LaGuardia was elected mayor of
New York City on an anti-corruption
Fusion ticket during the
Great Depression, which united him in an uneasy alliance with New York's Jewish population and liberal bluebloods (
WASPs). These included the famed architect and New York historian
Isaac Newton Phelps-Stokes whose patrician manners LaGuardia detested. Surprisingly, the two men became friends. Phelps-Stokes had personally nursed his wife during the last five years of her life, during which she was paralyzed and speechless due to a series of strokes. On learning of Phelps-Stokes's ordeal, so like his own, LaGuardia ceased all bickering and the two developed genuine affection for each other.
Being of Italian descent and growing up in a time when crime and criminals were prevalent in the Bronx, LaGuardia had a loathing for the gangsters who brought a negative stereotype and shame to the Italian community. The "Little Flower" had an even greater dislike for organized crime members and when LaGuardia was elected to his first term in 1933, the first thing he did after being sworn in was to pick up the phone and order the chief of police to arrest mob boss
Lucky Luciano on whatever charges could be laid upon him. LaGuardia then went after the gangsters with a vengeance, stating in a radio address to the people of New York in his high-pitched, squeaky voice, "Let's drive the bums out of town." In 1934, Fiorello LaGuardia's next move was a search-and-destroy mission on mob boss
Frank Costello's slot machines, which LaGuardia executed with a gusto, rounding up thousands of the "one armed bandits," swinging a sledgehammer and dumping them off a barge into the water for the newspapers and media. In 1936, LaGuardia had special prosecutor
Thomas E. Dewey, a future Republican presidential candidate, single out Lucky Luciano for prosecution. Dewey managed to lead a successful investigation into Luciano's lucrative prostitution operation and indict him, eventually sending Luciano to jail on a 30-50 year sentence.
LaGuardia was hardly an orthodox Republican. He also ran as the nominee of the
American Labor Party, a union-dominated anti-
Tammany grouping that also ran FDR for President from 1936 onward. LaGuardia also supported Roosevelt, chairing the Independent Committee for Roosevelt and Wallace with
Nebraska Senator George Norris during the
1940 presidential election.
LaGuardia was the city's first
Italian-American mayor, but LaGuardia was far from being a typical Italian New Yorker. After all, he was a
Republican Episcopalian who had grown up in
Arizona, and had an
Istrian Jewish mother and a
Roman Catholic-turned-atheist Italian father. He reportedly spoke seven languages, including
Hebrew, Croatian, German, Hungarian, Italian, and
Yiddish.
LaGuardia's fans credit him for, among other things, restoring the economic lifeblood of
New York City during and after the
Great Depression. His massive public works programs administered by his friend Parks Commissioner
Robert Moses employed thousands of unemployed New Yorkers, and his constant lobbying for federal government funds allowed New York to develop its economic infrastructure. He was also well known for reading the newspaper comics on
WNYC radio during a 1945 newspaper strike, and pushing to have a commercial airport (
Floyd Bennett Field, and later
LaGuardia Airport) within city limits. Responding to popular disdain for the sometimes corrupt City Council, LaGuardia successfully proposed a reformed 1938 City Charter which created a powerful new
New York City Board of Estimate, similar to a corporate board of directors.
He was also a very outspoken and early critic of
Adolf Hitler and the
Nazi regime. In a public address as early as 1934, LaGuardia warned, "Part of
Hitler’s program is the complete annihilation of the Jews in Germany." In 1937, speaking before the Women’s Division of the
American Jewish Congress, LaGuardia called for the creation of a special pavilion at the upcoming
New York World’s Fair: "a chamber of horrors" for "that brown-shirted fanatic."
In 1940, included among the many interns to serve in the city government was
David Rockefeller, who became his secretary for eighteen months in what is known as a "dollar a year" public service position. Although LaGuardia was at pains to point out to the press that he was only one of 60 interns, Rockefeller's working space turned out to be the vacant office of the deputy mayor.
In 1941, during the run-up to American involvement in the
Second World War, President Roosevelt appointed LaGuardia as the first director of the new
Office of Civilian Defense (OCD). The OCD was responsible for preparing for the protection of the civilian population in case America was attacked. It was also responsible for programs to maintain public morale, promote volunteer service, and co-ordinate other federal departments to ensure they were serving the needs of a country in war. LaGuardia had remained Mayor of New York during this appointment, but after the attack on
Pearl Harbor in 1941 he was succeeded at the OCD by a full-time director,
James M. Landis.
According to
Try and Stop Me by
Bennett Cerf, LaGuardia often officiated in municipal
court. He handled routine misdemeanor cases, including, as Cerf wrote, a man who had stolen a loaf of bread for his starving family. LaGuardia still insisted on levying the fine of ten dollars. Then he said "I'm fining everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a city where a man has to steal bread in order to eat!" He passed his hat and gave the fines to the defendant, who left the court with $47.50.
