Customer Reviews

Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma

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This is a fascinating political biography of the man who served as mayor of Albany for over 40 years.' as such he was the longest serving mayor of any major American city.
Mr. Grondahl offers his readers a lengthy over 500 page study of Mr. Corning. The volume is accompanied by a fine bibliography and end notes.
Corning was an unsual big city politico, a true American aristocrat a descendant of an old American railroad and banking family, who graduated Groton and Yale, who chose to allign himself with the old line working class Democratic Irish political machine in Albany which under the leadership of Dan McConnel which dominated Albany for most of the 20th century.
This book explores Cornings life and career. We have chapters dedicated to his patrimony, his years at Groton and Yale, his time in the US Army, his lifeas a summer resident in Maine.
We also learn much about his private life his marriage , his 2 children and his second family the Noonan's wife husband and children.After I finished reading this monograph I felt I knew Corning very very well.
While the author certainly does deal with Corning's service as mayor and his potiical life, there are many notable omissions in this otherwise fine study.
We learn very little about the changing landscape of the Albany political scene. Like all cities Albany gained a large Black population in the 1950's . What was the relatioship between Corning and his handlers to this group. This is dealt with in several paragraphs, wheras Corning the sportsman and fisherman gets at least a whole chapter.In general the new dynamics between the Wasp class, the old immigrant groups and the new minority groups are hardly discussed,
After reading the book I have to presume that labor unions did not exist in Albany as they are hardly mentioned, except for a critical effort by the local firemen to unionize and labor problems in the building of South Mall. But were Albany's civil servants unionized? how about teachers and other such groups?
Yer the author does not really study this aspect.
Mr. Grondahl makes short shrift of the white flight from Albany and its effect on Albany's government and democratic machine. We know more about Mrs. Corning's gardening philosophy than about the changing political landscape of Albany.
That is not to say that this volume is not very good political reading. the chappter about Corning's rivalry with his old "buddy" Nelson Rockefeller in their days at Albany is excellent and makes for interesting study in how politicians evade responsibility and seek credit.Corning's daily city hall routine, his ability to reply to all of Albany's citizens and the like is also a fascinating account of the makings of political power.
This book is a major contribution in the study of political machines in the 2oth century American political culture.. It joins similiar studies of Mayors Richard Daley, Richard Lee of New Haven, James Curley of Boston as important reading in the understanding of the 20th century American urban political scene. I would have hoped that the author would choose to compare Corning's machine to lets say James Curley in Boston. I highly recommend it for any student of urban American politics.

Grondahl captures the man, his personal world and his public world, notably Albany New York. The book will be good reading for anyone but especially fascinating to people interested in politics. Corning was a great character. A patrician who had the common touch and whose office was readily available to anyone, and immensely charming. Many otherwise savvy people--like Governor Cuomo--- have glossed over the tight and largely negative effect of his 42 years as mayor of Albany to cite him as a public servant exemplar.

Grondahl's biography of Corning compares to the great biographies of Robert Caro--about Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson. Authoritative, full of passion, insightful, and great story well told. Highly recommended!

Even if I wasn't a political junkie, this book would have held my attention because, politics aside, its a well-written, fascinating biography of a complicated man. AS a political junkie, I was richly rewarded reading this book. I've never read a more complete examination of the exercise of political power in America. Grondahl is a skillful, honest reporter and he has done a wonderful job with this story.

As one familiar with the author's newspaper work, it came as no surprise that his book would be such a compelling read. I look forward to his next effort.

I enjoyed this book very much. There were many facets of the Mayors life, that as a long time resident of the city had been unknown to me. The descriptions of Groton and Yale, as well as his experiences in Maine and the Adirondacks were of great interest. I thought that his overwhelming negative effect on the city and his personal shortcomings were well described and documented. The major flaw of the book was the lack of material on the reformers, other than Republicans, who for many years led the fight for progressive government in Albany.

Tough review of evils of political machine which did preserve peace, keep minimal governmental services going, keep taxes low and out preform the "good" governmental cities in the upstate NY. Hard to justify but it did work. His reporting is best contrasted with Wm. Kenedy's classic history Oh Albany.

up to chapter 8 p262. interesting and informative. i lived and walked by dan o'connell's birth place often as well as drive by his place on whitehall but didn't know it. that was interesting. Many inforative and illuninating pieces of information BUT lots of slow reading. slow to go thru was the history of the mayor. i wanted more of Rastus n Dan stories. hope chapter 8 starts delivering

As others have noted Paul Grondahl's work is the best study of a man who played a major role in all levels of American politics for nearly half of the twentieth century.

There are, unfortunately, two major problems with this work. The first is the complete lack of foot or endnotes. Grondahl occasionally makes bold claims without even referencing his source in the text. A few minor errors in the text (an assertion that Malcolm Wilson served more time in state-level elected office than anybody else in New York history, a statement that Harriman served three, not four years as governor, etc.) make it difficult to trust the more obscure facts he occasionally mentions. There are other claims which seem to rely entirely on interviews that could easily be discredited by some quick background research. For example, a background memo on Corning in Truman's archives which was written in 1952 is taken as evidence that the Mayor was considered a candidate for a Secretary of Commerce opening which was filled in 1948.

Perhaps the biggest problem is unceasing repetition. Characters are reintroduced in every chapter in which they appear. A brief reminder of an individual's background isn't a bad thing if there are a few hundred pages in between mentions, but entire paragraphs are frequently rewritten. Nelson Rockefeller probably appears in 8 of the 15 chapters; in each instance, we are reminded that he raced boats with Corning in their youth. Six times in the first 288 pages, Corning's intellectualism is described with the exact phrase "voracious reader." While most of these repetitions likely arise from the chapters being written individually, they are occasionally more inexplicable. At one point, the following sentence is found: "The mayor was known to allow, even nurture, non-traditional behavior in his staff. . ." Six sentences later, we hear that "Corning not only seemed to tolerate eccentricity in his staff; he appeared to cultivate it." An occasional slip-up like this is understandable. However, these occur so frequently that a trimming of all needless repetition could easily take 100 pages out of the book.

Regardless of these flaws, Mayor Corning is still the best look at the life of its title subject. Anybody interested in Albany's history or machine politics will certainly learn a lot.

Paul Grondahl is a terrific writer, and his writing has never been better. This book is an extraordinarily well-researched, thorough and readable account of one of the more fascinating figures in American politics. It should be of interest to anyone fascinated by the fables and foibles of political life. John M. Caher

I liked the photographs the most. They were the first things I looked for in the book. My dad put my name in it too!