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- [00:00]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Wondry subscribers can binge all episodes of Empire City early and ad free. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. At a recent NYPD Police Academy graduation, the keynote speaker offered some powerful words to the crowd of 631 new recruits.
- [00:25]
Eric Adams
I thank God every day that we have a cop that's the mayor of the City of New York that has went through the training that you have gone through and ready to serve this city in the manner that it should be served.
- [00:36]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And the man thanking God that a cop is the mayor of New York City is a cop that's also Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. When Adams won the election two years earlier, I'm not sure anybody was thanking God, but a lot of folks did celebrate. I mean, Adams was a Democrat, and he wasn't just a cop. He was a black cop who bragged about having been a leader on police reform.
- [01:01]
Eric Adams
And right now, in this audience, when you finish your career, one of you will be a congressman, one of you will be a governor, one of you will be a mayor, one of you may even be the President of the United States. You're going to take that experience that you have and you're going to show how to lead, how to lead from the front.
- [01:23]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
As a black man raising my daughter here, I'm worried about what a former cop as the mayor leading from the front means for everyday New Yorkers. And looking at the police data since Mayor Adams has taken office, it looks like my worries are justified. At a moment when Adams was threatening to cut social programs and public goods, he increased police overtime, and he's refused to support any kind of police oversight. All of this while the NYPD recorded more stops in New Yorkers in 2023 than it has in nearly a decade. And 89% of those who were stopped are black and Latino. It's a pattern that's persisted since George Kirk, and it stretches all the way back to the kidnapping club. But last year, New York City Council decided to do something to try to disrupt that pattern. In a vote with overwhelming support, they passed the How Many Stops Act. It would force NYPD officers to document these street stops with New Yorkers. When I heard about it, it sounded so basic that I was sort of amazed it wasn't already. The was a clear chance for Mayor Adams to lead from the front. All he had to do was sign it. But that's not what happened. Instead, on January 19, 2024, Eric Adams held a press conference and announced that he was vetoing City Council's Vote on the how many stops act in press conferences and social media, he lambasted city council for even suggesting it. At a private NYPD gala surrounded by cops and members of the Sopranos cast, he really let loose.
- [03:04]
Eric Adams
And now I would be damned if I was willing to stand up against bullies as a cop. I'm gonna stand up against socialist organizations as the mayor, and I'm gonna fight back. So stand tall. This is the greatest profession and the greatest police department on the globe.
- [03:37]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Watching him stand there and foam at the mouth about a bill that just asked cops to document what they're doing is a cartoonishly clear example of why having a former police officer as mayor might be great for cops but horrible for New Yorkers. This closeness between police and mayors, it's not new that collapsing of police and politicians was supercharged. Ten years after New York got its first formalized police force with a mayor who was willing to spill police blood to stay on top from wondry and crooked media. I'm Chenjerai Kumanyika, and this is Empire City. Episode 3 what's Done Can Be Undone for most of my life, I didn't really pay much attention to Shakespeare. I was getting all the drama I needed from hip hop and Tony Morrison. You know, the regular old movie theater. Shakespeare just felt British and far away. But to early New Yorkers, theaters are places that belong to them, where they come together, catch up with each other, and experience epic, riveting storytelling as a community and, you know, let off some steam. So imagine one night you're leaning back into your aisle seat enjoying the latest performance of Macbeth at the newly opened Astor Opera House when a rock flies through the window. It could have been an accident. But then another rock comes pummeling down, hitting the person to your left, and then another and another, until nearly every window in the opera house is broken and the theater is in chaos. I know Shakespeare is supposed to bring the drama, but I don't think running for your life is the experience any theater goer was expecting that night. But apparently this is what you get when you cast a British actor as Macbeth. Out, out, brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow. On the same night, an American actor performs Macbeth in a working class theater across town. If it were done when tis done, then twere well it were done quickly. See, working class New Yorkers look at this bougie ass theater with British actors as a symbol that New York is growing into a place where ordinary folks and their culture won't be welcome. So before the performance they put up flyers all over the city to persuade New Yorkers to heckle