Fiorello H. La Guardia

Fiorello Enrico "Henry" LaGuardia ( born December 11, 1882 in New York; † September 20, 1947 ) was an American politician and from 1934 to 1945 for three terms mayor of the city of New York.

Life

Fiorello LaGuardia was born in 1882 in the Bronx; his father was Achille La Guardia from Cerignola (Italy ), his mother Irene Coen Luzzato came from Trieste.

LaGuardia worked from 1907 to 1910 as a translator at Ellis Iceland in New York, with which he financed his law degree. He took 1917/18 in the U.S. Army on the Italian front in the First World War temporarily part, where he fought against Austrian and German troops. After his return to the U.S. he worked for the immigration authorities, and as Deputy Attorney General of the State of New York, before he was elected as a Republican in the House of Representatives of the United States in the fall of 1916. He was a member of this chamber of parliament on 4 March 1917 until his resignation on 31 December 1919. After that, he was from 1920 to 1921 President of the City Council ( Board of Aldermen ) of New York, before he returned on March 4, 1923 in Congress, where he remained after multiple re-election to March 3, 1933. During this time he was not only Republican candidate, but in the meantime also the American Labor Party, a short-lived party that had emerged from the union movement.

After the reconfirmation missed by the voters, LaGuardia returned to New York and made a name for themselves as opponents of child labor and the alcohol prohibition as well as a proponent of the political equality of women. In 1934 he was elected mayor of the city. He was a management expert and brought the city administration and the disastrous financial situation, Mayor Jimmy Walker had left, back up to snuff. After his election, he appointed Thomas E. Dewey as Special Prosecutor, trying thus to break the power of Tammany Hall, for Dewey turned against organized gambling that already business based on the classic New York gangs such as Eastman gear or the Five Points gang was was organized and now especially of Dutch Schultz, a childhood friend of Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafioso in the city. Schultz was indicted for tax evasion, sentenced Luciano 1936 30 to 50 years in prison.

Also, La Guardia took care of public housing projects, one of his first acts was the creation of the New York City Housing Authority ( NYCHA ), and was a supporter of New Deal policies of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt. When they had to make savings after assuming office as mayor, he cut his own salary of 40,000 to 22,500 dollars.

LaGuardia decided in 1945 to a fourth term and instead worked for the United Nations. When he left office, he was already suffering from pancreatic cancer. On September 20, 1947, he died at the age of 64 years. His wife, Marie, he left only $ 8,000 and a house in the Bronx. All New York mourned for " The Little Flower ", as he was known in translation of his first name Fiorello and alluding to its small body size.

An airport in New York bears his name (see New York -LaGuardia Airport ).

LaGuardia life should end of the 1950s, are listed as a theater piece in the early 1960s with Lou Costello in the lead role on Broadway, but this was prevented by Costello's sudden death.

In the arts

• In the film Damn silenced he is portrayed by Phil Arnold.
• In the film Ghostbusters II is discussed that LaGuardia appeared as a ghost.