Hear the name La Guardia and you probably think of the airport, and your associations may not be all that happy. But the airport – and much of modern New York’s spectacular rise – are the legacy of a five-foot-two bundle of dynamite, former three-term Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Among his devotees: newly sworn-in Mayor Zohran Mamdani who, on Election Night, promised “the most ambitious agenda to tackle the cost-of-living crisis that this city has seen since the days of Fiorello La Guardia.”
And what an agenda that was. During the La Guardia era, New York built bridges, tunnels and highways, schools and hospitals, playgrounds, pools and beaches.
According to Kenneth T. Jackson, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, and the editor of the two-million-word “Encyclopedia of New York City,” under La Guardia’s watch, New York City became the greatest city in the world…