The Corpse of Greenwich Village

Carmine De Sapio, 95, the political kingmaker and final party boss of New York City who restored the power of Tammany Hall and selected the mayor of New York City and the governor of New York. Tammany Hall, as the Manhattan Democratic Party was known, has flourished at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, but had waned in influence during World War II. De Sapio used his office as district leader of Greenwich Village to build his power base, and worked to elect his hand-selected candidates for mayor, Robert F. Wagner Jr. in 1953 and governor, W. Averell Harriman in 1954. In a cover story, Time magazine declared he could select the Democratic presidential nominee. He was later linked by a Senate investigator to legendary mob boss Frank Costello, and later was convicted in a bribery scandal. After losing the seat he held for two decades in 1961, his political comeback was thwarted when he was defeated by future mayor Edward Koch, who was part of a group trying to reform the backroom politics of the city. His defeat ended the reign of the boss system in the city.