Fiorello La Guardi: America's Favorite Mayor #sponsored

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It is commonly said

that the mayor of New York City has the second toughest job in America,

ranking behind only the president of the United States.

It isn't hard to see why.

New York is one of the most diverse

and complicated places in the entire world. with more than 8 million residents,

800 different spoken languages, thousands of different economic interests representing trillions of dollars,

and all of it is crammed into an area less than half the size

of the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

With so much going on in such a confined area,

chaos is bound to result.

And trying to bring order to

that chaos is a task

that appears both impossible

and thankless.

No one is ever happy with a mayor of New York City,

no matter who it is or what party they belong to.

Of all the men who've ever held the position, there's been 110 of them,

and no woman has ever held the job.

None is held in higher esteem than the man who attempted to reign in

the chaos that is New York City during 12 of the most challenging years

of the city's history.

Fiorella LaGuardia.

LaGuardia was not an imposing man to look at. short, squeaky voiced,

and wearing perpetually ill-fitted suits and garish hats.

But he made up for it with sheer force of personality,

as well as a seemingly inexhaustible well of energy

and enthusiasm for all the things

that made New York City what it was.

No mayor has accomplished more in his time in office than LaGuardia did,

almost single-handedly transforming it into the modern metropolis that it is today.

And every mayor that has come after him has been compared unfavorably to him.

That doesn't mean anybody is fitting him out for saintthood.

However, LaGuardia had a temper that was described as volcanic.

And when he erupted, he burned everyone in his path.

He had little patience for people who couldn't keep up with him

or who appeared not to care

as much as he did,

which was pretty much everyone.

And he made enemies everywhere he went

because of an almost pathological inability to keep from running his mouth.

That being said, it is hard to argue

that any mayor or any city in America has had a bigger impact not

only on the people who lived there,

but on American history itself.

After all, had things turned out a little differently.

Fierella Laguardia could have ended up one of the most powerful men in the

world.

Welcome back to Biographics.

I'm your host, Eric Malikite, and today's script was provided by Ben Adelman.

So, be sure to show them some love in the comments

as you deploy your likes

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that algorithmic nonsense.

Let's get to it.

Fiorel Raphaela Enrico Laguardio was born in December 1882 in New York City,

but he did not spend his childhood there.

His father, Akil, an immigrant from Italy,

was determined for his family to be as American as possible.

Soon anglicizing his son's middle name to Henry

and insisting that English be the only language spoken in the household.

When Fierella was 3 years old,

his father joined the US Army as a musician.

And so, the Laguardia kids grew up in one dusty western outpost after another.

Growing up, Fierella was teased by other children for his Italian heritage

and for being short.

He never grew past 5'2 in tall

and like many small boys felt he needed to overcompensate for it by being

ready to fight anyone at any time.

Some historians have argued

that this little man syndrome stayed with him for the rest of his life

and formed an integral part of his personality.

In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain

and Akila LaGuardia's regiment was sent to Tampa,

Florida as part of the force being raised to attack Spanish possessions in the

Caribbean,

particularly Cuba.

Fierella, who was 16,

attempted to enlist in the army himself to fight alongside his father,

but was turned away for being too young.

He went to Florida anyway, convincing the St.

Louis newspaper to send him there as a war correspondent.

However, before either LaGuardia could go off to war, Achila became severely ill,

likely as a result of eating contaminated rations,

and was discharged from the service on medical grounds.

Short of money, the Laguardias left America for Europe,

moving to the city of Trieste, today a part of Italy,

but then controlled by the Austrohungarian Empire.

He took a series of jobs with the US consular offices in the cities

of Budapest and Fume.

But as he later admitted,

he soon realized that he didn't have much of a future in diplomacy.

He was too outspoken, too brash,

too insistent on doing what he considered the right thing to do to be

of much use to the State Department.

So, he returned to America in 1907,

specifically the city of his birth

and the city he would in time shape into his own image,

New York.

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LaGuardia's time in Europe had exposed him to a melting pot of foreign cultures,

food, and languages, all of which he grew to love.

He proved adept as a linguist, teaching himself Italian, Hungarian, Croatian, French, Yiddish,

and German in addition to his native English.

