Word: sapio
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Tammany's new public-relations approach may either be sincere or "sincere"-but it is certainly the reverse of the old easy, open cynicism. There have been no grave city political scandals involving De Sapio's men, and until there are, fairness requires the assumption that things are better in City Hall-although experience whispers a caution against a conclusion that graft has stopped. As for municipal services, New York is still far behind many other cities, but its filthy, potholed streets and clumsy police may be blamed as much on an apathetic citizenry as on Tammany Hall...
...Would've Been a Judge." Carmine De Sapio, the first Italo-American leader of Tammany Hall, understands only a few words of Italian (he recently sat next to an Italian diplomat at a dinner, listened politely for an hour, did not learn until later that he had accepted an invitation to visit Italy). He does not remember ever hearing his parents converse in Italian; quick-witted Marietta and hard-working Gerard De Sapio spoke English, tried to teach their son that he was an American, pure and simple. Between them, they established a solid little trucking business, came...
...enduring qualities. As a boy he was quiet and reserved; he still is. He had no capacity then for making intimate friends; he still doesn't. He worked tirelessly; he still does. He helped keep the accounts for the De Sapio trucking firm, hustled new customers, many times was out on the docks at 3 a.m. on hauling jobs. He planned to be a lawyer, took pre-law courses at Fordham and attended night classes for a year at the Brooklyn Law School. But iritis, a chronic eye ailment that was the residue of an earlier bout with rheumatic...
Experience with Frogs' Legs. Foreclosed from the law, De Sapio got into politics. "I never planned politics," he says. "You just find yourself in an environment. You get deeper and deeper. You get activated." As an activated young man De Sapio made himself useful around the Huron Club, long the Tammany stamping ground and ruling place of the Finn family, beginning with "Battery Dan" Finn, then his son, then his son's son, Sheriff Dan Finn. "I carried coal baskets around the neighborhood. I used to go down to the markets, let the merchants know...
Sheriff Finn wangled De Sapio a job as secretary to City Judge Vincent S. Lippe at $3,500 a year, and that put De Sapio in a position to marry Theresa Natale (her friends call her Tess, her husband calls her "Girlie"), a pretty secretary from Hoboken whom he had met at a dance several years before. By now, De Sapio was obviously a rising young pol, and Sheriff Finn, a pallid imitation of tough old Battery Dan, was on the skids. In 1939, egged on by Huronites dissatisfied with Finn's sorry leadership, De Sapio founded...