The La Guardia Test
La Guardia had Roosevelt’s money and a clear mandate to spend it, federal support no modern mayor has come close to matching.
New Yorkers agree on very little, but even Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani — who clashed so bitterly in Wednesday night’s debate at LaGuardia Community College — can agree on one thing: Fiorello La Guardia was the greatest. Mamdani said at the first mayoral debate that the New Deal mayor, who governed from 1934 to 1945, was the best mayor in the history of the city. Cuomo also held up La Guardia as the model—proof that strong, central leadership can make a government work.
That both Mamdani and Cuomo reach for La Guardia is telling. La Guardia is the last mayor who managed to be beloved and effective across class lines, uniting moral purpose with administrative competence. In their races, Mamdani is channeling La Guardia the moral administrator, Cuomo — La Guardia the master builder.
But La Guardia, a Republican reformer whose supporters included the socialists of his day, also had President Roosevelt’s money and a clear mandate to spend it, federal support no modern mayor has come close to matching.
That’s not the only model for a mayor, of course. Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate in this year’s race for mayor, picked former mayor Rudy Giuliani with “a little bit of Michael Bloomberg thrown in.”
But those three invocations—Mamdani’s La Guardia, Cuomo’s La Guardia, Sliwa’s Giuliani-plus—capture the city’s ideological spread. Each tells voters what kind of competence and morality the next mayor thinks New York needs.
Mamdani’s Moral City
Mamdani’s La Guardia represents the moment when compassion and delivery aligned. He was the mayor who built airports, schools, and public housing while railing against corruption and fascism. It’s an image shared by many on New York’s left—the proof that an activist government can work.
When the New York Editorial Board asked Mamdani to name the best New York City mayor of his lifetime, he ranked them: “De Blasio, Dinkins, Bloomberg, Adams, Giuliani,” showing us a roadmap for an activist government. Bill De Blasio is known for universal pre-K and rent freezes; David Dinkins for his big investment in policing, Safe Streets, Safe City; Michael Bloomberg for competence.
Mamdani’s model mayors spent freely, but with outside help: La Guardia through Roosevelt’s New Deal, Dinkins through a state‑authorized income‑tax surcharge, and de Blasio’s pre‑K program was funded by a reluctant governor – Andrew Cuomo.
Mamdani’s policies echo that faith in expansive provision: Social housing, fare-free buses, universal childcare. But the city can’t raise broad new taxes or borrow without Albany’s approval, and most of what Mamdani wants depends on state and federal money. Neither will be flowing freely.
Mamdani has, though, inspired a generation of supporters in part by delivering something that has been gone from the city for a long time: a sense of shared purpose.
His inner circle is young, raising management questions, which he’s finally starting to address. Last night, he said he would keep the current NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, and earlier this week Gothamist reported that Dan Garodnick, chair of the City Planning Commission, is being considered for first deputy mayor.
Cuomo’s Builder Government
Cuomo’s La Guardia is a different creature—the executive who imposed order on chaos. Walking through the gorgeous new LaGuardia Airport Terminal B this weekend, through bright concourses straight to my car, I had to give Cuomo quite a bit of credit.
For him, the lesson of La Guardia is that visible infrastructure proves government competence. As governor, Cuomo took pride in rebuilding LaGuardia Airport, the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, and the Moynihan Train Hall, as well as completing the new Kosciuszko Bridge and advancing the Second Avenue Subway’s Q line extension.
Cuomo’s advantage is institutional fluency. He knows how to move money, pressure agencies, and deliver large projects. For a frustrated city, he can promise a sense of control.
A Cuomo City Hall would likely chase execution speed and fiscal discipline, perhaps at the expense of deliberation. It’s a governing style that favors hierarchy over participation. That Governor Kathy Hochul once served as his lieutenant governor would make for an interesting partnership.
The Sliwa Formula
Sliwa’s blend of Giuliani and Bloomberg is the familiar promise of restored order and streamlined management. It assumes that safety and cleanliness are prerequisites for prosperity, and that mayoral authority should be muscular and personal. It is an argument for discipline, not redistribution.
The next mayor will likely find himself looking at a hostile federal government, and state support strained by its own needs. La Guardia was a unique figure, with unique advantages, including the kind of federal support Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa can only dream of. The next mayor will need to be both determined and resourceful to deliver on his promises.
New Yorkers, meanwhile, remain as impatient as ever for a government that can deliver a safe, well-run, and affordable city, and we’ll find out soon enough which kind of mayor they are looking for.
Early voting starts on Saturday, October 25, Election Day is Tuesday, November 4.
interesting piece. unsurprising to see mamdani argue something so patently silly as deblasio was the greatest mayor in his lifetime. but more surprising to see he liked laguardia. it really is the standing question, I guess: is discussion of this guy's many radical ideas kind of overly dramatic? because it's not yet clear he understands how to navigate government and actually achieve anything. this, separate from politics entirely, was really what we saw from that depression / WW2 generation of men, not only including laguardia and FDR, but robert moses.
to be honest, a little alarming mamdani actually seems to understand what it takes to achieve things.
La Guardia had a very negative side to him that should not be forgotten. He was FDR's and Truman's #1 helpmate in deporting anti-communists from Russia and other Eastern European nations in the infamous Operation Keelhaul program set up at Yalta by Roosevelt and Churchill.
These people were sent back for torture and execution by Stalin.
Few Americans have ever heard of Operation Keelhaul precisely because it makes Roosevelt, Churchill...and LaGuardia look so bad.
Even fewer are aware that Keelhaul was not confined to Europe but was implemented in America also.
About 50 Russians committed suicide on the docks of New York rather than be tortured by Stalin. Their deaths were seized on by the various Orthodox Churches (Russian, Serbian, Rumanian) in America to organize demonstrations against what FDR and Truman were doing.
Since the New Deal Coalition put together by Roosevelt included what back then were called "hyphenated Americans", i.e. non-Anglo-Saxons belonging to minority communities of Eastern and Southern Europeans, the church's demonstrations cut right at the trunk of the Democratic voting base.
So Truman and LaGuardia had to sadly to stop the deportations of anti-communist Russians and other Eastern Europeans.
By lending his hand and support to this brutal pro-Stalinist program, LaGuardia was acting like a modern Woke American would and deserves a special place of opprobrium in the hearts and minds of decent people.