The Democrats had run a targeted campaign at the urban working class promising an increased standard of living, improved law and order to deal and a move back towards, as Procaccino called them, traditional values. What this actually meant was nebulous but it was enough to win over wavering Democrat voters outside Procaccino's core vote in Brooklyn and the Bronx, though it was another tight race, with the Dems only winning by 1,543 votes.
Procaccino barely had time to make himself comfortable in City Hall before he was hit with his first crisis, the 1969 Nor'easter storm. NYC took the brunt of the winter blast and for two days the city was in a state of paralysis. Realizing this first test would set the tone for his mayoral-ship Procaccino was dynamic and forceful in his response, demanding round the clock work by municipal employees to help get the city up and running. Mario himself was no slouch, visiting each Borough frequently and never afraid to be seen to pick up a shovel and mucking in with the residents. His quick response and that of the city infrastructure as a whole was seen as exemplary and Procaccino's warm and folksy manner won him a great deal of affection, quickly becoming known as "Our Mario".
However it wasn't all plain sailing for Mario, his condoning of the "Hard Hat" riot and apparent dismissal of suspected police brutality in Black neighborhoods contrasted poorly with Mayor Lindsay's more deft handling of the citys racial issues. It didn't seem to hurt with his base however and he was able to turn the tables on what he called his "Limousine Liberal" critics, painting them as an out of touch elite, blind to the concerns of the common man. In fact he was re-elected with a much increased majority in 1972, the future looking rosy.
However it was in his second term that chickens came home to roost. The price for the rapid response to the Winter of 68/69 had been achieved by agreements with the unions for large pay increases and improved terms and conditions, this in conjunction with increased funding for the police and local communities (the ones who supported the Democrats anyway) put a massive strain on an already loaded budget. The New York deficit began to spiral out of control and happening snap bang in the middle of the growing energy crisis threw the city into a full scale emergency. City Hall responded with panic and began a general reduction of funding to all services, Procaccino gambled he could sell it as everyone taking a hit for the good of the city, he was wrong.
The already frayed social bonds between the various communities finally began to break down in earnest, crime shot up and strikes erupted. New York had been unknowingly sitting on a powder keg for at least a decade, with the lid kept on by unsustainable social spending. As the money ran out old grievances spilled out into the open, few will forget Walter Cronkite's famous line "ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning" while footage showed striking cops aimlessly watching widespread looting and wanton violence. In a notorious case the transport polices inept bungling of a bizarre subway hijack led to the massacre of 20 people and the escape of the hostage takers with the one million dollar ransom. All this played out on TV screens across America, leading New York to be dubbed "America's shame".
Procaccino should have been a goner in '76 election, his attempts to tie his election campaign to the national bicentennial seen a cynical attempt to deny any attachment to NYC. Two things went in his favour however. One was the quixotic independent campaign of John Lindsay, looking to come back and, as he put it, "save my city", this led to a split in the Republican-Liberal vote. The other would not be known about until long after Procaccino's death, his quid pro quo with organised crime to push out the Irish and Italians vote in exchange for a hands off policy on their interests, especially around the seedy 42nd Street and Times Square grindhouse district. This was capped off by a now known to be staged assassination attempt during a Brooklyn street festival by an apparent "Black Nationalist" (in reality a paid ex-con) to garner sympathy. The unfortunate side effect being a revenge mass shooting in Harlem leaving 12 dead and racial tension once again pushed to breaking point.
Procaccino's last term continued to go from worse to worse, presiding over a crime ridden city, covered in muck and grime from an umpteenth sanitation strike while "white flight" increased exponentially leaving a poor, desolate city behind. The final nail in the coffin was the cities bankruptcy and Mayor Procaccino had to go cap in hand to the Federal government for a bailout, one of the conditions being he was not to run for re-election. Frankly this suited Mario as he was worn down, tired and miserable.
So in 1979 he packed up and left the Mayor's official residence, the New York Post running with a front page of a tearful, broken Procaccino and a play on his long discarded nickname "Out Mario".
[6] The 1980 mayoral election was not only a battle for 'the soul of New York', but also for the soul of the Republican Party. 'Out Mario' meant that the Democrats were out of the running for a chance of office, which to the opportunistic, beacon of the American conservatives was a chance to wrestle control of the Republican Party in New York away from its liberal faction. The contest was hard fought, but decision of the liberal Republicans to put up David Rockefeller was felt a cynical ploy acting on Nelson's death, who David certainly wasn't, so naturally Buckley dominated the debates, effectively campaign on the need for a "conservative revolution in city finances", dodging the negative connotations of the race question while promising to do whatever was necessary to bring back law & order, finally avoiding the Rockefeller nepotism accusations by keeping his brother the Senator at arms length for the duration.
