Word: tweeds
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AFTER THE CIVIL WAR Americans found themselves bewildered at their society's corruption. Large chunks of The Great Bridge are devoted to some of the things that disgusted the American people. Boss Tweed had rises from poverty to run the City of New York, and he and his cohorts were the only New York shareholders in the bridge (Brooklyn was a separate city--the third largest in the country--until 1897). At the wedding of Tweed's daughter, his millionaire friends gave her $100,000 in gifts. New York's "permanent floating population of homeless children, beggars, petty thieves...
McCullough gives detailed and sometimes tedious accounts of the infighting at the Bridge Company, which came under investigation when Tweed was exposed. The Company was not exactly a model of probity. Most of its funds came from the cities treasuries, but under its charter it was entirely controlled by private shareholders--which was not terribly surprising. The original impetus for a bridge came from a profit-minded contractor named William C. Kingsley, a good friend of Boss McLaughijn of Brooklyn...
...seem pretty tame by Watergate standards, and some of the book's most interesting material has nothing to do with the bridge. Few readers will object to hearing about New York's first subway system, a block-long pneumatic tube built in dead secrecy to avoid having to bribe Tweed (who stopped it cold when he found out). It was to be a far cry from today's IRT, according to McCullough...
...could smell not only sweeter but more salable as well, began by changing Raymond's name, then set to work on his image. The hair, which looked as if it had been cut around a bowl, was allowed to grow. The waistcoat and boots were traded for pleated tweed trousers with cuffs, open-neck shirt and a collegiate sweater with the letter G on the front. "A college sweater can be sexy," says Mills. "It hugs the shoulders...
...floor. When I stooped to pick them up, this lady started hitting me on the head with her shopping bag, shouting 'What are you doing? What are you doing?' I don't know why she did it. She was an upper-class type, in a tweed suit, and I think she was offended that my type was in Harrods. But if she was so damn stylish, what was she doing carrying a shopping...