Abraham Beame

While in college, he 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, he 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 "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]

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.

Prior to being elected to two nonconsecutive terms as city comptroller in 1961 and 1969, he was a longstanding member of Crown Heights' influential Madison Democratic Club and retained as the personal accountant of political boss Irwin Steingut. Members of the Madison Club (including attorney/fundraiser Abraham "Bunny" Lindenbaum and Steingut's son, Stanley) frequently liaised with developer Fred Trump. The organization also played a decisive role in the political ascent of Park Slope-based attorney Hugh Carey, who served as Governor of New York during Beame's administration, although Carey would eventually break with the organization by endorsing Mario Cuomo's 1977 primary bid to unseat Beame.[7][8]

In 1965, he was the Democratic nominee for Mayor but was defeated by then-Republican John V. Lindsay.[9]

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] He faced the worst fiscal crisis in the city's history and spent the bulk 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. However, "he was credited with distributing the City's dwindling resources equitably".[3] When he left office on New Year's Day 1978, the city budget had changed from a $1.5 billion deficit[5] to a surplus of $200 million.[4]

In October 1975, the city of New York was in debt of four hundred and fifty-three million dollars. Beame made a statement on October 17, notifying that the city has insufficient cash on hand to meet the debt obligations due for that day. Beame goes on to say that we (citizens of New York City) need to take immediate steps to protect the essential life support systems of the city and to preserve the well-being of all NYC citizens. President Ford at first turned down New York's request for a loan, inspiring the legendary headline in the Daily News, "Ford to City: Drop Dead." However, President Ford would later approve federal support for New York.[10]

On July 13, 1977, a massive power failure hit New York City and its boroughs. With temperatures in the mid-nineties and the humidity high, New Yorkers sweltered, and, before power was restored at 10:39 p.m. on the following evening, the city was without power for more than twenty-five hours. Mayor Abraham Beame set up a Blackout Action Center at the headquarters of the New York City Police Department. The blackout resulted in raw sewage washing up on beaches and spoiled foods in hundreds, if not thousands of restaurants around the city, [11]

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 the first mayor of New York City who was a practicing Jew.[6] (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.)