By Kayla Walker

The University celebrated the life of former New York City mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia on Wednesday through film, performance, discussion and tales from friends and colleagues.

The symposium, sponsored by the University’s Cultural Center and Fiorello H. La Guardia Archives, featured Thomas Kessner, a history professor and the deputy executive officer of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, as its keynote speaker.

Kessner discussed the highlights of La Guardia’s personal life and career.

“No one has come close to his honest and passionate government,” he said, comparing La Guardia’s to those careers of other mayors.

Kessner recounted many stories including a speech La Guardia delivered to Congress, during which he pulled a small scrap of steak from his pocket and said: “This is all that my constituents can afford to eat a week.”

After obtaining a law degree from New York University, La Guardia ran for Congress in 1914 but lost.

He continued to run and served in Congress until 1932, when he lost the election in the midst of President Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Kessner said La Guardia had many hardships in his personal life, including the loss of his wife to tuberculosis six months after his first child died of the same disease.

“Some men are defeated by adversity, some men work their entire lives to fight it, but few men grow from adversity, gaining strength and character,” Kessner said. “La Guardia was one of those few.”

When La Guardia became mayor in 1933, he inherited a crippled city where one in six citizens depended on relief, said Kessner.

In the first 100 days of office, La Guardia signed a bill to trim the budget, launched an attack on corruption and racketeering in the government and created a new social relief system.

La Guardia also focused on rebuilding the city, assembling architects and engineers to design new subways, airports, public housing and street repairs. He wanted to make urban life “a great living adventure,” Kessner said.

He said the biggest item on La Guardia’s agenda was to make all the improvement projects funded by the federal government. He introduced the idea during a time when the country was in the middle of an economic depression.

However, his ties to President Franklin Roosevelt, helped La Guardia succeed and he provided New York City with more than 200,000 federally funded jobs. Roosevelt was often quoted as calling La Guardia “the most appealing man I know.”

Freshman Bryan Hoffman, music business major, said he knew little about La Guardia before the lecture.

“This has opened my eyes to how great a man La Guardia was,” Hoffman said. “He was so morally conscious and never caved to political racketeering.”

La Guardia was also famous for his remarks to the press and his radio shows resembled Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats.

When reporters asked La Guardia why he closed burlesque houses, removed dirty magazines from newsstands and created harsher punishments for gamblers, he said, “I’m supposed to have the garbage collected, aren’t I?”

La Guardia was a believer in family values. During a newspaper strike, he asked parents to “Bring the kiddies around” while he read comic strips from out-of-town newspapers during his Sunday evening radio show.

La Guardia died on Dec. 20, 1947 from pancreatic cancer after serving as a Congressman, a New York City Mayor and the Director of Civilian Defense during World War II.

His life became the subject of a one-man play called Lo Bianco’s La Guardia, which will premiere at the University in June.

Wednesday’s presentation included an interpretation of La Guardia from the play’s creator Tony Lo Bianco, a Tony award nominee and Obie and Emmy Award winner.

“The interpretation of [La Guardia] was interesting to see, from a different generation, what kind of person he really was,” said Michael Ortiz, freshman business major.

The University’s production will run from June 10 through 19 at John Cranford Adams Playhouse.

The life of Fiorello H. La Guardia, former New York City major, was highlighted in a symposium hosted by the University. (Kayla Walker/The Chronicle)