Fiorello LaGuardia
Fiorello LaGuardia (1882-1947), who narrates the “Now That You’re Dead” introductory seminar to the NYC underworld in The Night Tourist, was one of the city’s most colorful and beloved mayors. Just over five feet tall, LaGuardia—the son of an Italian-American father and a Jewish mother—personally embodied the city’s diversity and was a major force in helping lift the city out of the Great Depression. My mother, who grew up in New York in the 1930s and 40s, remembers listening to him read the funny pages over the radio to the city's children.