In his own way, Buckley more or less fulfilled his exact promises of his election. City spending was cut so thoroughly to the bone - making the slow, fazed reductions of previous years seem tame - that it sent an almost immediate shock throughout the city, which initially exacerbated every other problem it had going for it: Harlem and the Bronx blew up in another spout of racial violence; those small business in with organised crime could no longer afford to pay their protection without city financial support, which led to a spike in arson, shootings, 'bust-outs' and suicides; finally a left-wing protest turned into an all out riot on Wall Street. Not that Buckley especially minded, he had planned for it and considered all these to be his enemy, and a NYPD suddenly flush with cash from cut services rolled in and put the smackdown on everyone. Even national guard elements were mobilised to support the police as they restored order, but things admittedly getting out of hand with over zealous police - NYPD's breakup of protesters outside the New York Stock Exchange memorised as the Second Wall Street Crash. This kind of hardball, 'walk the line' police work continued and remains perhaps the most personally contentious part Buckley's term in office for many, but the man himself stood by his record as for every black kid that got "a bit too much of a kicking", he could at least hold up another Frank Lucas or Angelo Bruno to show his war on crime was working.
As the city began to prove a safer place, investment returned to NYC, which Mayor Buckley was glad to endorse and support. He even threw in sweeteners to help in the selling off of City services, which had already been going underfunded enough to make most of them 'fiscally irresponsible'. The Market rolled in and by 1983, for better or worse, New York had gone from being almost Fabian or social democratic to a Friedmanite's wet dream. Although it took a backseat for the most part, Buckley also became increasingly determined to increase the power of Church and the Family, which he found surprising aid from the city's Synagogues and Black Churches. This helped breach the gap Buckley had between himself and the City minorities, and meant he could tackle the inequality and poverty problem of NYC without having to resort to state or federal welfare, as Buckley ensure the religious charities had a steady flow of charitable, mega-bucks donations through every connection he could pull - however this had the unforeseen effect of contributing to the stigma against homosexuals and transgender peoples as the AIDS crisis deepened.
Buckley shocked many when he refused to run for another term in 1984, claiming he had missed his time on television and Firing Line. He returned for another series of his celebrated programme before standing as Republican candidate for Governor of New York state. He held the position until his retirement in 1998.
[7] With the Democrats still in disarray and the Republicans scrambling to replace Buckley, the Liberals had their shot and they had their man: Dinkins had been a Democrat until he'd switched parties in dismay at Procaccino's mayoralty, and he still had ties to the black community from that time. He promised to retain the fall in crime "with dignity", and to try and bring harmony to the city.
First, he began to increase the city's welfare programs, upped the funding of the services Buckley hadn't sold off, and planned a renewal project of run-down housing. Middle-class taxpayers were unhappy about paying, the churches were unhappy at being cut out (and Dinkins made sure to schmooze the black ones), but the people seeing improvements to their neighbourhoods sure appreciated it. A slow, steady transformation of the city began - and ended in 1986, when Buckley became governor.
The rest of Dinkins' term is infamous in New York political history. The mayor and the governor disagreed on nearly everything, but the mayor needed to get the extra cash from the governor, and there constant fights, constant deals, constant sudden changes of policy, constant attempts to raise city-specific revenue. (Dinkins took advantage of rap's popularity and New York origins to make it easier for rap concerts to take place - so the city could tax the damn things) Cartoonists and SNL sketches compared Dinkins and Buckley to the Cold War powers engaged in SALT negotiations. The city bodged along under this, gradually changing but never in the way either men wanted it.
There were two exceptions to this. The first was AIDS and the need for better treatment clinics & education, a fight Dinkins won by starting a public campaign about the risk of AIDS infecting anyone. "It Can Happen Here" said the famous posters, and New Yorkers were shocked - it wasn't just the gays and junkies?! - and Buckley bowed to the public fear. (This, due to taking place in the country's media hub, is also responsible for bouncing the president into approving similar measures)
Exception two was a big crackdown on the mobs after the horrific Times Square Massacre in '89. Buckley and Dinkins had both followed Procaccino's "hands off" approach, taking the tax revenue and getting used to the idea the Square, often seen as an eyesore, was 'contained' - up until a mob shootout killed seventeen people, eleven of them innocent bystanders. Sickened by what they'd allowed to fester, both men ordered the police to blitz the area. The resulting prosecutions gave rise to three smaller-scale shootings of the next two years but also broke the back of the mafia in the city. Dinkins hoped to greatly renovate Times Square after this but there was only the money for half of it.
