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City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York, by Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett (Harper & Row, 466 pp., $22.50)

Corruption in New York municipal politics is an old story. At the turn of the century, George Washingon Plunkitt offered his statement of a typical Manhattan politician’s philosophy of government: “I saw my opportunities and I took ’em.” A few decades earlier, William Marcy “Boss” Tweed, the grandest of Tammany Hall’s grand sachems, is thought to have “earned” between $75 million and $200 million (in 1871 dollars). When asked why it cost several hundred thousand dollars to supply the new City Hall with brooms, Tweed replied, “There’s a lot to clean.” Alas, that was very true.

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Herbert London

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City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York, by Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett (Harper & Row, 466 pp., $22.50)

Corruption in New York municipal politics is an old story. At the turn of the century, George Washingon Plunkitt offered his statement of a typical Manhattan politician’s philosophy of government: “I saw my opportunities and I took ’em.” A few decades earlier, William Marcy “Boss” Tweed, the grandest of Tammany Hall’s grand sachems, is thought to have “earned” between $75 million and $200 million (in 1871 dollars). When asked why it cost several hundred thousand dollars to supply the new City Hall with brooms, Tweed replied, “There’s a lot to clean.” Alas, that was very true.