Word: hoboken
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...Hoboken didn't like McFeely. He was tough, glum, nickel-pinching, semi-illiterate and vindictive. When he left the seat of a dump cart for politics, he cultivated Democratic Boss Paddy Griffin so obsequiously that he was nicknamed "Me Too Barney." But when Paddy got sick in 1925, McFeely had what he needed to grab Paddy's power: he controlled the police and fire departments and thus almost all Democratic campaign funds...
...radish would have a hard time coming up in Hoboken, N.J.-and would be disappointed if it did. Hoboken is not a garden spot. Its wharves, its factories, its warehouses, its 254 bars, its bookie parlors, its bleak blocks of ancient brownstone houses, its 50,115 people, their washing and their unspeakably articulate cats are all jammed into one clangorous, soot-shrouded square mile. But Hoboken was made to order for Bernard Nicholas McFeely. He grew and prospered there...
...himself elected mayor, ran Hoboken strictly for McFeely. He loaded the public payrolls with 65 of his relatives, made his brother Edward chief of police, exacted 3% salary kickbacks and complete humility from city employees. McFeely's trucks collected Hoboken's garbage (but so carelessly that goats followed them in the streets). His city became a hangout for prohibition-era gangsters. In time, he had a fortune...
...built no hospitals, made no philanthropic gestures. He hated Italians and did his best to make life miserable for them, even though they comprised 65% of Hoboken voters. Under his rule Hoboken taxes went skyhigh. Population fell off by a fifth; building almost ceased...
...morale of Hoboken police, firemen and teachers sank lower & lower...