Word: craned
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Joseph DeGuiglielmo '29--who had been in partnership with Crane even when Crane threw John Atkinson out of the city manager post and replaced him with a hand-picked selection, John J. Curry '19--was assembling a coalition of Cambridge Civic Association reformers and independents who were getting weary of Crane's one-man rule...
Although once in as city manager DeGuiglielmo wasn't successful in sustaining his coalition and subsequently lost his council support in the ensuing election, Crane's power remained battered from the ambush by his political friends. Crane told The Crimson in 1966, after losing the fiercest political battle in the city's history: "I don't get shook up over these things, the city won't blow up, the sun won't rise in the west.... I've been through these things before. It's all part of the game." But this time it was all over for the Cambridge...
...Crane had been the dominant figure in the city for years, no question about it," says current City Manager James L. Sullivan, rehired this year after serving three years at the tail-end of the Crane regime. "But he ceased to be the dominant figure when Joe DeGuiglielmo replaced Curry...
...Crane left the city in a mass of confusion. His short-sighted policies, designed for immediate growth, no matter what cost, and for low taxes, ignored a crucial housing shortage and a dearth of blue collar jobs. His alliance with James Killian brought in public sector jobs and suburban white collar research work. But the land where these jobs were located was tax-exempt, of little value to the tax base...
...most important, Crane left a political, social and economic vacuum so large that no one person could fill it. Ever since the Crane-DeGuiglielmo split the city council has suffered from a political divisiveness that renders it helpless in coping with Cambridge's major problems. The shattered body has already gone through twice as many city managers since Crane left than it did in all the years that he reigned. Chamber of Commerce President Robert Jones criticizes the council for playing politics above all other concerns. "City Council just doesn't have a leader in the crowd. Many are unhappy...