Irwin Steingut (October 19, 1893 – September 26, 1952) was an American lawyer, businessman and politician. At the time of his death he had served as a member of the New York Assembly longer than anyone in history. Early in his career he teamed with Brooklyn boss John H. McCooey, who turned Brooklyn into a solidly Democratic power base and dominated its politics for a quarter of a century until his death in 1934. Steingut thereafter became the de facto leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Throughout almost all of his legislative career Republicans held a majority in the New York Assembly, and much of that time Steingut was the Minority Leader. In 1935 for the one year the Democrats had the majority, Steingut was Speaker of the Assembly.
Steingut stoutly defended the Democratic party machine in Brooklyn and when consistent with the Brooklyn machine's interests also Tammany. He faced spirited primary opposition several times by independent Democrats but never lost a race. He was a key legislative ally of both Governors Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert H. Lehman and considered his roles in the passage of unemployment relief under the former and the creation of Brooklyn College his greatest legislative achievements.
His son, Stanley Steingut, filled his Assembly seat at his death and became Speaker forty years after Irwin Steingut held the gavel. Brooklyn sent either Irwin or Stanley Steingut to the New York Assembly for 56 consecutive years.
Early life and education Irwin Steingut was born on October 19, 1893 (not 1891, as in SchlegelSchlegel, Carl Wilhelm, Schlegel's German-American Families in America (New York: American Historical Society: 1916-1918), Volume 3 ("Schlegel"), p. 110.), on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the first of two sons to Simon and Lena Steingut. His mother, formerly Lena Wolbach, was born in Kiev, then in the Russian Empire. Simon Steingut was born on December 24, 1856, in Hamburg, one of three sons of Joseph Steingut, a banker who founded the banking house of Steingut & Son. He emigrated to the United States, sometime before 1881, where he took up residence in the portion of New York's Lower East Side known as Klein Deutschland (little Germany). Simon Steingut obtained a position as a Tammany Hall captain and as a result an auctioneer. Eventually he developed a real estate and insurance business as a broker and investor, building a successful firm, S. Steingut Company, first on Second Avenue, later at 47 West 42 Street, Manhattan. He was more famous, however, for his activities as a minor political operative and neighborhood fixer, begun when he opened an office at 31 Second Avenue in 1888,Krase, Jerome & Charles LaCerra, Ethnicity and Machine Politics (Lanham, Md: University Press of America: c1991) ("Krase & LaCerra"), p. 78. activities in which he engaged as an informally elected community "little mayor" for over a quarter of a century, for which he was referred to as the "Mayor of Second Avenue."
Irwin Steingut's obituary says that he "moved to Brooklyn as a young man and was educated in the public schools there." The move was in fact away from his father and involved the turbulent relations between his parents, which resulted in their eventual divorce amid much ridicule in the press. Simon Steingut had been married earlier to a woman named Mary. The divorce decree in 1881 prohibited Simon (although not Mary) from remarrying until she died. After Lena Woldach gave birth to Irwin, Simon obtained a modification of the decree from Judge Miles Beach. He then married Lena on April 10, 1894.
Within two years Lena Steingut had engaged a lawyer to seek support from Simon pending divorce. Steingut agreed but objected to the allegations of cruelty, telling all that his wife (at six feet, almost 14 inches taller than him) regularly beat him. A reconciliation occurred and the couple had another son, Edward (born April 20, 1900; he went to Commercial High School in Brooklyn). But at a high society ball in 1901, Simon had a jealous outburst. Lena retaliated by hiring detectives who eventually discovered Simon's relations with a singer ("Blond Cora" Brown) who Lena sued for $100,000 and then instituted divorce proceedings on May 22, 1902. Testimony was taken in the beginning of 1903, before Justice Hall. The Sun claimed that the action was a "shock" to the East Side, which looked on their marriage as a "model." The divorce decree became absolute on April 16. Like the earlier one, it also prohibited Steingut from remarrying, but he claimed he could remarry in New Jersey. Four months later, just as he was about to fulfill his promise by marrying an "actress" with "a position at the Metropolitan Opera," he learned that a divorced wife still had a dower interest in any real estate he purchased. He vowed to have this law changed. Divorce reform was a legislative goal for his son Irwin as well.
After Simon's death, the fact that Irwin's parents divorced was almost never mentioned, not even in the obituary of his mother, who was called the widow of Simon Steingut. But it came up again in 1945 when Irwin Steingut faced his most serious investigation into possible corruption.
In Brooklyn Irwin Steingut attended and graduated from Public School 19, then at the corner of South Second Street and Keap Avenue in Brooklyn.Real Estate Record and Bullders' Guide, Volume 71 (New York: F.W. Dodge Corp: 1903), p. 857. After public school he attended the Dwight School, on West Forty-Third Street in Manhattan.Malcolm, James (ed.), New York Red Book (Albany: J.B. Lyon: 1922), pp. 132-33 More than a decade later, while he was in the Assembly, he studied law at St. John's College, School of Law graduating in 1929. Irwin Steingut never practiced law, however.
