LaGuardia was mayor with a heart

In keeping with its reputation as the nation’s most fascinating city, New York City has had many colorful mayors. One of them, Fiorello LaGuardia, who served from 1933 to 1945, was born on this date, December 11, in 1882.

LaGuardia, who later had one of New York’s major airports named for him, was in office during most of the Great Depression and through World War II. He has been described as “Italian Jewish Protestant,” typifying the cosmopolitan metropolis.

The mayor caught the imagination of many in the nation, along with residents of the city. The long-running NBC radio comedy show, “Fibber McGee and Molly,” had a character called Mayor LaTrivia, a spoof on LaGuardia. LaTrivia, mayor of the mythical town of Wistful Vista, was a weekly fixture on the show, beginning in 1941 and continuing until the real-life New York mayor died in 1947. After LaGuardia’s death, the producers retired LaTrivia for a year and then brought him back.

Along with managing the major aspects of the nation’s largest city, LaGuardia carried out gestures to ordinary families: One of his most famous symbolic actions came during a strike in 1945 involving the city’s newspapers. He did a broadcast on the city-owned radio station, WNYC, and read the Sunday funnies over the air for children and adults to enjoy, a compensation for the absence of newspapers.

As other means of reaching out to his constituents, LaGuardia was known to ride fire trucks and go with police to raid speakeasies during Prohibition. He took the entire population of orphans’ homes to see the Yankees play baseball. 

On another occasion in 1935, LaGuardia went to night court in one of the poorest sections of the city. For the night, he took over for the judge who normally heard the cases. In one case, a ragged grandmother was charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She pled for mercy because her daughter was sick and the grandchildren were hungry, but the storekeeper from whom she had stolen refused to drop the charges. 

LaGuardia did not feel he could let the woman off, so he sentenced her to 10 dollars or 10 days in jail, but he paid the fine himself. Then he passed the hat, fining everyone in the courtroom 50 cents each for living in a town where a woman had to steal to get food for her grandchildren. The bailiff collected 47 dollars and a half which was turned over to the grandmother. 

These examples of LaGuardia’s outreach to the less fortunate remind us of Advent’s potential for creating a caring, stabilizing impact amid the rush of Christmas shopping.

A Verse for Today

“. . . What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, inspirational thoughts will appear, in keeping with Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons.  © 2002.  All rights reserved.