the British production. The flyers say things like, working men, shall Americans or English rule this city? One night, Police Chief George Matzo gets word that some shit's about to go down, and he sends 200 police to post up inside the opera house. But this crowd is infuriated, and them cops ain't enough to turn them away. They descend on the theater in between, hurling rocks through windows. People curse at the stage and throw furniture. The police just can't handle the people inside the theater, and they really ain't ready for the enraged crowd of thousands of folks outside. So they stay, or you might say, hide inside. The state militia gets called in, and after a single round of warning shots, the militia starts firing into the crowd. More than 20 people are killed, almost all of them bystanders struck down. Walking past the theater, the youngest was 15 years old. People are pretty upset at the disastrous performance of the police. It's been four years since they formally became the nypd, but clearly they still don't have their shit together. Even James Gordon Bennett basically calls them cowards. It's the first time one ever heard of police being shut up in a house in order to quell a riot in the street. And other elite New Yorkers have to admit that having to call the military to put down a theater riot is not a good look for business. Now, obviously, none of this is good news for Police Chief George Matsel. He's been trying to get the police to function like professionals since the NYPD started. But the Astor Place riot showed that so far, it isn't working. Matzo needs to take his plans for professionalization to the next level. One big thing he has to tackle is uniforms. Without them, you can't tell who's a police officer in a crowd, and that's a problem in a riot. But some New Yorkers still don't want the police in uniform because it looks too much like a standing army. And the truth is, the police hated the idea of uniforms from the very beginning. They're expensive, they make it easier for their bosses to surveil them, and they're demeaning. Police grumble that wearing uniforms makes them akin to servants. But after years of debate, Matzel gets a uniform designed for his force, a blue coat and a leather hat, and he parades uniformed officers around at society events. And it's not enough for them to look the part. Metzl also has to address their lack of training. He orders his captains to train officers in the School of the Soldier. He hires a drill captain to train new recruits and tries to command more military style discipline. But some neighborhoods in New York don't get soldiers, they get thugs. When Matso tells some of his police to go deal with Irish gangs, they organize strong arm squads. Groups of cops in regular clothes with clubs made of locust wood that are strong enough to break bone on impact. When these squads hit the street, anybody they run into would get their head cracked open. Innocent people get caught up in the violence, but New York's business community loves it. The response is so positive, the clubs become standard issue. And this is the first way that the NYPD officially arms its officers. But these changes to the NYPD pale in comparison to what happens when the city elects a new mayor. Fernando Wood.
- [10:08]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Fernando Wood is one of the great scoundrels of the 19th century. And by great, I don't mean in terms of, you know, good, I mean in terms of magnitude.
- [10:20]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
According to Jeff Broxmeyer, a professor who writes about this period, the new mayor sees this army of men with clubs, uniforms and the power to arrest and says, I can use this.
- [10:32]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Fernando Wood is a risk taker. Sometimes it works out really well and sometimes it just is a disaster.
- [10:40]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And just like Macbeth, Wood's quest for power ends in bloodshed. All his life, Wood is chasing after two money and respectability.
- [10:52]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Wood was a very ambitious figure who grew up in poverty, who had nothing really. So he does things like he tries his hand at a career in the theater actually, and that doesn't work out. And then he moves to New York and he tries hand at all of these small shops, which mostly fail.
- [11:13]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But Wood is willing to go to any length to come up and eventually learns that his real power isn't going to be the value he brings as a business person. It's that he can look people right in the face and knife him in the back.
- [11:27]
Jeff Broxmeyer
He'll make an agreement with someone in secret and then another agreement with someone else that is completely contrarian to what he has previously said he would do.
- [11:43]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And this talent for lying and double crossing people that he claims he's helping proves useful in this new world that Wood is about to enter the world of politics. He also starts hanging out with members of New York's strongest political machine, Tammany Hall.
- [12:03]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Tammany hall is the main political machine that's really the dominant force in Democratic party politics throughout the mid 19th century, all the way up into the 1960s in New York.
