John V. Lindsay was a respected politician who served Manhattan in Congress for seven years and held the office of New York City mayor for two terms during a tumultuous era of racial unrest, anti-war protests, and municipal strikes. We’ll delve into his life and political career on manhattanyes.com.
Early Life and Career
John was born on November 24, 1921, in Manhattan to George Nelson and Florence Lindsay. He was one of five children. His father was an investment banker and chairman of the board of American Swiss Corporation, a subsidiary of Credit Suisse. His mother was a homemaker who raised the children. The family was affluent but never ostentatious. John attended the Buckley School for boys in New York City before enrolling in prep school, where he was an active member of the rowing team and other sports.
After graduating in 1940, he attended Yale University. He completed his Bachelor of Arts degree on an accelerated program in 1943 due to World War II. After graduation, John joined the Navy as a gunnery officer on a destroyer, participating in the invasion of Sicily. His service earned him five battle stars. In 1946, Lindsay was discharged as a lieutenant and returned to Yale to study law. After receiving his law degree in 1948, he joined the New York City law firm Webster, Sheffield & Chrystie. In 1949, he married Mary Harrison, with whom he had four children.
A Political Rise
Lindsay’s political career began in 1955 when he became the executive assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. During his time at the Department of Justice, he served as a mediator between the White House and the Eisenhower administration on legislative matters. In 1958, he was elected to the 86th Congress, representing New York’s 17th district (Upper East Side of Manhattan) in the U.S. House of Representatives. He served as a Republican congressman until 1965, though his actions often reflected a more liberal perspective on the role of government. Throughout his time in Congress, Lindsay consistently acted as an independent liberal, frequently voting with Democrats on issues such as civil rights, immigration, housing, and foreign aid. In 1960, he introduced a bill to create a federal Department of Urban Development. In 1962, he proposed a bill that embodied Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s plan for a federal health care program for the elderly.
First Term as Mayor of New York City
Elected mayor of New York in 1966, John was immediately faced with a transit strike that paralyzed the city for 12 days. This was just the beginning of the problems he would have to tackle. Throughout his time in office, he fought against the rising demands for municipal pay raises, a matter that was never fully resolved. Despite these challenges, many historians note that Lindsay’s mayorship was a great period for New Yorkers, who felt a new sense of pride in their city. He actively mingled with movie stars, fought bureaucracy, and would often walk the streets with his sleeves rolled up, personally picking up trash and scolding doormen on Park Avenue for allowing limousines to double-park.
Lindsay also did away with pothole inspectors, banned cars from major parks on weekends and during rush hour, and tasked Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving with organizing events to draw people to the city’s green spaces. Additionally, the mayor opened a bike lane on the Brooklyn Bridge, established the Mayor’s Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting, and launched a campaign to bring film production back to the city. Fighting against bureaucracy, John reorganized 50 departments into 10 super-agencies, each headed by an administrator who reported directly to the mayor. The plan streamlined overlapping jurisdictions and functions.
At the time, John Lindsay created a buzz reminiscent of the Kennedy era, attracting bright young people to his city administration who possessed wit, enthusiasm, and imagination. He insisted that parks were for people, not cars, and filled them with concerts, dances, and kite-flying competitions. The mayor tirelessly promoted New York as a city of entertainment, rich in theater, arts, and other activities. Unlike politicians who criticized anti-war protests and civil rights marches, he joined them.
When riots erupted in Detroit, Los Angeles, and other cities, he walked the stifling hot streets of Harlem and other African-American neighborhoods, his tie askew and his jacket slung over his shoulder, talking to people. While other cities were in turmoil, New York experienced only minimal looting and violence.
During his time as mayor, some of Lindsay’s initiatives ended in failure. He tried to revive the independent Civilian Complaint Review Board to oversee police actions, but voters rejected the measure in a referendum. He hoped to balance the budget, but the city plunged into immense debt despite the introduction of the first commuter income taxes and budgetary maneuvers that led to a financial crisis.
Perhaps his most serious failure was his attempt to help poor African-Americans and Latinos in ways that alienated the city’s white middle and working classes. For instance, in an effort to give communities more control over public schools, he provoked a bitter teachers’ strike that led to a racial divide and the closure of the school system for two months in 1968.
Later, his efforts to build housing for low-income citizens in Forest Hills and Queens sparked racial and class divisions. The depth of the antipathy toward Lindsay became evident in 1969 when a snowstorm buried the eastern part of the borough of Queens. Homeowners who were trapped met the mayor, who had come to the uncleared streets, with a barrage of outrage.
Second Term as Mayor
Lindsay’s second term as mayor was also not an easy one. During this period, racial tensions intensified and the number of welfare recipients doubled. Crime also rose, and riots broke out in prisons. Lindsay expanded and reorganized the police department, modernized its communication system, and appointed innovative commissioners who sought to root out corruption, integrate the force, and establish standards of efficiency.
By 1973, his final year in office, Lindsay had become a more experienced and pragmatic mayor. He proudly went from being a Republican congressman to a liberal mayor and Democratic presidential candidate, largely under the guidance of aides such as Robert Price and Richard R. Aurelio. He became a good political boss, engaging in patronage, dictating strategy, and winning over union leaders and middle-class voters, all while delegating state affairs to his subordinates.
In 1969, John lost the Republican primary after a long mutual estrangement and switched to the Liberal Party. In 1971, he became a member of the Democratic Party. In 1973, John V. Lindsay stepped down as mayor of New York and did not seek a third term.
Leaving Politics and Final Years
After ending his political career, Lindsay returned to private practice and occasionally contributed to the television program Good Morning America. From 1984 to 1988, he also served as the chairman of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In 1999, Lindsay and his family moved to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The respected politician died in 2000. The cause of death was complications from pneumonia and Parkinson’s disease. It’s important to note that John’s last years were difficult. Two law firms he was closely associated with went bankrupt. He underwent heart surgery and fainted twice in public. The wealth that the politician had hoped to gain through his aristocratic status proved to be an illusion, and he and his wife lived in a one-bedroom apartment for many years.