BRONX SCENE
Fiorello LaGuardia read comics from Fieldston home
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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, N BTR OVEMBER 1-7, 2019 53
REPRINTED FROM 2-10-2011
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics to children over the air during the newspaper
strike.
Fiorello LaGuardia had a lovely
home in the Bronx at 5020 Goodridge
Avenue in the exclusive community of
Fieldston. It was from this home that
he read Dick Tracy, Little Orphan
Annie, and the other popular comic
strips of the day to the children of the
city over WNYC radio. The reason, of
course, was the newspaper strike of
1945. Interestingly, when he passed
away just two years later, the mortgage
to that house was one of the few
items they found in his bank safe deposit
box. The other item was $8,000
in war bonds and the meager contents
are often cited as a clue to his honesty
and integrity while in offi ce.
Another oft mentioned connection
to the Bronx has to do with the Bartow
Pell Mansion at 895 Shore Road
in Pelham Bay Park. When Robert
Moses was ousting the tenants of the
various mansions in Pelham Bay
Park owned by the City of New York,
he was also preparing to evict the International
Garden Club who had
been leasing the Bartow-Pell mansion
since 1914. LaGuardia simply moved
himself and his staff into the build-
Little Sisters of the Poor Christmas Bazaar
Little Sisters of the Poor 2999
Schurz Avenue, will host their Annual
Christmas Bazaar on Saturday,
November 9, from 9 a.m. to 4
p.m.; and on Sunday, November 10,
from noon to 2 p.m.
Included in the day’s event will
be raffl es, jewelry, a variety of gift
items, craft items, homemade baked
goods, good food, and much more.
Free admission and free parking.
ing using it as his summer City Hall
and he even brought along the entire
Press Corps. This was in 1936 and it
was an oppressively hot summer. His
quick and decisive action saved the
mansion which remains one of the
great treasures of the Bronx.
La Guardia worked his way
through law school at New York University
by working as an interpreter.
He spoke several languages fl uently
including Italian which he learned
from his father and perhaps it was
this commonality of language that
created the deep friendship with the
Piccirilli family of Bronx sculptors.
He also learned Yiddish from his Jewish
mother though few people knew
of his Jewish background and once
when accused of being anti-Semitic,
he challenged the accuser to debate
him in Yiddish. Needless to say, the
challenger backed down.
He loved nothing more than a debate
and drifted towards politics winning
a seat in Congress in 1916. When
World War I broke out, he proved his
patriotism and the love of his country
by leaving the House of Representatives
and enlisting in the United
States Air Corps where he saw action
in Italy and Austria. He achieved the
rank of Major. Perhaps that’s why it
was appropriate that the North Beach
Airport in Queens which was opened
on October 15, 1939 as the New York
Municipal Airport was later named
for him. The original name was the
Glenn H. Curtiss Airport but it was
re-christened for LaGuardia on June
1, 1947.
Fiorello LaGuardia served as
Mayor of New York for three terms
spanning the years 1934 to 1945. He
then took a post as Director General
of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation
Administration. He passed
away on September 20, 1947 and was
interred in a simple grave on Alpine
Avenue in the Oakwood Plot of Woodlawn
Cemetery here in the Bronx.
Over 45,000 people came out to pay
tribute to “the little fl ower,” as he
was called, when he was laid out for
viewing. The simple inscription on
the modest white stone reads “Statesman,
Humanitarian.” Both descriptions
are appropriate for the man who
devoted his life to easing the burdens
on his fellow man.