The Nation: Patient Abe Beame Rises to the Top

Abraham David Beame once summed up his ambition to be mayor of New York City in one succinct sentence: “I would like to be La Guardia without the frills.” Certainly there is nothing frilly about 67-year-old Beame, who in January will become the city’s 104th mayor. About the only similarity between Beame and La Guardia (who was the city’s fiery mayor from 1934 to 1945) is their height: 5 ft. 2 in. Where Mayor La Guardia was flamboyant, City Comptroller Beame is subdued. Where La Guardia dared, Beame usually waits. Where La Guardia was impatient, Beame is calculating and meticulous.

A patient climber in the regular New York Democratic hierarchy since 1932, Beame spent years carrying out the humble door-to-door duties of an election district captain in Brooklyn. “He’d win his district by 390 to 4 or 380 to 6,” one friend remembers. “He was phenomenal, dynamic.” The persistent Beame estimates that over the years he has traveled some 20,000 miles through New York City streets in search of votes.

Such pavement-pounding loyalty did not go unrewarded. In 1946 he was named the city’s assistant budget director, and six years later he became budget director. He won his first race for public office as comptroller in 1961. Able and tough in the role of the city’s chief accountant and auditor, Beame earned a reputation as a moderate in philosophy and a stickler for detail in practice (he once proudly noted that he had saved the city $23,063 in the Board of Education’s hot-dog purchases). He is a tireless administrator who regularly consults his aides about the most routine matters, often by telephone. One aide logged 43 calls from Beame over a single weekend.

An infrequent drinker whose strongest swearword is “jackass,” he is an avid gin rummy player, and enjoys television (his favorite: All in the Family). When he is not reading city financial reports, he indulges in mystery stories and political biographies. He has all but given up attending movies, finding them too violence-and sex-filled. What he seems to enjoy most is the beach at Belle Harbor in Queens, where he and his wife Mary spend their summers.

Beame’s dogged professionalism has long impressed fellow Democrats, as did his bold independence in breaking away in the 1960s from Democratic Mayor Robert Wagner over matters of municipal finance. With strong organizational support, Beame defeated the Wagner-backed candidate in the 1965 Democratic primary race for mayor, and went on to run in the general election. John V. Lindsay’s victory sent Beame into private life and banking for four years. “I was making $80,000 a year,” Beame recalls. “But it wasn’t the same challenge.” When he returned to the political arena, he campaigned as himself: understated, cautious and without frills. His election as mayor (salary: $50,000) fulfilled Beame’s highest ambition. He says he will seek no higher office, making him one of the few mayors of New York who will not run his office with his eye on another job.