Tammany Hall, Brooklyn Style
Vito Lopez ran the borough’s “last great political machine,” before allegations of nepotism and sexual harassment ended his reign.
GEOFFREY COBB
Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past
gcobb91839@Aol.com
Political machines, like the infa- mous Tammany Hall, have wielded po- litical power in New York throughout a huge portion of the city’s history. Perhaps the last great political machine in Brooklyn was run by New York State Assemblyman Vito Lopez who represented Bushwick from 1985 until 2013.
Like great machine politicians of the past, Lopez understood that po- litical patronage could translate into power. An Italian American with a His- panic sounding name, Lopez began his career with the New York City Department of Social Services, at Bushwick’s Stanhope Street Senior Center where he began organizing senior citizens. Lopez researched programs for senior citizens available from local, state and federal funding sources to supplement the few services offered at the Stanhope Street Senior Center. He conceived of creating the idea of a not-for-profit that accepted government contracts providing services for senior citizens and the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council was born.
Originally the center had a small staff, but the council grew into a private agency that distributed $25 million a year in federal and state money for housing, health care and educational services to struggling neighborhoods in eastern Brooklyn and western Queens.
Using his political power to funnel grants to the council, its importance grew rapidly. The Council aggressively pursued government grants and market- ed itself to the area’s residents as a source of government aid, even assistance that lay out- side the purview of the council. Slowly, the Council increased in size and importance, and hundreds of constituents owed their jobs to Lopez. His council became by far the largest employer in the district, directly employing by 1990 nearly 1,000 people and financed programs employing about 1,000 more. A report by the CUNY Graduate Center School of Journal- ism counted eighty separate legal subsidiaries of Ridgewood Bushwick.
Lopez became an Albany power broker. Despite never being on the payroll of the Ridgewood Bushwick council, he controlled it from his position as chairman of the Assembly Housing Committee, which allowed him to steer government services contracts to the center and to have his supports ap-pointed as administrators. A formidable politician, Lopez demanded unwavering loyalty from almost everyone he helped and those who owed their jobs to the council including subcontractors, tenant organizers, building superintendents, recep- tionists, social workers and home-care attendants.
Lopez expected people to pay hom- age to him — to take him out to dinner, do favors for him and never disobey him. He once told an author: “The most important factor in politics is loyalty.” Closing its doors every Election Day, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council sent hundreds of vol- unteers into the Brooklyn streets to get out the vote for Lopez, his Brooklyn Democratic slate and his allies. Even Lopez detractors have to ad- mit that he secured tens of millions of dollars to build affordable new housing in Bushwick. Lopez was instrumental in developing thousands of housing units in his district, including over 2,700 units and hundreds of smaller homes by 2013, along with managing other properties and securing signifi- cant state/city funding for affordable housing and senior facilities.
Lopez became notorious for nepotism. In 2005, he became head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party and gained the power to appoint judges. Lopez found judgeships for friends and relatives, among them the brother of his girlfriend and one of his own daughters. Angela M. Battaglia, his longtime girlfriend, became the housing director of Ridgewood Bushwick as well as a member of the City Planning Commission. She earned an extraordinary $210,000 a year thanks to Lopez.
One commentator noted that if there were a corruption hall of fame Lopez would be inducted into it. His long-time campaign manager Christiana Fisher. who earned an unbelievable $607,000 a year, was sentenced in 2010 to a prison term for document fraud. Fisher resigned in November 2012 amid a federal tax investigation. In 2012, Lopez was stripped of his committee chairmanship and cen- sured after he was accused of sexually harassing two women who worked in his district office. Lopez eventually settled sexual harassment allegations with over $500,000 of public money. Even after the State Assembly censured Lopez for sexual harassment in August 2012, he won re-election to a 15th two- year term that November.
He died of cancer in 2015 and the New York Times obituary revealed that an inquiry by the State Joint Commis- sion on Public Ethics, female legislative employees told investigators that Mr. Lopez had groped them, sought to stay in hotel rooms with them, demanded they massage him and urged them to dress provocatively. Though he helped build thousands of affordable housing units for his district, his legacy is tarnished by scandal and the sexual allegations against him.