- [12:16]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Actually, Tammany hall had figured out how to appeal to New York City's marginalized white ethnic immigrants. And Wood learns that race and nationality are powerful political wedges that he can exploit to his advantage. He isn't scared to take controversial positions and say the quiet part out loud. This helps him to rise through the ranks of Tammany. And as he's gathering political clout and knifing people in the back, he winds up making a windfall of cash the old fashioned way. He inherits it, his wife dies and leaves him a ton of money. And now, what is more than just rich.
- [12:58]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Fabulously wealthy for the age in the period when he's in. In an age when very few people were millionaires and that was a new thing. He was a millionaire.
- [13:10]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
His worn down shoes and cheap suits had always given him away as a scrappy con man. But now, shit was different. He starts buying the most fashionable clothes and hanging with the wealthier crowd. But Wood decides that it's not enough to be a rich New Yorker. He wants to be king. So Wood runs for mayor in 1850 and loses, but tries again in 1854 and wins. Thinking about Wood's rise to power, I can't help but think back to when those folks were sitting in the Astor Opera House looking up at Macbeth on stage before all hell broke loose. They weren't just enjoying the drama of Shakespeare. They saw more than an actor in a costume. They saw their own political leaders motivated by greed and power. It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood. And one thing that Macbeth drives home is that ambition comes with a cost. And that thirst for power is definitely going to cost Fernando Wood. As soon as he's inaugurated, Wood sets his sights on transforming the police into his personal army, an army that'll do anything he needs him to do, including fighting to the death.
- [14:40]
Miriam Kaba
We're standing in front of both City hall and City hall park across the street.
- [14:47]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Organizer Miriam Kaba and I are standing on a crowded corner in lower Manhattan, and she calls attention to something right above our heads.
- [14:55]
Miriam Kaba
There's a street sign that says Elizabeth Jennings Place.
- [14:58]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Thousands of people pass this sign every day.
- [15:01]
Miriam Kaba
But I would suspect that most people, even people who are from New York, when they look up and they see Elizabeth Jennings Place, probably have no idea who the hell Elizabeth Jennings was.
- [15:11]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And one person who probably hadn't heard of Elizabeth Jennings Graham was New York Mayor Fernando Wood. At least at first. When Wood takes office In January of 1855, Jennings is a teacher. And as a black woman, she isn't someone that would be on the mayor's radar. But a month into Wood's first term, Jennings grabs the city's attention. The story starts a year earlier. Jennings and her friend Sarah Adams are waiting for a rail car. It's a Sunday and they're dressed up in hats and fancy dresses.
- [15:51]
Miriam Kaba
She was going for service as the church organist. She was running late, so she decided to board a horse drawn rail car here in New York.
- [16:00]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
As soon as Jennings and her friend get on, some white folks start complaining that black women are on their streetcar. The conductor stops the streetcar and tells them to leave. At that point, most black folks would have just rolled their eyes and gotten off. That's just the way things work. You comply. But Elizabeth Jennings Graham has support that other people don't have.
- [16:26]
Miriam Kaba
Her father is well known because he was a black abolitionist here in New York City.
- [16:31]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Both her mother and father had worked with David Ruggles in the Committee of Vigilance. She grew up around adults who preached, wrote and fought for black liberation. And on that day, she's just trying to get to church. So she looks at the conductor like, nah, we not doing this today.
- [16:49]
Miriam Kaba
She told the conductor he was a good for nothing, impudent fellow for insulting decent persons while on their way to church.
- [16:58]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
More than 100 years before, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama, Elizabeth Jennings Graham clings to the window ledge and refuses to leave a streetcar in New York. The conductor drags her and her friend off the car. But before the driver can speed away, Jennings and a friend get right back on. And so the conductor calls for backup from the police.
- [17:24]
Miriam Kaba
And the cops show up. And here's what Jennings says. The officer, without listening to anything I had to say, thrust me out and tauntingly told me to get redressed if I could.
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Chenjerai Kumanyika
Kaba says this was a typical move for the nypd.
- [17:41]
Miriam Kaba
The cops were pulling people off trains and subways and stuff in 1854 and telling them, you can try to fucking get, you know, satisfaction, but you're not gonna get satisfaction. Because who they gonna believe, you or me?
