Robert F. Wagner, Jr.,
Where Are You?

A Panel Discussing New York’s Forgotten, Postwar, Three-Term Mayor

Thursday, April 21st
6:30- 8 PM

The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
Room C198

While recent years have seen a revival of interest in the mayoralty of John V. Linsday and his administration’s response to various crises in the 1960s, to date no one has written a biography or an extensive study of his predecessor, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., who served during one of the most pivotal and transformative eras in the city’s history. How did Wagner shape, or fail to alter, the developments that would challenge, and help, Lindsay and other later mayors?

Mason Williams hosts this panel discussion, exploring the legacy of New York’s neglected, three-term postwar mayor. Richard Flanagan discusses his new monograph, presenting Wagner as the city’s “true New Deal mayor” and the “tamer of Tammany,” and will be joined by three historians addressing different facets of Wagner’s legacy: Michael Woodsworth, author of a forthcoming, prizewinning book on antipoverty efforts in Bed-Stuy; Jeffrey Kroessler, who has published several works on transportation planning, suburbanization, and housing preservation in the Wagner years; and Clarence Taylor, a leading historian of the postwar civil rights movement in New York.

Please arrive early to guarantee a seat.