- Abraham Beame
Infobox Officeholder
name = Abe Beame
imagesize = 124px
caption =
order = 104thMayor of New York City
term_start =January 1 ,1974
term_end =December 31 ,1977
predecessor = John V. Lindsay
successor = Edward I. Koch
birth_date = birth date|1906|3|20|mf=y
birth_place = London,United Kingdom
death_date = death date|2001|2|10|mf=y (aged 94)
death_place = New York, New York
constituency =
party = Democratic
spouse =
profession =
religion =Judaism
footnotes =Abraham David "Abe" Beame (March 20, 1906 – February 10, 2001) was
mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977. [ [http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/daily_plants/daily_plant_main.php?id=8582 PARKS REMEMBERS MAYOR BEAME - Daily Plant Newsletter ] ] As such, he presided over the city during the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, during which the city was almost forced to declarebankruptcy . He was also distinguished for being New York City's first Jewish mayor.Early life and career
Beame was the first mayor of
New York City who practicedJudaism . (Earlier MayorFiorello H. La Guardia was of Jewish ancestry on his mother's side, but was Episcopalian). He was born inLondon , and grew up on New York's Lower East Side, and became city budget director from 1952 to 1961. He was a Democrat and was elected to two terms as city comptroller in 1961 and 1969. In 1965 he was the Democratic nominee for Mayor, but was defeated by the Republican candidate,John V. Lindsay . Beame was a "clubhouse" or machine politician, a product of the Brooklyn wing of the regular Democratic organization (that borough's equivalent of Manhattan'sTammany Hall ) as opposed to the "reform" Democrats who entered New York politics in the 1950s.Mayoral challenges
After defeating State Senator
John Marchi in the 1973 mayoral election, Beame faced the worst fiscal crisis in the city's history and spent the bulk of his term attempting to ward off bankruptcy. He slashed the city workforce, froze wages, and restructured the budget, which proved insufficient until reinforced by actions from newly created state-sponsored entities and the granting of federal funds. He also served during the blackout crisis.After a tumultuous four years as mayor, he ran for a second term in 1977 (shortly after the
New York City blackout of 1977 , one of the low points in NYC's history) and finished third in the Democratic primary to U.S. RepresentativeEdward I. Koch andNew York Secretary of State Mario M. Cuomo . Beame outpolled former CongresswomanBella Abzug , CongressmanHerman Badillo and Manhattan Borough PresidentPercy Sutton in the 1977 primary.When he left office in 1977, the city budget had changed from a $1.5 billion deficit to a surplus of $200 million.
He was a man of very short stature, being only five feet, two inches tall. ["
The New York Times ": [http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/the-mayors-tall-tales/ "The Mayor’s Tall Tales."] ]He died in 2001 at the age of 94 from complications from open-heart surgery.
References
External links
* [http://www.abrahambeame.lagcc.cuny.edu/beame/ Official Beame Collection: LaGuardia Community College/CUNY]
* [http://www.nyc.gov/html/rwg/html/2001a/beame.html Remarks at the Funeral Service for Mayor Abraham Beame by Rudolph W. Giuliani]
* [http://www.forward.com/issues/2001/01.02.16/ed.html Obituary: Abe Beame, 1907-2001]
* [http://www.richmondhillhistory.org/abeame.html New York City's first Jewish mayor]
* [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/oral/guides/beame.html Oral history]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.