The Great Mayor: Fiorello La Guardia and the Making of the City of New York
Brodsky has written the life of a New York City figure that ought to appeal to readers everywhere. Brodsky (Grover Cleveland) admires the half-Italian, half-Jewish congressman and mayor ("the last great paradigm of honesty and incorruptibility in American political history to date"), but he doesn't neglect La Guardia's (1882-1947) faults, which became especially apparent during his third term as mayor amid the turmoil of WWII. Brodsky has mined rich material about his subject's formative years in locales as diverse as North Dakota, the Arizona Territory and Italy (La Guardia settled in New York City, where he had been born, in 1906). Despite his disdain for social niceties, his outspokenness on political issues and his unimposing physical stature (5'2" and rotund), La Guardia reached the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from a Tammany-dominated district in 1912, standing for open immigration, equal treatment for minorities, harsh measures against political corruption and other progressive measures. La Guardia interrupted his political career to serve in the military during WWI, flying combat missions and serving as a liaison with the Italians and other U.S. allies. A hero upon his return, he eventually served another decade in Congress. Brodsky outlines a rich, varied career that culminated with "the Little Flower" 's election as New York's mayor in 1933. Brodsky's admiration for his subject-to whom, he says, New York City owes its present greatness-remains intact, despite the mayor's increasingly authoritarian nature as he consolidated power: "many considered New York's mayor the nation's mayor." 16 pages of b&w; photos not seen by PW.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.