Mayor Corning

Erastus Corning 2nd was elected mayor of Albany eleven times, serving forty-two consecutive years, a tenure unsurpassed in American political history. Now available in paperback, Paul Grondahl's thoroughly researched and comprehensive biography of Albany's "mayor for life" offers a full, sweeping portrait of Corning, the charming, cunning, patrician front man for the dictatorial Albany Democratic machine. Filled with insight and anecdotes, this biography reveals the enigmatic mayor in ways even his closest associates never imagined.
Grondahl's clasic biography of Albany's "mayor for life," now available in paperback.
"...features more than enough compelling characters, fascinating anecdotes, and corrupt machine politics to keep the narrative humming." -- Chronogram

"This is an important book for Albany, for anyone interested in political power." -- from the Introduction by William Kennedy

"...a highly readable, meticulously researched and illuminating history of some fascinating and shadowy byways in the politics of the Empire State." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Grondahl evokes his subject with novelistic assurance." -- The New Yorker

"New York named the tallest building in the state north of the Big Apple Corning Tower because it was an apt description of the stature of Mayor Corning. Paul Grondahl's book makes this clear: it is detailed, accurate and eminently readable." -- Mario M. Cuomo

"Mayor Corning is a biographical feast. Here journalism at its finest merges with the art of the novelist. The book indeed resembles a series of fascinating, interlocking novellas." -- R. W. B. Lewis, author of Edith Wharton: A Biography