This skill served him well in his next job

as a translator at the immigration station on Ellis Island.

Over the course of the next 3 years,

LaGuardia became very familiar with the seemingly unending tide of immigrants

that passed through the station,

most of them coming from Eastern or Southern Europe,

looking for a better life or freedom from discrimination in America.

He also became intimately familiar with the often infuriating bureaucracy

that comes with government work.

Many of those immigrants never left New York City,

which was already becoming known

as one of the most diverse melting pots in the world.

LaGuardia was determined never to leave again either, and while working at Ellis Island,

he took night classes at NYU's law school,

being admitted to the bar in 1910.

But a career as a lawyer was not his ultimate ambition.

All along he aspired to use the legal profession

as a stepping stone to what he called public service.

LaGuardia hated the word politics

and the worst insult in his vocabulary was to call someone a politician.

But he still strived for a career in public office both

because he considered himself a man of action

and because he wanted to champion the causes of the little guy,

the underdog, the ordinary man.

LaGuardia joined the Republican party because he identified with their progressive wing,

which fought for labor reform and against the big corporations that exploited wage workers.

His personal hero was Theodore Roosevelt,

the bombastic former president that was still immensely popular nationwide.

However, it was tough sledding being a Republican in New York because for decades,

the city had been in the iron grip of the Democratic Party political machine

known as Tam Hall.

Tamony dominated city politics

because they had a strangle hold on the city's large Irish-American voting block

and because they weren't afraid to engage in skull duggery in order to get

what they wanted.

Corruption and graft were considered almost the birthright of Tam politicians

and for years they drained New York's coffers into the pockets of themselves

and their friends.

Fierela Laguardia saw in Tamony Hall everything

that was wrong with American politics

and was determined to oppose them whenever

and however he could.

That's why he volunteered to stand for election in New York's 14th congressional district

in 1914.

Even though it was

so thoroughly dominated by Tamony

that nobody else even wanted the job

and he lost.

But it was a much closer race than anyone had expected.

When LaGuardia tried again in 1916, he won,

becoming the first Italian American ever elected to the House of Representatives.

In Congress, LaGuardia was witnessed to one of the most momentous occasions in American

history when President Woodro Wilson asked for a declaration of war against Germany

and her allies.

LaGuardia voted in favor of joining the Great War on the side of the

Allies,

but he went further than that.

He became the only member of Congress to join the army during the war,

requiring a leave of absence from his post in Washington in order to serve

in uniform.

LaGuardia joined the air service as a pilot.

He'd received flying lessons earlier in the decade after becoming enamored with aviation.

He saw action on the Italian front against the Austrians,

and for the rest of his life,

though he would obtain many titles and ranks,

nothing made him happier than

when someone would call him by his wartime rank of major.

When LaGuardia returned from his war service,

it was clear his political star was on the rise.

In 1919, he was convinced to give up his seat in Congress to run

for the office of president of the board of alderman in New York City,

a position that was second in power only to the mayor.

Now, for the first time,

the entire city was to be exposed to the small man with a squeaky

voice and the flamboyant style

and to take it to hungry people.

Not since Teddy Roosevelt had New Yorkers seen anything like him.

LaGuardia delighted in being able to make campaign speeches to Italian-Americans in Italian in

the morning than more speeches to Jewish Americans in Yiddish in the afternoon. all

the while making fiery remarks,

lambasting his Tamony Hall opponents as being corrupt, incompetent, and stupid.

He won and for the next two years battled it out with other city

officials,

including the controller and the mayor.

But 1921 was not a good year for LaGuardia.

Initially promised his party support in that year's mayoral election.

He was outraged when the Republicans picked somebody else instead.

He fought for the nomination in a primary and lost,

costing him his seat as aldermatic president.

In the process, he was forced to get surgery for an old back injury

sustained in a plane crash in Italy.

While he was in the hospital,

thieves broke into his house in the Bronx and cleaned him out.

Worst of all, though,

his wife and baby daughter both died of illness within 3 days of each

other,

leaving the heartbroken man with no family and seemingly no political future,

all at the same time.

But the little flower, the English translation of Fiorella, wasn't done yet.

In 1922, he was reelected to Congress,

this time as the representative from the 20th district.

