As federal agents conducted an early morning search of Gracie Mansion Thursday, the name “Elegant Oakey” may not have been foremost in their minds. It’s like a hot tip running the third race at Aqueduct Racetrack, or a retro speakeasy oozing authenticity on the Lower East Side.
But that investigation into the official residence of the mayor of New York City, which is part of a major corruption investigation, has brought back the strange name of A. Oakey Hall from Gotham’s distant past. For the past 150 years, Hall, a Boss Tweed-era mayor who earned his style the sobriquet Elegant Oakey, held the distinction of being the only New York City mayor to face criminal charges during he was in office.
He has a company now.
Mayor Eric Adams has become the second mayor of this city to be celebrated, and the first since the consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898 made New York City the it today. He is also the first person to face federal charges. Thursday’s indictment charged that over the past decade, including his years as Brooklyn borough president, Adams “sought and accepted improper advantages and precious.”
This is the latest in a series of troubling developments that cement the Adams administration’s place in the history of New York City scandal.
Mayor James will be joined by the mayor and his administration. J. Walker, who, like Adams, enjoyed the night life. And Mayor William O’Dwyer, who, like Adams, was a former police officer. And there was Mayor Ed Koch, who, like Adams, was said to have put too much trust in others. And of course, A. Oakey Hall, who, like Adams, was known for his fashion sense.
“There’s hardly a mayor in history who hasn’t had a scandal at one time or another,” said Chris McNickle, the author of several books about New York City mayors. swallow the mayors. And sometimes they are able to skate around it successfully.”
It remains to be seen whether Adams will skate or slide. But the scope of the investigations – there are four separate federal investigations – cannot bode well for his legacy or, more importantly, for the city’s psyche and operations.
“Over the next year we’re not going to be talking about housing or education or the immigration crisis,” said Terry Golway, a professor of history and political science at the College of Staten Island. “We are going to talk about what the mayor knew, and when he knew it. And that will cast a shadow over the city.”
The federal indictment charges Adams with bribery, fraud and solicitation of illegal foreign campaign contributions. The benefits he received are said to be valued at more than $100,000 and include free and discounted Turkish Airlines tickets, meals and hotel rooms. In return, prosecutors said, the mayor forced the Fire Department to call on safety concerns to allow a new high-profile Turkish consulate in midtown Manhattan.
Adams has been defiant in claiming his innocence. He has called for a quick trial and against a hasty diagnosis. “I ask New Yorkers to wait to hear our defense,” he said Thursday.
But the other investigations, so numerous and so interconnected, have led investigators to the doorstep of those in charge of the city’s leadership: close friends and associates hand-picked by Adams to help him with to run this complex chair. The police commissioner has resigned. The school chancellor has announced that he will do the same, while his partner – the first deputy mayor – and his brother – the deputy mayor for public safety – are on their phones. capture So you have another old friend and helper.
Whether the mayor’s actions are rooted in a sense of loyalty or entitlement, they have placed him in a dubious wing in the echo halls of the future, along with corrupt mayors who came before.
Koch, a Democrat who served from 1978 to 1989, was an unabashed reformer who struck deals with several political leaders to secure his first election. He seemed to personify the charisma and chutzpah of the city; that is, until 1986, when an assassination attempt by a political friend led to the revelation of corruption in the Department of Transportation and the Bureau of Parking Violations, among other city agencies.
Dozens were convicted. Although Koch was never accused of benefiting financially from the graft, he was criticized for allowing cronyism to ruin city operations. Knowing that his legacy was ruined, he became depressed, at one point even considering suicide.
Time in politics, as in life, is important. Just as Adams is grappling with major challenges — an influx of asylum seekers, a lack of affordable housing and a struggling school system, among others — so too was Koch dealing with an uptick. in crime rates and racial tension.
“The corruption embodied a broader feeling that things were out of hand,” said Mason B. Williams, a professor of leadership studies and political science at Williams College. “It’s fair to say that New Yorkers are less tolerant of anarchy when there are pressing social and economic issues to address.
Claiming that the charges against him are rooted in lies, Adams pleaded not guilty on Friday. He has rejected calls to resign that began even before his indictment. But if he were to resign, he would be joining an exclusive club: only two New York mayors have resigned amid corruption allegations – and it appeared that he had little choice both of them.
Walker, the smart, witty mayor who presided over New York City from the mid-1920s into the Great Depression, often ran the city from a converted Central Park women’s refreshment station. is a chic night club. There he met chorus girls and hobnobbed with Tammany Hall cronies.
But the graft was so “you needed to be corrupt,” says historian and novelist Kevin Baker. “The systemic corruption was incredible, but normal.”
A legislative investigation into the crime came at an inconvenient time for the governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for president. Walker, who admitted that he had received “advantages,” resigned under pressure in September 1932 and quickly left for Europe. It was never issued.
Less than 20 years later, another mayor left the country. William O’Dwyer, who served from 1946 to 1950, was an Irish immigrant who, as a police officer and then Brooklyn district attorney, built a reputation as a crime fighter. But he also had links to organized crime figures.
And, like Adams, he maintained a close relationship with some of his law enforcement colleagues, which was disastrous when some of them were involved in a police corruption scandal involving protection payments by a large bookmaking operation.
O’Dwyer had heart problems, and he sometimes complained about the endless demands on the mayor of New York. Whether to save his heart or his skin – or the Democratic Party’s electoral chances – he abruptly resigned in 1950 to accept President Harry Truman’s surprise offer to become ambassador to Mexico. And he left.
But there was only one A. Oakey Hall, a small, smart man who had pennies for notes and a taste for trying “Herod as Herod,” as one historian said, in his satirical tastes.: pince-nez, custom – frilled coats made with velvet collars, high quality linen shirts, brightly colored vests and fine silk ties.
A successful lawyer and prosecutor who enjoyed the spectacle, Hall made his fortune in Tammany Hall in the 1860s, and thus to his boss, William Marcy Tweed, the undisputed master of enriching himself at public expense.
The costly monument to the corruption of the Clough is at 52 Chambers St., which is often called the Clough Courthouse but is now the headquarters for the Department of Education. The city spent nearly $13 million—or about $300 million in today’s dollars—on a building that should have cost much less. But bogus invoices submitted for work that was never done, sometimes by people who weren’t there, provided Tweed and his gang with a fire hose of money, with Hall signing the necessary papers without stopping to discuss the differences and additional costs.
Detailed publications appeared in the New York Times Ciercall a Tlo, prompting a national uproar. “It will all blow,” Hall told a reporter. “These reform blows are like wind and clatter.”
But the winds of reform continued to blow. In early 1872, after weeks of whispers about impending criminal charges, Hall was indicted, effectively, for neglect of official duties.
Like his successor, Adams, Hall steadfastly maintained his innocence. And, like Adams, he demanded an immediate trial.
A lawyer’s illness led to a lawsuit. Desperate to be vindicated before the end of his term, Hall continued to plead for speed, only to have his second trial end in a hung jury.
Convicted and executed, Tweed died in prison in 1878. Hall was acquitted after a third trial. He then took to the stage, spent years in London and began his practice in New York before his death at the age of 72 in 1898.
On the day his mayoralty ended, at dawn in 1873, Hall welcomed his successor to City Hall and shook his hand. At that time an assistant brought in an email about New York City issues.
Seeing that the above letter came from the town’s coroner’s office, Elegant Oakey said the truest word: “I think that letter should be addressed to me, because I am the senior – dead factor. “
This article first appeared in The New York Times.
