Saturday, July 20, 2013

How do you get to Tammany Hall? Tweeding, tweeding, tweeding.

From Capital:

Few buildings can claim to serve as global metaphors, but New York’s Tammany Hall surely is one of them. Mention Tammany Hall to reasonably educated Americans—or even British journalists—and the image that comes to mind is not of an old colonial revival building just off Manhattan’s Union Square, but a certain method of ethically slippery, brass-knuckle politics far removed from the ideals of the nation’s founders.

That image, desperately in need of revision, might explain why Tammany Hall—the building, not the metaphor—is one of the city’s best-known landmarks that is not, in fact, a landmark, at least not in the formal sense. But a decades-long campaign to recognize the Tammany building’s history may be on the verge of victory. On June 25, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission heard from a handful of speakers united in support of designating Tammany Hall as a city landmark. The proposed designation has the backing of the local community board as well as other preservation organizations.

If the commission approves, Tammany Hall, the onetime home of the New York County Democratic Party, will achieve a level of respectability it was denied even in its prime, when political legends like Alfred E. Smith, Robert F. Wagner, and Herbert Lehman were members of the Tammany political organization. Many of those who support the landmark designation have cited the Tammany building’s impressive architecture as well as its role as the onetime home of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, a historically significant trade union. They have tip-toed around Tammany Hall’s role in American political history, perhaps fearful of the organization’s much-chronicled scandals.

5 comments:

Deke DaSilva said...

Mention Tammany Hall to reasonably educated Americans—or even British journalists

It's frightening that "reasonably educated Americans" and British journalists are the only ones who know what Tammany Hall is!

Rachel Jeantel is the future of America!

If the commission approves, Tammany Hall, the onetime home of the New York County Democratic Party, will achieve a level of respectability it was denied even in its prime

Any word on when the NY County Democratic Party will ever achieve a level of respectability?

Anyone?

They have tip-toed around Tammany Hall’s role in American political history, perhaps fearful of the organization’s much-chronicled scandals.

I think the Republicans in Washington D.C. that are trying to get the Watergate Hotel landmarked are having the same issues.

Decades earlier, in the 1870s, New York’s civic elites sought to restrict the vote to property owners in order to wrest power away from Tammany and its voters, who were considered too ignorant to cast an intelligent vote.

The more things change, the more they remain the same - voters are still too ignorant to cast an intelligent vote!

Tammany Hall taught the poor that they could look to government to protect them from the cruelties of the unregulated market

And it also taught the poor and future Democrats the most important lesson of all -

FREE STUFF!!!!

r185 said...

So what year was the building built?

georgetheatheist said...

Amen.

Anonymous said...

And what name is immediately associated with the corruption of Tammany hall?

Anonymous said...

Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Ted Cruz

These are Americans.

Everybody else plans or planned to bring us into World Government.

Not enough awake Americans to do anything about it all.

Just bend over at this point.

Look at Flushing,....a cesspool created by the Federal Reserve's cheap money.