LaGuardia would spend the rest of the roaring 20s in Washington,

a time when Republicans dominated national politics largely on the strength of the economy.

But LaGuardia was not cut from the same cloth

as Republican leaders like Warren G.

Harding, Calvin Culage, and Herbert Hoover.

For a long period, he refused to even describe himself as a Republican,

instead accepting other party labels like socialist or progressive.

He was still a reformer at heart

and ideologically opposed to the LZair pro business agenda

that dominated the Republican party at this time.

Whenever LaGuardia took to the House floor,

congressmen and journalists alike held their breath to see what outrageous thing he was

going to say next.

He became famous nationwide as the loudest man in Congress.

Now was the time to fight.

At the same time, LaGuardia still had his eye on New York City politics.

In 1929, he challenged the immensely popular James J.

Walker for his job.

Jimmy Walker was a Tammy man, more of an entertainer than a leader,

and was frequently lambasted for being both lazy and corrupt.

But still, New Yorkers loved him enough to reelect him in a landslide

that year,

a stinging defeat for LaGuardia.

Still, 1929 wasn't all bad for him.

He got married again to his longtime secretary, Mary Fischer.

Because she couldn't have children, the couple adopted a daughter, Jean, and a son,

Eric.

Four years after LaGuardia's mayoral defeat in 1929,

the political situation in New York had changed dramatically.

The economy had come to a screeching halt

and was now mired in the worst depression the country had ever known,

putting millions of people out of work.

Jimmy Walker had resigned in disgrace following a highly publicized corruption investigation,

leaving the contest of 1933 a wideopen affair.

Fiorella LaGuardia had lost his seat in Congress in the same election

that had swept Franklin D.

Roosevelt into the White House

and was now gearing up to make another run for New York's top job.

He ran under the banner of the Fusion Party,

an alliance of Republicans with New Deal Democrats opposed to Tamonn Hall

and independents who didn't support either party.

This coalition spanning numerous ethnicities, economic classes,

and ideologies was enough to secure LaGuardia's election as New York's 99th mayor.

It's amazing what a coalition of nonpartisan people can do, isn't it?

He took office on January 1st, 1934,

and the city would never be the same again.

LaGuardia's first task was to resolve the financial crisis

which had threatened to bankrupt the city,

largely caused by mismanagement and graft by previous administrations.

He completely reorganized municipal administration in the city,

replacing thousands of officials who'd been appointed thanks to their political connections with more

qualified candidates.

He pledged to appoint whoever was best suited for the job regardless of political

affiliation,

spelling an end to the system of patronage

that had long dominated New York government.

He backed the creation of a new city charter

that replaced the board of aldermen,

long controlled by Tam with a new city council

that was seen as more representative.

He ordered his police commissioner, Lou Valentine, to retire hundreds of old-time officers,

many of whom were on the take with younger, more professional replacements.

He needed the police department in order to wage a new war on organized

crime in the city.

LaGuardia thought the mafia dishonored the good name of Italian-Americans in New York,

leading others to believe they were all gangsters.

He took particular interest in disrupting the mob's illegal gambling operations,

ordering the NYPD to conduct sweeps at businesses all over the city to seize

slot machines.

LaGuardia, never a man to miss a good photo opportunity,

then had them loaded on a barge and shipped out to Long Island Sound,

where he would theatrically smash thousands of the quote unquote one-armed bandits with a

sledgehammer and toss them into the water

while movie cameras rolled.

On another occasion, the mayor banned the import

and sale of artichokes of all things into the city in order to break

the monopoly of a kingpin who was artificially inflating prices of the spiny vegetables

that was an essential part of Italian cooking.

And LaGuardia would know his spaghetti recipe was famous among his friends and acquaintances.

It seemed like LaGuardia was everywhere all the time.

Whenever there was a report of a fire in the city,

the mayor would race to the scene with his own helmet and fire code,

sometimes personally directing firefighting operations, much to the chagrin of the fire commissioner.

In order to save money in the city's budget,

LaGuardia dismissed his bodyguards and instead carried a pistol around wherever he went,

daring someone to take a shot at him.

He was fond of making surprise visits to city departments

and operations all over town.

And anyone found not to be doing their job properly was in for a

dose of the mayor's infamous temper.