Irwin was reluctant to follow his father's political career and after graduating law school became a reporter for Associated Press. After a year working in journalism, Irwin entered his father's real estate and insurance business on Forty-Second Street, which became S. Steingut & Son. Within a year he married Rea Kaufmann, daughter of Israel and Sophia Kaufman.Schlegel, p. 111.
Political apprenticeship
Tammany Hall Simon Steingut's role as "Mayor of Second Avenue" was as one of 35 to 40 ethnic community leaders on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, who provided liaisons between government (and other institutions and persons of influence) and insular ethnic groups, usually made up of new immigrants or first generation Americans too ignorant or timid to deal with authority. Local "mayors" helped distribute patronage and favors, provide a means of access for new immigrants to government and party machines, and enforce party or political club discipline. The East Side mayors organized themselves into a group called "The East Side Mayors Association," which included both Democrat and Republican "mayors," each providing uncompensated services to his constituents. The "mayor" could then expect personal loyalty at the ballot box. Since the total voting pool from these three dozen fiefdoms amounted to seventy-six thousand, the mayors could expect handsome patronage or other favors from the victors for whom they delivered votes. It was yet another means by which Tammany Hall was part of the political fabric of the city.
"Mayors" had no influence on party policy, and in many cases organized relief or benefits outside of government or party structure. They often used their own funds to help those in need. Constituents sought a wide range of services from mayors, one of the most common was to adjudicate local disputes. "Mayors" often provided legal advice or unauthorized representation. Simon Steingut was twice prosecuted for unauthorized practice of law. In one case, he argued that he was merely exercising the normal duties of a notary public. The case was dismissed on the condition he take down the law office sign which Steingut claimed was put in his office by an old tenant.Krase & LaCerra, pp. 79-80, citing New York Times, January 23, 1901, p. 3. In 1915 Simon was convicted of unauthorized practice of law at the beginning of a major sweep, in which "hundreds" of unlicensed lawyers were under surveillance. Steingut was sentenced to 30 days in jail, but his supporters raised the $250 fine in lieu of imprisonment. See also
The services these little mayors undertook ranged from explaining government, legal or business usages to constituents to intervening with institutions like banks to providing holiday food or winter coal for the poor. Simon Steingut made it a practice to distribute Christmas baskets to the poor of Second Avenue, and even on his death bed he instructed his son Irwin to distribute the usual number of baskets.
Simon Steingut was a loyal Tammany soldier, and only one time acted contrary to Tammany interests. That time was just before the divorce from Lena, and Steingut exacted revenge from the highly connected Harburger clan (which included Tammany politicians and officials) by arranging for the sale of the building which contained the Tammany clubhouse for the Harburger 10th district. Evicting the Tammany Club was Steingut's retaliation for Leopold Harburger acting as Lena's counsel. But Tammany was above such petty squabbles, and Steingut was back in its good graces and rewarded with the commission for acquiring property for a new theatre to be built on Second Avenue between Fourteenth and Twenty-Third Streets. The $350,000 real estate transaction was for a syndicate led by Timothy ("Big Tim") Sullivan and included other Tammany politicians.
Working for his father in a business so intimately connected with the favors of Tammany Hall, Irwin Steingut had to become involved in Tammany political work. But Simon also introduced his son to electoral politics of sorts. Simon himself never ran for government office. (He once announced his candidacy for Alderman of the 10th ward in 1911, but decided against it.) But each year he went before his constituents and stood for election at Ike Hirschborn's saloon at First Street and Second Avenue, and for 30 consecutive years he was elected "Mayor." Only in 1911 did he come dangerously close to losing. It was then that the new courthouse was built at the beginning of Second Avenue, and no one apprised Steingut of the decision. Since the court was attached to Joe Levy, the "Duke of Essex Street," the implication was that the powers were throwing their weight behind Levy, Steingut's archrival. That year Levy came within five votes, the closest he ever got until 1918 when he defeated Steingut outright in the year before Steingut's death. But back in 1911 Steingut showed his strength again later in the year. In May it was announced that Steingut was to sail to Europe to attend (at whose invitation Steingut refused to reveal) the coronation of King George V (as well as obtain the $5,000 inheritance his father left him). A lavish parade was planned to escort him to the Hoboken piers on June 8, with police escort, attended by other Little Mayors, but more importantly by Big Tim Sullivan and step-brother Larry Mulligan as well as a variety of Tammany judges and politicians. When Simon arrived at Hirschorn's, dressed in silk hat and morning clothes on June 4, Levy was ready to argue that Steingut was forfeiting his "office" by so long an absence. The crowd suggested that Irwin Steingut be elected temporary mayor, and in the ensuing voting he bested Levy by a 44-vote majority. The rebuff to Levy vindicated Simon's years of service, and provided a launching pad for Irwin's later electoral career.