Gotham’s War within a War

A surprising history unfolded in New Deal– and World War II–era New York City under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. Throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, members of the NYPD had worked to enforce partisan political power rather than focus on crime. That changed when La Guardia took office in 1934 and shifted the city’s priorities toward liberal reform. La Guardia’s approach to low-level policing anticipated later trends in law enforcement, including “broken windows” theory and