La Guardia was the 99th mayor of New York City for three terms, from 1934 to 1945. In 1919, the president of the New York City Board of Aldermen, Al Smith, resigned to become governor of New York, prompting a special election scheduled for the fall. The following year, he accepted a job as an interpreter for Ellis Island, while attending New York University Law School as a night student. While still mayor of New York City, he was also appointed to head the new Office of Civil Defense by President Roosevelt. Fiorello was elected mayor thanks to the votes cast by socialists, Democrats, who liked his reform policies, Jewish middle class citizens, Republicans and Italian voters who had previously supported Tammany Hall and former Mayor Walker.
LaGuardia is famous, among other things, for restoring the economic element of New York City during and after the Great Depression. Fiorello graduated from New York University School of Law in 1910 and was admitted to the bar that same year. The Field Guard
(d) made the city purchase the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and the Brooklyn—Manhattan Transit Corporation, thus completing the public acquisition of the New York City subway system. The popularity of La Guardia declined during the war years, and New York City received less federal funding, as fewer industries were concentrated there.
This collection of microfilms documents La Guardia's career as a New York City congressman, 1917-1921 and 1921-1933; president of the New York Board of Aldermen, 1919-1921; and mayor of New York for three terms, 1933-1945. He died in New York City of pancreatic cancer at age 64 and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. In 1929, New York City was mired in corruption and vice under the clutches of the corrupt political faction that was in Tammany Hall. It's only right that modern New Yorkers defend the legacy of a mayor who rose to the occasion when the city needed him most. The Guard benefited from the presence of Michael Dynamite Mike Kelly, commander of the 69th New York Infantry Regiment, of Irish heritage, in the race.
Not to surprise anyone, the honest candidate would lose by the widest margin in the New York City mayoral elections to a man put in power by a corrupt political machine. Jimmy Walker, a Democrat backed by Tammany Hall and current mayor of New York City, would run for re-election against the Republican maverick Fiorello L. Under the leadership of La Guardia, the New York City subway system was unified and became publicly owned, and public housing programs were initiated.
