The Man Who Saved New York ─ Hugh Carey and the Great Fiscal Crisis of 1975

To help policy makers and politicians recognize the dangers of unrestrained public spending, Lachman, a former New York state senator who teaches at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College, and Polner, a journalist and public affairs officer for New York U., present a biography of New York governor Hugh Carey with an emphasis on his leadership during New York City's fiscal crisis of 1975. They detail his youth, military service in World War II, and gubernatorial and congressional political career, and how his leadership saved the city and state from financial and civic collapse and kept it out of bankruptcy court. They draw on interviews with Carey and his family, friends, and former aides. An imprint for State University of New York Press. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Seymour P. Lachman served as President of the New York City Board of Education and University Dean of the City University of New York before being elected to the New York State Senate, where he served five terms. He was consulting editor of The United States in the Middle East and was coauthor (with Barry A. Kosmin) of One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society and (with Robert Polner) Three Men in a Room: The Inside Story of Power and Betrayal in an American Statehouse. He is currently Director of the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College, Staten Island, where he is also a Distinguished Professor in Residence.

Robert Polner, a former award-winning reporter for Newsday, works as a public affairs officer for New York University and its Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He was the editor of America’s Mayor, America’s President? The Strange Career of Rudy Giuliani, and coauthor (with Seymour P. Lachman) of Three Men in a Room: The Inside Story of Power and Betrayal in an American Statehouse. He also cowrote (with Paul Schwartzman) New York Notorious: A Borough-by-Borough Tour of the City’s Most Infamous Crime Scenes. His work has been published in Salon, The Guardian, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Progressive, and he has taught journalism at New York University and Columbia University.