- [17:55]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But this time it ain't gonna be that easy. This is the definition of the wrong one.
- [18:01]
Miriam Kaba
They got the wrong one.
- [18:07]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
When Jennings gets home, she tells her people what happened. And they were like, oh, hells no. They pull together the most influential folks they can contact. They publish a story in the papers. They form an organization, and they say, since you fuck with us, we're gonna go big. We're gonna fight to desegregate every streetcar in New York. They hire a white lawyer. Future U.S. president Chester A. Arthur and head to court. And when they get there, the judge surprises everybody by ruling in Jennings favor. Elizabeth Jennings is compensated for her treatment at the hands of the police. And some, but not all, streetcars in New York are officially desegregated. Her victory rings from Five Points to Seneca Village. Black folks even create a holiday called Elizabeth Jennings Day. According to historian Leslie Alexander, Mayor Fernando Wood isn't celebrating with the rest of the city.
- [19:05]
Leslie Alexander
Fernando Wood was just sort of a devout and committed racist. He was just wholly opposed to emancipation and equality for the black population and opposed their existence in the United States.
- [19:23]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Wood is a Democrat, but they were kind of the opposite of how we think of the Democratic party today. Democrats were a pro slavery party. They supported states rights and the fugitive slave law. Later on in his career, during the Civil War, he gave a full speech calling for New York to secede from the Union like the Confederate states. And by the way, he had a lot of support for that.
- [19:47]
Leslie Alexander
If this was like an old school cartoon, he would like be the guy, like twisting his mustache, you know, looking kind of evilly to the side.
- [19:57]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
So if I were him, and I just watched Elizabeth Jennings Graham and other black folks who are barely citizens win a battle to desegregate streetcars, I'd be worried about their growing power in the city. And Wood doesn't want to share power with anyone. In his first statement to the city council, Wood declares that New York's government is a bureaucratic monster with too many heads. He says that it's time to chop off every head but one. That the mayor should be the absolute power in the city.
- [20:26]
Jeff Broxmeyer
He calls it one man rule. He wants to be a kind of one man power in the city.
- [20:31]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
He's basically saying the city is broken and I'm the only one who can fix it.
- [20:36]
Jeff Broxmeyer
And he has lots of battles over that, and he largely loses. He's not really able to centralize authority into his hands in the way that he wants to accept. The one place where he is successful is the police.
- [20:53]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Even though Wood is the mayor, he starts acting like he's the police chief.
- [20:58]
Jeff Broxmeyer
And he worked to gain control over appointments. Who was going to be a police officer, who was going to be a police captain. And the way in which he does that is he makes the police really part of the party machinery and the financing of his political machine.
- [21:20]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
This isn't Matzel trying to professionalize the cops. It's about pimping them. What starts offering up police jobs in exchange for money or political favors. If you want to be A police officer. First you got to make a donation.
- [21:34]
Jeff Broxmeyer
So $25, $50, you gotta pony that up to the party treasury, right? The Tammany hall treasury. And then that's going to go towards the mayor's reelection. And he raised a lot of money that way.
- [21:49]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And then to show off his power to the public, Wood has his new and improved. Uniformed police march up and down Broadway in the city's first police parade. Many of these cops walking past New Yorkers in full regalia were chosen because they could afford to pay to become a cop and because they had the right connections, which means that the NYPD is now even more bound to the mayor than to the people, especially black people. He sees a way to use these loyal cops to take his personal wealth to a whole new level. And he realizes it's also going to deal a serious blow to black political power.
- [22:31]
Leslie Alexander
The community, like Seneca Village, it sent a very clear and distinctive message to white New Yorkers and to the society at large, saying, actually, this is a nation that exists because of our blood and sweat and tears, and we intend to stay.