Furello LaGuardia realized better than any of his contemporaries

that a city was not just a place where money was made.

It is a place where people live.

And he tried as hard

as he could to make New York a better place to live for its

inhabitants.

One of the most visible accomplishments of his efforts to remake New York City

was his overhauling of the city's transportation infrastructure,

which was old, crumbling, and completely unsuited for the increased popularity of the automobile.

For this, he partnered with his parks commissioner, Robert Moses,

a man who had the exact opposite temperament as LaGuardia,

but shared a desire to get things done.

The two had a tempestuous relationship,

but still formed one of the most successful partnerships in New York history.

Multiple bridges and tunnels connecting the city with the rest of the country were

built,

improving car traffic flow throughout New York City.

Hundreds of playgrounds and swimming pools were opened,

providing a place for children to play.

City parks were cleaned up and refurbished.

The Central Park Zoo underwent extensive renovation.

Hospitals and schools were built or renovated.

And in Queens, a huge area in Flushing

that used to be a city dump were now being prepared for the opening

of the 1939 World's Fair,

which would draw millions of tourists from all over the world to New York

City.

And right next door to the fairgrounds,

the city's first airport was being built

and would be named for the former army pilot who was chiefly responsible for

its creation.

In order to get money for all these projects,

LaGuardia made regular trips to Washington to meet with the man he described

as my friend Franklin.

Fully 20% of civil works administration's national budget was used on projects in

and around New York City,

largely as a result of personal appeals to the president by the mayor.

Roosevelt and LaGuardia were from opposing parties,

but were ideologically closer together than perhaps any two men in America at the

time. as what LaGuardia was doing in New York was what the president was

trying to do all throughout the country.

However, LaGuardia didn't have Roosevelt's marketked ability to conceal his emotions.

When he got angry, which was often,

his temper raged unchecked on whoever was in the vicinity,

whether they be a secretary or city commissioner.

He had a volatile relationship with the press,

who were more than happy to print every inflammatory comment he made.

Many people complained of him behaving like a dictator,

giving him nicknames like Mussolini or little Napoleon.

The Guardia could usually shrug off these comments

and move on to his next escapade.

Whether that be conducting the orchestra at Carnegie Hall

or opening one of the first public housing projects in the country.

World War II ended up dominating the latter part of LaGuardia's career in multiple

ways.

Had Franklin Roosevelt followed the established custom

and declined to run for a third term

as president in 1940,

many people felt the natural successor to the New Deal platform was the mayor

of New York.

However, Europe went to war in 1939, and in 1940,

the Nazis swarmed into France.

FDR felt compelled to run for a third term

because he didn't trust anyone else to lead the country through the storm he

knew was coming.

But one wonders how history might have been different

if it had been LaGuardia on the national ballot in 1940 instead of Roosevelt.

So the little flower was convinced to run for a third term

as mayor despite the fact

that he didn't really want to.

He was tired and ready for a new challenge.

A month after he was reelected,

the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and so America went to war.

LaGuardia would lead the city through the conflict,

overseeing war measures like the dimming of the city's lights to prevent friendly ships

from being spotted by yubot,

termed a brownout, and managing crises like the Harlem riots of 1943.

And when a plane crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945,

he began hosting a weekly radio show on Sunday afternoons,

often for an audience as large as 2 million listeners.

On one memorable occasion when newspaper delivery men were on strike,

the mayor read out the comic pages over the air to entertain the kids,

turning to his police commissioner to ask why his detectives were

so fat compared to Dick Tracy.

By the end of 1945, with three terms behind him,

LaGuardia relinquished the keys of Gracie Mansion

and decamped with his family to a new home in the Bronx.

And he wasn't ready to retire yet.

He had plans to write his autobiography,

signed a contract to do a weekly syndicated radio show

that would air across the country,

and would not count out a return to politics,

perhaps a run for US senator in 1950.

But then he got sick.

He had a tumor in his pancreas,

and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Fiorelia died peacefully at home in September 1947, aged 64.

More than 40,000 people attended his funeral

as New Yorkers mourned the loss of one of the most colorful

and impactful figures in its long history.

I hope you learned something today.

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I'm Eric Malikite and we'll see you next