While I found it quite interesting to read about the close relationship between Roosevelt and La Guardia, which I was not aware of before, I found it most interesting to learn about La Guardia’s amazing efforts to turn New York City into a safer, more accommodating pace than it had been before. We all know about the terrible living conditions of tenement housing in the city, and La Guardia seemed to be one of the first mayors to actually try and take action on it. New York had always been seen as the center for opportunity in America, which many immigrants unfortunately learned was a very romantic exaggeration. Many immigrants still suffered and did not gain the kind of social mobility that they were promised. But La Guardia tried to change that. By emphasizing an importance on infrastructure and public housing, he really did help turn the New York City into a “City of Ambition”–La Guardia seemed to be busy non-stop.

Reading about all of La Guardia’s advancements made me think about the concerns of our most recent mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Instead of trying to stimulate the economy and focusing on affordable housing in the midst of a major rent problem, he focused on things like large beverages and stop-and-frisk, which I have always found baffling. This book makes me think more about the prospective future of our new mayor, De Blasio. De Blasio has claimed to plan on focusing on affordable rent, which I think is one of the most pressing issues that our city is facing. Will De Blasio measure up to someone as ambitious and persistent as La Guardia?