- [23:00]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Seneca Village is a free black settlement founded in the 1820s, one of the few black enclaves where black New Yorkers are able to own property. It's a thriving community full of homes, schools and gardens. It becomes a symbol of power and resilience in a city that has never really been safe for black people. It's also a symbol of black political political power because in order to vote, black people are required to own a certain amount of property. So the few black people that could vote in New York lived in Seneca Village, and it's one of the few places in the city that could happen. But this bastion for black safety is at risk because Wood starts to eye their land. Wood makes a plan for a big park uptown that'll increase the value of property he already owns. This new park, Central park, will go straight through the middle of Manhattan and straight through Seneca Village. So starting in 1855, he seizes hundreds and hundreds of acres of land north of 42nd Street. The eminent domain. The more than 200 residents of Seneca Village are ordered to evacuate their homes.
- [24:14]
Leslie Alexander
There is a group of residents of Central park in 1857 who refuse to vacate their homes and insist that they have a right to remain in their community.
- [24:27]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
But Wood has an army of white cops that answers solely to him. So you can probably guess what he does next.
- [24:36]
Leslie Alexander
He calls forth the police, and the police are. Are unleashed on the remaining Seneca villagers, and they are subjected to extreme brutality and violence and are removed from their homes.
- [24:52]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
A report from the New York Times describes the scene this way.
- [24:56]
Leslie Alexander
The supremacy of the law was upheld by the policeman's bludgeon.
- [25:03]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Seneca Village is destroyed, so thoroughly destroyed that it nearly vanishes from public memory.
- [25:10]
Leslie Alexander
And if you were to enter Central park, right around 87th, 88th street, there's a little playground there.
- [25:18]
Miriam Kaba
A playground, A playground.
- [25:21]
Leslie Alexander
And right adjacent to the playground, if you walk there, you will be walking over the graves of Seneca Villager.
- [25:31]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
It was a win, win for Mayor Fernando Wood. The new Central park borders some of Wood's real estate holdings. And once the park is built, he makes a killing. Plus, hundreds of black folks lose their property and the voting rights that come with it. Like a lot of politicians, when Wood makes decisions about what the police should do or how they should do it, he's not thinking about what's going to make most New Yorkers safer or what's good for the city. He's thinking about winning the next election. And at this point, Wood has proven that the NYPD can be an extremely effective way to line his pockets and to build political power. It almost feels like nobody can stop him. But there is one group who definitely wants to try. They don't care about Seneca Village or how the police are treating working class New Yorkers. For them, it's about party politics. Fernando Wood got to be mayor because he had help from Tammany Hall, New York City's Democratic machine. And that meant Republicans didn't have much power over the most populated city in the state. So up at the statehouse in Albany, they start asking, what's the best way for us to weaken Tammany Hall? And then a light bulb goes off.
- [26:57]
Jeff Broxmeyer
They say, well, let's do something about Fernando woods control over the police, because they rightly identified it as the central pillar of his political machine.
- [27:07]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
So they pass an act that essentially says New York City is too corrupt to police itself. So we're abolishing the New York City Police Department. And then those same Republican politicians create another equally corrupt and racist police force called the Metropolitan Police.
- [27:26]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Mayor Wood is openly defiant of that. He is very, very clear that he's gonna resist this with all of the means that he has.
- [27:38]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Wood challenges the order to shut down his police, and he sends the word out to all of his cops that he's not backing down. He says, my police are still the real police.
- [27:50]
Jeff Broxmeyer
And he directs all city officials not to obey Metropolitan Police commissioners and their orders. And then that's the way in which you get this Very strange situation where there are two police forces.
- [28:03]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
So in June of 1857, there are two warring New York City police departments. The state's new Metropolitan police and Fernando Wood's old, supposedly abolished municipal police. These two police forces hate each other, not just because one works for Mayor Wood and the other is run by folks up in Albany. Wood's municipal police are also largely Irish Catholic immigrants, a demographic shift from just a few years prior. And the Metropolitan police are mostly white Protestants who don't think Irish Catholics or other immigrants are real Americans. Imagine being arrested by the state metropolitans one night and then the next night woods municipals show up and set you free. Or even wilder, imagine police from these competing forces fighting over who gets to arrest you. And then they just arrest each other. It was chaos. Republicans up in Albany realized that Wood is not giving up. They're gonna have to find someone brave enough or stupid enough to take him and his men down. When I was a kid, my family told me this crazy ass story that back in 1964, my father, Mikasa Kumanyika, marched up the steps of City hall with two other activists and announced that they were placing the mayor under arrest for his shady and racist use of city funds. This was just four months after he had handcuffed himself inside the police station. NYPD officers intervened and quickly grabbed all three of them, threw him in front of a judge, and even carted my dad off to the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital. For a long time, I felt like having a family member that tried to arrest a mayor was a one person club. Until I met this guy. This.
