During the New Deal and World War II, Fiorello La Guardia became perhaps the most famous mayor in the history of New York City. But there is a part of his story that is only now being told. Since the establishment of the Police Department in the mid-1800s, leaders of the NYPD had often served as partners to partisan political power. That changed with La Guardia. But his approach to low-level policing anticipated later trends in law enforcement, including "broken windows" and "stop and frisk.” Officers worked to preserve order by controlling vice, including juvenile delinquency, prostitution, gambling, and "disorderly" establishments. But that often brought them into conflict with socially targeted groups, in particular Black New Yorkers. With the Depression and wartime conditions spurring youth crime, stories featuring Black "hoodlums" were emblazoned all over the media, driving expanded patrols in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Blacks called for protection and more equitable resources, but mainly saw more punishment. This set the stage for an uprising, the Harlem riot of 1943.

In this conversation, Emily Brooks and Shannon King discuss their new studies, Gotham’s War within a War and The Politics of Safety, and the question of whether this period should be viewed as the “birth of law and order liberalism.”