A Stripe of Tammany's Tiger

"This is the book that political science professors and editorial writers should read before they write their learned sermons about the evils of Tammany Hall. The authors write with love and sadness about 'contracts,' pols on the take, pouring water from rooftops onto Socialist candidates, and spitting in the face of Jimmy Walker because Irish cops were pushing around Jewish storekeepers. This is the way New York looked from a red brick clubhouse on East Broadway."—Richard Reeves, New York Times

"Eisenstein is of the old school of Democratic politics, a fieldworker, having put in more than fifty years plowing up the East Side voters in the John Ahearn district for Tammany candidates. Eisenstein writes of things known only to those who worked at the grass roots."—Michael O'Brien, New York Daily News

"This book is a highly personal glimpse into the world of precinct, district, and county politics. It deals with several stripes of the Tammany Tiger and brings into close focus some of the most forceful background figures in New York City's political framework. Primarily, it is a forty-year panorama of Tammany practices and personalities."—from A Stripe of Tammany's Tiger

In this fascinating book, first published in 1966, Louis Eisenstein, a Tammany precinct captain from Manhattan's Lower East Side, sets out with his coauthor Elliot Rosenberg to chronicle the evolution—or rather devolution—of New York City politics through the first seven decades of the twentieth century. Eisenstein imbues his lively narrative with an overarching theme: that personal interactions and good faith between those at all levels of power are of paramount importance both for sustained political success and for competent municipal administration.