Fiorello LaGuardia

Fiorello LaGuardia

Fiorello Enrico "Henry" LaGuardia (born December 11, 1882 in New York City , †  September 20, 1947 ibid) was an American politician and from 1934 to 1945 for three terms mayor of the city of New York.

Life

Fiorello LaGuardia was born in Greenwich Village ; his father was Achille La Guardia from Cerignola , Italy , his mother Irene Coen Luzzato came from Trieste .

LaGuardia worked as an interpreter on Ellis Island in New York from 1907 to 1910 , which he used to finance his law studies . In 1917/18 he took part in the US Army on the Italian front temporarily in the First World War, fighting against Austrian and German troops. After his return to the United States, he worked for the immigration authorities and as the deputy attorney general of New York State before he was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives in the fall of 1916 . He was a member of this parliamentary chamber from March 4, 1917 until his resignation on December 31, 1919. He was then President of the City Council ( Board of Aldermen ) of New York from 1920 to 1921 , before returning to Congress on March 4, 1923 , where he stayed until March 3, 1933 after multiple re-elections. During this time he was not only a Republican candidate, but was also a candidate for the American Labor Party , a short-lived party that emerged from the union movement.

LaGuardia statue on LaGuardia Place in Greenwich Village

After missing re-electoral confirmation, LaGuardia returned to New York, where he made a name for himself as an opponent of child labor and alcohol prohibition, as well as an advocate of political equality for women. In 1934 he was elected mayor of the city. He was an administrative expert and rehabilitated the city government and the dire financial condition that Mayor Jimmy Walker had left behind. After his election, he appointed Thomas E. Dewey for a special prosecutor, trying thus the power of Tammany Hall to break, because Dewey turned against organized gambling, the classic New York gangs such as the already commercial basis Eastman Gang or the Five Points Gang was and now organized in particular by Dutch Schultz , a childhood friend of Lucky Luciano , the most powerful mafioso in town. Schultz was charged with tax evasion and Luciano was sentenced in 1936 to 30 to 50 years in prison.

La Guardia also took care of public housing projects - one of his first acts was the establishment of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) - and he was an advocate of the New Deal policies of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt . When savings had to be made after taking office as mayor, he cut his own annual salary from $ 40,000 to $ 22,500. However, he was also a staunch opponent of all rail-based surface transport, his goal was to make New York tram-free . He was largely able to enforce this, but it also affected all elevated railway systems in Manhattan, which were closed and demolished.

LaGuardia decided against a fourth term in 1945 and instead worked for the United Nations . When he left office, he was already suffering from pancreatic cancer . He died on September 20, 1947 at the age of 64. He left his wife Marie $ 8,000 and a house in the Bronx. All of New York mourned The Little Flower , as he was called in translation of his first name Fiorello and in reference to his small height.

An airport in New York today bears his name (see New York-LaGuardia Airport ), and the La Guardia Committee was named after him.

LaGuardia's life was to be staged as a play on Broadway in the late 1950s and early 1960s with Lou Costello in the lead role, but this was prevented by Costello's sudden death.

In art

• In the film Damned to Silence , he is played by Phil Arnold.
• In the movie Ghostbusters II , there is talk of LaGuardia appearing as a ghost.

Web links

Commons : Fiorello LaGuardia  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Fiorello LaGuardia in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Newspaper article about Fiorello LaGuardia in the press kit 20th Century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/fiorello-h-la-guardia-6690.php
2. ↑ Even if LaGuardia did not run again in 1945, it had developed a momentum of its own that was no longer reversible. In 1956, the last "trolley" operated in Brooklyn , completing this development. See also: James C. Greller, Edward B. Watson: Brooklyn Trolleys . NJ International Inc., 1995. ISBN 0-934088-17-9 .

predecessor	Office	successor
John P. O'Brien	Mayor of New York City 1934–1945	William O'Dwyer