Letters to Mayor Lindsay: Children Respond to the 1966 New York City Transit Strike

Children from all over New York City, and around the country wrote to Mayor Lindsay during his first year in office.  The new mayor was, after all, a highly visible man, a strikingly tall and energetic figure.  Many simply asked for a picture or autograph.  But more than any other subject, children wrote to the mayor about the 12 day transit strike, the worst in the city’s history.  Many witnessed it in their daily lives.  Others saw it on television.  Some talked about it in classrooms as far away as Massachusetts.  Here is a selection of their letters.

Excerpt of Child's Letter to Mayor Lindsay - Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives

On January 1, 1966, as John V. Lindsay took the oath of office as New York City’s 103^rd mayor, transit workers all over the city, led by Mike Quill, walked off the job.  Our video about the 1966 transit strike uses contemporary newsreel footage to explore the strike through the experience of adults: the mayor and commuters walking to work; long lines; and crowded highways.  Children’s letters to the mayor offer a different perspective.

1969: John Lindsay's Re-election and Getting the Jewish Vote

Steven A. Levine

Coordinator for Educational Programs

The video, John Lindsay's Re-election and Getting the Jewish Vote, documents Mayor Lindsay’s uphill climb in his 1969 reelection campaign after losing the Republican primary to State Senator John Marchi, forcing him to run with the backing of only the Liberal Party. The Democratic Party nominee Comptroller Mario Procaccino failed to attract broad Democratic support because of his conservative views and verbal gaffes, but Lindsay desperately needed support from Jewish voters to win.

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's trip to the U.S. in September proved the right opportunity for Lindsay to regain his standing with the Jewish community in Brooklyn and Queens. In this video, Jay Kriegel, Lindsay Chief of Staff, and Sid Davidoff, Mayoral Assistant, recount how the city came to build a sukkah, a structure of branches and leaves which Jews traditionally eat in during the harvest festival Sukkoth, in the Brooklyn Museum parking lot as the site for a formal dinner in Meir's honor. This event captured the city's attention and helped Lindsay win reelection.

The sukkah and the Meir visit helped Lindsay increase his support among liberal Jews who could not pull the lever for Procaccino. In the general election, Lindsay and Procaccino split the Jewish vote with Lindsay getting support from more liberal, better educated, and affluent Jews and Procaccino doing better among working and lower middle class Jews in the outer boroughs.

NYC Transit Strike, 1966

On January 1, 1966, New York City, dependent upon mass transit as no other city in America, awoke to a daunting problem -- a complete subway and bus shutdown. For Michael Quill, 60-year-old president of the 32,600 members of the Transport Workers Union and native of County Kerry, Ireland, it was contempt at first sight when he set eyes upon newly-sworn Mayor John V. Lindsay, 44-years-old and Yale educated. The strike had heavy consequences, costing Quill his life and halting the city's transit lifeline for 12 days. This video, from a Universal newsreel, shows the city as never before.