Mayor Abe Beame
Mayor of New York, Comptroller, Budget Director
Abe Beame was a true New York pol. He was an immigrant, educated at City
College; a New York City public school teacher and a member of a regular
organization Democratic club. He then went on to spend a quarter century serving
in the highest ranks of city government.
With a degree in accounting and membership in the Madison Democratic Club of
Brooklyn, he caught the eye of Mayor William O'Dwyer, a former Brooklyn District
Attorney, who appointed him Assistant City Budget Director in 1946. After
O'Dwyer's abrupt resignation, Mayor Vincent Impellitteri promoted Beame to
Budget Director in 1952. In 1961, Beame was elected to his first term as City
Comptroller, running with Mayor Robert Wagner as an anti-boss candidate.
In 1965, Beame won a four-way Democratic Primary for mayor, receiving 44.8%
of the vote. But even though he received more than a million votes, he lost in a
three-way race to John V. Lindsay that November. In 1969, Beame won a second
term as Comptroller and kept the city's books during Lindsay's last term.
Beame went on, in 1973, to win a four-way Democratic Primary with 34.5% of
the vote, eventually winning a four-way General Election by a little less than a
million votes. Today, many political commentators erroneously refer to him as
the first Jewish mayor of New York. But since the city's consolidation in 1898,
that distinction actually goes to Fiorello LaGuardia who was born of an Austrian
Jewish mother and an Italian agnostic father.
Known for his campaign slogan, "He Knows the Buck," Beame's
campaigns for public office touted his hands-on involvement with the details of
the city's budget and the city's fiscal health. He had been involved with New
York's finances since the mid-1940s and seemed to be the knowledgeable
green-eyeshade keeper of the books and the city's fiscal integrity.
As a Budget Director for Democrat mayors and as Comptroller during both the
last Wagner and Lindsay terms, Beame should have been the person who could point
to and prevent the budget excesses and fiscal tricks that caught up with the
city when he finally became Mayor.
His administration was plagued by the worst modern fiscal crises the city has
seen. To avert bankruptcy, Beame laid off large numbers of city workers, froze
wages, started tuition at city universities, delayed maintenance on the city's
infrastructure, and postponed essential capital improvements. The city is only
now getting out from under the problems that created. In his reelection
campaign, Beame blamed the mayors before him -- especially Lindsay.
He was, however, accused by the Security and Exchange Commission of unsound
budget practices. President Gerald Ford turned the city down for a bailout as a
poor risk which generated the infamous Daily News headline "Ford to City:
Drop Dead." Governor Hugh Carey, who lost confidence in Beame, stepped in
with emergency controls that stripped the mayor of traditional power over fiscal
matters and left the city under the Municipal Assistance Corporation. The state
and federal governments then came through with financial support to save the
city from bankruptcy.
While fiscal affairs were in disarray, the rest of the news during the Beame
years was also bad. New York was hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs that had been a
basic part of the city's revenue stream. There were terrorist bombings, a
citywide blackout with riots and looting, and the "Son of Sam"
murders. White ethnic New Yorkers deserted the city for jobs and safety
elsewhere. The mood was bleak.
Mayor Beame was often accused of being slow to act, but he did some things to
get the city fabric back together. New York was host to the nation's
Bicentennial Celebration and Beame was instrumental in getting the city its
first Democratic National Convention in 52 years.
With the city hobbled and Abe Beame left as the fall guy, New York entered
the 1977 mayoral election. Beame argued that the worst had passed and that his
predecessors had caused the city's fiscal problems in the first place. But five
other candidates entered the Democratic Primary because they saw blood in the
water, each claiming they could bring the city back.
Beame came in third in the Democratic Primary, with only 17,000 fewer votes
than the winner, Ed Koch, and only 7,000 votes away from his nearest rival,
Mario Cuomo, the hand-picked candidate of Governor Carey.
After a long career in city government, Mayor Beame went into private life as
an advisor to banks and financial institutions. He stayed active until his death
at 94 after a very good run by anyone's estimation.
Will historians be kind to him? Will textbooks lay the city's fiscal woes
at Lindsay's feet? More later.