- [30:04]
Jeff Broxmeyer
You wanna see this?
- [30:06]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Oh, man. Okay, let me get my glasses. Hold on, let me get my glasses. This is Greg Simmons. Oh, that's the. Oh, that's the original. This is a second edition. Oh my God. Greg Simmons is a costume supervisor for a long running police procedural show. And he's showing me a 19th century copy of the memoir written by his great great grandfather, a guy named George Washington Walling. And what's wild is that George Walling winds up right smack in the middle of Mayor Wood's battle with the state.
- [30:35]
Jeff Broxmeyer
I was quail hunting in New Jersey.
- [30:37]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
When a friend accosted me and asked. In his memoir, Walling says that he didn't become a cop because he wanted to catch criminals or keep anybody safe. He says a friend just randomly asked him and in his words, I decided to carry a club until something better turned up. And just like that, Walling becomes one of the first officers in George Matzel's NYPD kind of on a whim. And get this, his boss is none other than Captain Tobias Boudinot. And for someone who really didn't even want to be a cop, somehow George Walling always winds up where the action is. He was on duty in the theater during the Astor Place riot. He was the cop who led the first strong arm squads that went out with clubs and beat up random folks. So when the state decides to abolish his police force, Wood basically tells his men, I need to know how many of y'all are with me. If you're not, this is your chance to leave before shit gets real. Walling has a choice to make.
- [31:46]
Jeff Broxmeyer
All of these police officers in the force have to decide who they're gonna go with, right? Are they gonna throw their hat in with Wood? Are they gonna throw their head in with the metropolitans?
- [31:56]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
And Walling decides to break from wood.
- [31:58]
Jeff Broxmeyer
And about 800 police and 15 captains, which is the majority of the force, right? They go with wood. And only 300 policemen and seven captains go with the Metropolitans.
- [32:11]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
With 800 police in the state firmly against him, Wood starts becoming even more crazed and paranoid. Is this a dagger which I see before me, this handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. He goes full on Macbeth. He wants to prove that he can be strong enough and cold enough to vanquish any threat to his power. Wood starts egging on his political supporters and they start hunting down any police that aren't loyal to him. One even stabs a metropolitan officer in the stomach with an ice pick. Until finally everything comes to a head. Now that the state has abolished his force, Wood won't let any Albany backed officials work for him. When a state appointed hire shows up at city Hall, Wood has his police throw him out on the street. And since Wood knows there's going to be backlash, he barricades himself in his office and puts 300 of his police around the perimeter to protect him. The guy who was tossed out on his ass is infuriating. He gets up, dusts himself off and stomps off to get some backup and a warrant for Wood's arrest. It's noon and George Washington Walling gets called into metropolitan police headquarters. He expected a little something, but not the storm that he walked into. Walling was given the job to arrest the mayor. And according to his great great grandson, they asked him, how many men do you need? And according to his memoir, he says, I'll do it. I can do it by myself. Sure. I mean, that's some brass balls. And it's like man, thick headedness runs in the family. Apparently without any backup, Walling marches through Lower Manhattan to City Hall. He manages to make it past the hundreds of municipal police officers without saying what he's about to do. And he bursts into Wood's office and tells him, hey Mayor, you're under arrest. At first Wood just brushes him off. He tells him, bro, if you ain't working for me, you ain't even a real police officer. But then he orders his police to toss Walling out of City Hall. He's basically thrown out on his ear.
- [34:36]
Jeff Broxmeyer
By former co workers and literally like.