If there hadn't been a national recession in 1992, Dinkins may have won his fourth term but there was - and it meant the renovated half of Times Square became a renovated quarter - and more people needed those welfare services. Unable to get extra cash, Dinkins had to spend more money than the city had available and this left him open to attacks that he would Bankrupt The City and Raise Your Taxes.
[8] There was little love lost between the King of State Island and the rest of the city, and few suspected that Guy Molinari would ever attempt to and much less succeed to run in an election where the vast majority of the voters lived in the degenerate jungle that was New York City outside Richmond County. But then 1992 rolled around, and Molinari, as chief of the most Republican section of a largely Democratic city (on the federal lever, at least) found himself without suitable recruits to send against Dinkins. Had any other man been Mayor they would just have drummed up some poor fool to send to the slaughter, but Molinari hated the incumbent with a fervor not seen in mayoral politics since the days of Lindsay and Procaccino and would be damned if he saw Dinkin sail smoothly to reelection. So he ran himself, fully expecing to lose but hoping to get some solid hits on the way. Then the recession hit.
Molinari might have been a Staten Island Republican, but he also had a well deserved reputation for practically sweating effective (if ruthless) public administration. He'd clean up Time Square and keep city services running without spending money he didn't have on shit we don't need. His social conservatism might not have played well on Manhattan, but no one runs against David Dinkins expecting to take Harlem and the Greenwich Village, and it was often low-key enough to find itself quite at home in outer boroughs. So after a surprisingly mellow and issues-focused campaign Walked into office on 40% of the vote (more than enough in a race where the city's four "main" parties as well one independent all won at least a tenth of the vote).
Mayor Molinari was no revolutionary, and once all Dinkin's apparatchiks were replaced by sound Republicans he sat out to do exactly what he promised. A strict regimen of austerity was enacted to get the city's finances back in order, and spending was cut to get the books out the red, but the reforms were not at all as strict as many had feared and/or hoped, and the Mayor would find broad popular support for his policies. There is today nothing suggestion we will not be reelected when that time co-
"We now return to the main news of this morning, the apparent bombing of the O'Dwyer Center and the 1994 World Exposition in New York City. The White House just confirmed that among the casulties were both Vice President Dianne Feinstein and New York City Mayor Guy Molinari. President Ravenel, currently in the air, is expected to speak to the nation shortly. We will continue to follow the development in New York as reports come in."
[8] Cometh the hour, cometh the woman: Gotbaum was a decades-long civil servant who'd worked in education and the Parks Department before being voted in as the President of the City Council, a lackluster tie-breaking ceremonial position. But it was the first down the list in the line of succession, and so Acting-Mayor Gotbaum was rushed to the office as New York dealt with the horrific events of the Exposition Bombing. Ninety eight New Yorkers were dead, along with 204 other Americans and foreign nationals, and the city needed to be assured all was well. Gotbaum's steely calm (or so it was taken) and adept planning won her national acclaim.
Then came everything else. Her first task was to organise a new election, feeling she needed to have a dependable mandate - or, for opponents, was taking advantage to double her time in office. She handily romped home. This left her as mayor during America's new focus on counterterror: new global alliances, intelligence sharing, stronger apparatus at home, and airport security. The FBI and the new Office of Domestic Security were soon accused of aggressive acts against Muslim Americans and, later, activists protesting against counterterrorism airstrikes in Sudan. Gotbaum's term was dominated by the need to walk a tightrope between protecting civil liberties and not being seen by New Yorkers as being 'soft' on people who'd killed 98 of them. She also had to walk a tightrope when the NYPD clashed with the new ODS over jurisdictional issues, having to keep the city's police on-side while not stumbling into feuds with the White House.
Feeling increasingly unsuited to the role - her attempts at further public arts programmes and education were overshadowed by the constant security clashes - she announced she would not seek reelection in 1997. She spent her last year trying to finish the 'cleaning up' of Times Square, while agreeing to leave a (also cleaner) remnant of the old days as "Old Times Square" to appease those worried the city was becoming gentrified.