C.M. Stieglitz

You are currently browsing articles tagged C.M. Stieglitz.

Mayor LaGuardia Outweighed By A Halibut (1939)

May 2, 2011 in Excerpts, Photography, Politics, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

The "Little Flower," as the Mayor was known, with a big fish. (Image by C. M. Stieglitz.)

C.M Stieglitz of the long-defunct World Telegram took this classic 1939 photograph of New York’s Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia with a 300-pound halibut. LaGuardia, a commanding presence to say the least, was famous for everything from being one of Hitler’s earliest and most outspoken critics to reading comic strips to local children on the radio. He was also known to not be allergic to cameras. LaGuardia passed away from pancreatic cancer eight years after this photo was snapped. An exceprt from his New York Times obituary:

“A city of which he was as much a part as any of its public buildings awoke to find the little firebrand dead. Its people had laughed with him and at him, they had been entertained by his antics and they had been sobered by his warnings, and they found it difficult to believe that the voice he had raised in their behalf in the legislative halls of city and nation, on street corners and over the radio, was stilled forever.

Mayor O’Dwyer, his successor, expressed this feeling. Although Mr. La Guardia’s death was expected, the Mayor said, his passing brought with it ‘a shock of awful finality.’

‘In his death the people of the city, the State and nation have lost a great, patriotic American citizen,’ the Mayor said.”

••••••••••

Tags: ,

Robert Moses Builds His New York City (1939)

December 1, 2010 in Photography, Urban Studies | Permalink

Robert Moses plans the Battery Bridge in 1939. (Image by C.M. Stieglitz.)

Robert Moses was never elected, but then kings don’t need to be. Moses was the master builder of New York City who held sway over the creation of bridges, parks, highways, museums and skyscrapers for several decades last century. As head of numerous public authorities (most of which he created), Moses was insulated from public opinion and had the type of control over the city’s fate that no single person will ever have again. Even though he created many new acres of park lands, Moses’ passion for automobiles and towers over public transportation and small neighborhoods eventually made him a reviled figure and Jane Jacobs, his arch-foe, a leading urban theorist.

C.M. Stieglitz’s 1939 World Telegram image of Robert Moses looking down on a scale model of the proposed Battery Bridge as if it were a child’s toy may say as much about Moses as Robert Caro did in his sprawling, devastating 1974 biography, Power Broker. That’s no small praise since Caro’s book may be the single best history about New York City in the 20th century.

From Paul Goldberger’s 1981 New York Times obituary about Moses:

“Robert Moses, who played a larger role in shaping the physical environment of New York State than any other figure in the 20th century, died early yesterday at West Islip, L.I. Mr. Moses, whose long list of public offices only begins to hint at his impact on both the city and state of New York, was 92 years old.

A spokesman for Good Samaritan Hospital said he had been taken there Tuesday afternoon from his summer home in Gilgo Beach. The cause of death was given as heart failure.

‘Those who can, build,’ Mr. Moses once said. ‘Those who can’t, criticize.’ Robert Moses was, in every sense of the word, New York’s master builder. Neither an architect, a planner, a lawyer nor even, in the strictest sense, a politician, he changed the face of the state more than anyone. Before him, there was no Triborough Bridge, Jones Beach State Park, Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, West Side Highway or Long Island parkway system or Niagara and St. Lawrence power projects. He built all of these and more.”

Tags: , , ,