A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from September 29, 2004
Sayre’s Law: Mayors of NY come from nowhere and go nowhere
Rudy Giuliani is going to hate me for this one, but I didn't make it up.

Autumn 1977, PS, vol. 10, no. 4, pg. 511:
Perhaps this is the time to record publicly two more of Wallace Sayre's laws. Observing that the mayoralty of New York is often referred to as the second biggest executive office in the country, that U.S. Representative is the highest previous political office held by any incumbent, and that no New York mayor ever went on to other high domestic public office after leaving the mayoralty, Sayre declared, "The mayors of New York come from nowhere and go nowhere." He also remarked that, "Generally speaking, the benefits of administrative reorganization are immediate, but the costs are cumulative." These are a couple of pronouncements to give us pause these days!

Herbert Kaufman
Senior Fellow
Brookings Institution

Winter 1961, Public Administration Review, pg. 26:
Perhaps to Sayre's law concerning the Mayors of New York becoming Mayors of New York, we can add the Sayre and Kaufman law of political visibility: the more visible, the more vulnerable, the more responsible.

(The above is in a review of Governing New York City: Politics in the Metropolis, by Wallace S. Sayre and Herbert Kaufman, Russell Sage Foundation, 1960 -- ed.)

19 May 1972, New York Times, pg. 40:
Prof. Wallace Sayre, 66, Dies;
Authority on City Government

14 February 1991, New York Times, pg. B1:
Mr. Wagner was thwarted in violating Professor Sayre's law that New York's mayors "come from nowhere and they go nowhere."

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Government/Law/Military/Religion /Health • Wednesday, September 29, 2004 • Permalink


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