The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York

Vincent Cannato takes us back to the time when John Lindsay stunned the New York political scene and rode into Gracie Mansion with a liberal Republican agenda, a WASP sensibility, and movie-star good looks. When Lindsay became mayor of New York in 1966, he was seen as a White Knight, the last best hope for a stagnant, troubled city. At the height of his popularity, leading politicians of both parties, including Nelson Rockefeller and Bobby Kennedy, feared the growing cult of personality surrounding him. Lindsay ended his second term, however, conquered by racial, financial, and economic crises. With peerless authority, Cannato explores how Lindsay Liberalism failed to save New York, and, in the opinion of many, left it worse off than it was in the mid sixties.The Ungovernable City is also the story of an American city-perhaps the American city-during a crucial period in twentieth-century history. And all the while, Mayor John Lindsay found himself asking the same questions that Cannato explores: Is New York City governable? How much can the mayor of any large American metropolis really accomplish?