Lindsay’s Headaches

I talk with or e-mail people in New York most days, since a number of my editors are based there, and one of them was working from home today because of the transit strike. I sent him a message: “Transit strike, eh? I heard about it briefly on the news. Just like in the old days. Does it remind you of Mayor Lindsay's New York?”

He replied that he was about 11 when Lindsay left office, and by implication the numerous strikes of that era didn’t concern him much. Me neither, really, since I was only 12, and didn’t live anywhere near New York. But such is the lingering influence of television that I associate that mayor's tenure with strikes, because I’m fairly sure that it came up on All in the Family and other TV shows more than once.

I looked it up, and it isn’t an erroneous impression, despite its vague source. At nyc.gov, I found this in a bio of Mayor Lindsay: “On his first day in office [in 1966], Lindsay was greeted with a crippling transit strike that brought the entire city to a near standstill — it proved to be just the first of many bitter strikes he would contend with during his tenure as mayor. The transit strike denied Lindsay of sleep for 26 of his first 28 hours as mayor and forced the cancellation of a five-borough inaugural tour.”