- [34:40]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Four guys chucked him out on the street. So Walling leaves to get some backup. Word gets out about the mayor's arrest warrant, and Wood loyalists are starting to gather around City Hall. A writer at the time refers to the crowd as a miscellaneous assortment of suckers, soap blocks, Irishmen and plug uglies operating in a guerrilla capacity. By 3:30 in the afternoon, a group of 50 metropolitans arrive at City hall to deliver the warrant that George Walling hadn't been able to deliver alone. They come marching up toward the rear gate and Wood's police are there to meet him. At that point, municipal police chief George Matzel says, wait a minute, let's calm down. We are officers of public safety. We have to show people that we can resolve conflict in a way that respects the law, human rights and dignity. Nah, actually I'm just joking. They beat the shit out of each other. As soon as the two groups of police see each other, someone in the pro Wood crowd shouts pitch into the sons of bitches. And right there on the steps of City hall, the New York police goes to war with itself.
- [35:55]
Jeff Broxmeyer
There is a knockdown, drag out street brawl of the kind which is common in the working class neighborhoods. But it happens on the steps of City hall and you have fists flying and clubs flying.
- [36:09]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
The battle lasts for almost half an hour. 1212 people are seriously wounded and one is permanently disabled. The headline in the New York Times the next day reads Civil War. The Times describes the riot this the scene was a terrible one. Blows upon naked heads fell thick and fast and men rolled helpless down the steps to be leaped upon and beaten until life seemed extinct. And just like the Astor Place riots, the fighting only ends when a regiment of the state militia gets called in and disperses the crowd. But later that day, Wood finally allows himself to be arrested. His bail is set at $50,000, almost $2 million. Today Wood spends the night in City hall with the police official keeping an eye on him. And from his office, Wood issues a statement. He basically says, look, everybody's blaming me, but I'm the one protecting our city, and I'm still not stepping down.
- [37:11]
Jeff Broxmeyer
Wood's strategy is pretty much the same throughout the entire police riot. These are nefarious political forces that have usurped the traditional local governance of New York and that he's expecting the public to rally behind him.
- [37:28]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
The next day, Wood pays his bail and he's released. Fernando Wood had lost control and even the support of his personal army, and he lost his next election. When I think of Fernando Wood and how he wrapped the police around him to consolidate his power at any cost, I can't help but think of more recent politicians who pander to police and stoke people's fears about crime for votes.
- [37:56]
Eric Adams
When you have incidents, that makes you feel as though there's no law and order, Let me tell you, you have a law and order mayor and you have a law and order commissioner, and this is going to continue to be the safest big city in America.
- [38:10]
Chenjerai Kumanyika
Eric Adams says it's about safety. But when I think about what would make the city safer for my daughter, it's about access to health care and education, getting to the roots of why people turn to violence to solve problems, and making New York a place where my daughter can run, play and express herself without worrying about the police. Because here's the thing. Adam's vision of law and order might be good for his election campaign, but I think it also makes the city more dangerous for everyone, including the police, who get dispatched as the solution to everything and who, unlike him, are on the front lines. And those front lines are increasingly everywhere, from the subway to sidewalk food stands to protests on university lawns. And that definition of safety is how I ended up handcuffed at One Police Plaza, surrounded by the full force of the nypd. That's next time on Empire City. Follow Empire City on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad free right now by joining Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey if you have a tip about a story you think we should investigate, please write to us@wondry.com tips Empire City is a production of Wondery and Crooked Media. I'm your host and executive producer Chenjerai Kumanika for Crooked Media. Our senior producer is Peter Bresnan. Our managing producer is Leo Duran. Our senior story editor is Diane Hodson. Our producer is Sam Riddell. Bowen Wong and Sydney Rapp are our associate producers. Sound design mixing an original score by Axel Cocoutier. Our historical consultant and fact checker is History Studios for Wondry. Our senior producer is Mandy Gorenstein. Our senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Our coordinating producer is Mariah Gossett. The executive producer of Push Black is Lily Werkner. Executive producers at Crooked Media are Sarah Geismer, Katie Long, Tommy Vitor and Diane Hodson. Executive producers at Wondry are n'j'jeri Eaton, George Lavender, Marshall Louie and Jen Sargent.