Abraham Beame

Abraham Beame
104th Mayor of New York City[1]
In office January 1, 1974 – December 31, 1977
Preceded by	John V. Lindsay
Succeeded by	Ed Koch
36th and 38th New York City Comptroller
In office January 1, 1970 – December 31, 1973
Mayor	John V. Lindsay
Preceded by	Mario Procaccino
Succeeded by	Harrison J. Goldin
In office January 1, 1962 – December 31, 1965
Mayor	Robert F. Wagner, Jr.
Preceded by	Lawrence E. Gerosa
Succeeded by	Mario Procaccino
Personal details
Born	Abraham David Birnbaum (1906-03-20)March 20, 1906 London, England, UK
Died	February 10, 2001(2001-02-10) (aged 94) New York City, New York, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Mary Ingerman ​ ​ (m. 1928; died 1995)​
Children	2
Relatives	Marty Ingels (nephew)
Alma mater	Baruch College (degree originally conferred by the City College of New York)
Profession	Accountant

Abraham David Beame (March 20, 1906 – February 10, 2001)^[2] was the 104th mayor of New York City from 1974 to 1977.^[3] As mayor, he presided over the city during its fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, when the city was almost forced to declare bankruptcy.

Early life[]

Beame was born Abraham David Birnbaum in London.^[4] His parents were Esther (née Goldfarb) and Philip Birnbaum, Jewish immigrants from Poland who fled Warsaw.^[5][6] Beame and his family left England when he was three months old.^[5] He was raised on New York City's Lower East Side.

He graduated from P.S. 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.^[4][5][6]

Career[]

Career before politics[]

While in college, Beame co-founded an accounting firm, Beame & Greidinger.^[5] He was an accounting teacher at Richmond Hill High School in Queens from 1929 to 1946^[6] and also taught accounting and commercial law at Rutgers University from 1944 to 1945.

From 1952 to 1961, Beame served as New York City's director of the budget, having also served as assistant director from 1946 to 1952.^[5] 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."^[2]

Early political career[]

Beame 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. Before being elected to two nonconsecutive terms as city comptroller in 1961 and 1969, he was a longstanding member of Crown Heights's influential Madison Democratic Club and served as political boss Irwin Steingut's personal accountant. Members of the Madison Club (including attorney/fundraiser Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum and Steingut's son, Stanley) frequently liaised with real estate developer Fred Trump. 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.^[7][8]

In 1965, Beame was the Democratic nominee for mayor but lost to Republican nominee John V. Lindsay.^[9]

Mayor of New York City[]

Beame tours the South Bronx with President Jimmy Carter and H.U.D. Secretary Patricia Roberts Harris in 1977

Beame defeated State Senator John J. Marchi in the 1973 mayoral election, becoming the 104th mayor of New York City.^[4]

Beame was the first mayor of New York City who was a practicing Jew.^[10] (Fiorello La Guardia, who was mayor from 1934 to 1945, was halachically Jewish because his mother was born Jewish, but was raised as an Episcopalian and practiced that religion all his life.) He faced the worst fiscal crisis in the city's history and spent most of his term attempting to ward off bankruptcy. He 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.

In October 1975, the city of New York was in debt of $453 million. Beame made a statement on October 17 that the city had insufficient cash on hand to meet its debt obligations for that day. 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. 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.^[11]

On the evening of July 13, 1977, a massive power failure hit the city. With temperatures in the mid-nineties Fahrenheit and the humidity high, New Yorkers sweltered. By the time power was restored at 10:39 p.m. the next night, the city had been without power for 25 hours. Beame set up a Blackout Action Center at the New York City Police Department headquarters. The blackout resulted in raw sewage washing up on beaches and spoiled food in hundreds or thousands of restaurants around the city.^[12]

After a chaotic four years as mayor, Beame ran for a second term in 1977, and finished third in the Democratic primary, behind Representative Ed Koch and New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo, and ahead of former Representative Bella Abzug, Representative Herman Badillo and Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton. He was succeeded by Koch, who won the general election on November 8, 1977.^[5]

Beame "was credited with distributing the City's dwindling resources equitably".^[3] When he left office on January 1, 1978, the city budget had changed from a $1.5 billion deficit^[5] to a surplus of $200 million.^[4]

Personal life[]

Beame was 5 ft 2 in (157 cm) tall.^[13]

He was married to his childhood sweetheart, Mary (née Ingerman),^[5] for 67 years.^[4] They raised two sons, Edmond and Bernard (Buddy),^[2][5] and lived in Brooklyn, first in Crown Heights and later in a "modest apartment" on Plaza Street West in Park Slope.^[4][14] Throughout his life, he summered in the Rockaway neighborhood of Belle Harbor.^[4]

Beame received the Townsend Harris medal in 1957, and awards from numerous charitable, religious and civic organizations.^[15]

Death[]

Beame died at the age of 94 on February 10, 2001—two months after the death of his predecessor, Lindsay—after open-heart surgery at New York University Medical Center.^[2]

See also[]

• La Guardia and Wagner Archives
• Timeline of New York City#1950s–1970s

References[]

External links[]

• "Abraham D. Beame Collection". La Guardia and Wagner Archives.
• "Oral history Guides: Abraham D. Beame Administration". Columbia University Libraries: Oral History Research Office. (archived)
• Abraham Beame at Find a Grave