Beame set up a Blackout Action Center at the New York City Police Department headquarters. the next night, the city had been without power for 25 hours. By the time power was restored at 10:39 p.m. With temperatures in the mid-nineties Fahrenheit and the humidity high, New Yorkers sweltered.

On the evening of July 13, 1977, a massive power failure hit the city. President Gerald Ford at first turned down New York's request for a loan, inspiring the legendary Daily News headline 'Ford to City: Drop Dead', but Ford later approved federal support for New York. He added that New York City citizens needed to take immediate steps to protect the city's essential life support systems and to preserve their well-being. Beame made a statement on October 17 that the city had insufficient cash on hand to meet its debt obligations for that day. In October 1975, the city of New York was in debt of $453 million. Soon after being sworn in as mayor, Beame slashed the city workforce, froze salaries, and reconfigured the budget, which proved unsatisfactory until reinforced by actions from newly created state-sponsored entities and the granting of federal funds. He entered office facing the worst fiscal crisis in the city's history and spent most of his term attempting to ward off bankruptcy. įiorello La Guardia-mayor from 1934 to 1945-had a Jewish mother, but Beame was the first mayor of New York City who was an observant Jew. Marchi, Blumenthal, and Biaggi in the 1973 mayoral election, becoming the 104th mayor of New York City. Secretary Patricia Roberts Harris in 1977īeame won the 1973 Democratic mayoral primary with 34% of the vote, ahead of Herman Badillo (29%), Mario Biaggi (24%), and Albert H. Mayor of New York City Beame tours the South Bronx with President Jimmy Carter and H.U.D. Kennedy's strong support, Beame lost to the Republican nominee, John Lindsay. Costikyan was his campaign manager and James Farley his campaign chair. In 1965, Beame was the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. The club also played a decisive role in the political ascent of Park Slope–based attorney Hugh Carey, whose tenure as governor of New York coincided with Beame's administration, though Carey eventually broke with the organization by endorsing Mario Cuomo's 1977 primary bid to unseat Beame. Members of the Madison Club, including attorney/fundraiser Abraham 'Bunny' Lindenbaum and Steingut's son, Stanley, frequently liaised with real estate developer Fred Trump. īefore being elected to two nonconsecutive terms as city comptroller in 19, he was a longstanding member of Crown Heights's influential Madison Democratic Club and served as political boss Irwin Steingut's personal accountant. In this capacity, he 'negotiated all city labor contracts without a strike and kept books on city spending and borrowing he also set up management programs that saved the city $40 million.' Early political career īeame was a 'clubhouse' or machine politician, a product of the Brooklyn wing of the patronage-oriented 'regular' Democratic organization, the borough's equivalent of Manhattan's Tammany Hall and the locus of New York patronage politics following the ascent of Meade Esposito, as opposed to the policy-oriented 'reform' Democrats who entered New York City politics, most effectively in Manhattan and the Bronx in the 1950s. He was an accounting teacher at Richmond Hill High School in Queens from 1929 to 1946 and also taught accounting and commercial law at Rutgers University from 1944 to 1945.įrom 1952 to 1961, Beame served as New York City's director of the budget, having also served as assistant director from 1946 to 1952. While in college, Beame co-founded an accounting firm, Beame & Greidinger. 160 and the High School of Commerce before enrolling at the City College of New York's School of Business and Civic Administration (later spun off as Baruch College), where he received his undergraduate degree in business with honors in 1928. He was raised on New York City's Lower East Side. Beame and his family left England when he was three months old. His parents were Esther (née Goldfarb) and Philip Birnbaum, Jewish immigrants from Poland who fled Warsaw. As mayor, he presided over the city during the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis, when the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy.īeame was born Abraham David Birnbaum in London. Abraham David Beame ( né Birnbaum March 20, 1906 – February 10, 2001) was an American accountant, investor, and Democratic Party politician who was the 104th mayor of New York City, in office from 1974 to 1977.

Abraham beem parents