Jay L Kriegel

John V. Lindsay Jay L Kriegel

John Lindsay was Mayor of New York during the most turbulent domestic times since the Civil War, from the Civil Rights Movement, to urban riots, to Vietnam War protests, to the rise of Women's Liberation and Gay Rights. Cities had seemed eerily quiet in the 1950s as the middle class fled to the suburbs. Now they burst into confrontation and turmoil, hastening their decline. Into this toxic mix walked John Lindsay, a tall, patrician Republican WASP, in a gritty, ethnic Democratic city. He set out to end the exclusion of minorities and to open new access and opportunities; to replace the corroded Democratic machine with non-partisan community outreach and decentralized city services; to rebuild archaic structures with modern management innovations and an explosion of new talent; and to revitalize the economy by attracting jobs and incentivizing development. Repeatedly faced with entrenched forces-particularly the unions that welcomed his inauguration with a paralyzing transit strike and a succession of other walkouts-he remained tireless, passionate and uncompromising. Virtually every night, he courageously walked the streets of long-neglected black and Hispanic neighborhoods where few white leaders dared to tread, keeping New York stable and peaceful while many other cities burned, earning him the title "America's Mayor." To mark the 50th Anniversary of Lindsay's election on November 2, 1965, 260 of his colleagues, plus friends and observers, offer first-hand accounts of the joys and frustrations, setbacks and triumphs of those hectic times-and the man who stood astride it all.