I want to come home. I want my home to be in a decent city, a place my wife, my children and myself can be proud of.
The words were spoken by Hugh Joseph Addonizio in 1961 when he returned from 14 years as a Democratic Congressman and was sworn in as mayor of Newark, N.J. His ambitions for Newark were as commendable as they were formidable. Lying across the Hudson River in sight of Manhattan's towers, Newark is a grimy, sprawling industrial ghetto, heir in full measure to nearly every urban malady of modern America. Its rich are few, its poor numerous, its population of 405,000 nearly equally and often acrimoniously divided between black and white. The miasma of the oil refineries in the nearby Jersey meadows hangs over the city, and so, too, does the pervasive smog of crime and corruption.
Addonizio is an affable, portly first-generation Italian American, now 55, and on one count he seemed a good man to tackle Newark's problems. He brought to his mayoralty the reputation of a promising politician whose liberalism on the race issue could serve as a bridge between the city's blacks and whites. By another yardstick, he was not the man for the job. He had been launched in politics in 1946 by Newark Democratic Boss Dennis Carey, who was in search of a congressional candidate. "I figured," Carey once said, "that I needed a guinea with a name that long." Addonizio, a much-decorated war hero, met Carey's callous specifications. Carey delivered the nomination, and Addonizio edged out the incumbent Congressman by fewer than 1,800 votes. En route to an eighth congressional term, Addonizio amazed friends and opponents when he gave up his safe seat in the House to make the race for mayor of Newark. He won, mocking an opponent's charge that the "invisible hand" of the Mafia was behind his candidacy.
Claim of Immunity. Addonizio's hopes for Newark were shattered in the city's bloody racial upheaval in 1967, which lasted six days and left 26 dead and more than $10 million in property damage. A special Governor's commission set up to look into the causes of the riot laid much of the blame for the upheaval to the "pervasive feeling of corruption" in the city. Last week Addonizio's own career and reputation stood in sharp jeopardy. The mayor was summoned before a grand jury to answer questions about his ties to the Mob. Federal investigators wanted to know whether Addonizio knew Mafia Capo Ruggiero ("Richie the Boot") Boiardo or his son Anthony ("Tony Boy"). They also wondered whether he had discussed with members of the city council a contract awarded to the Valentine Electric Co., for which the younger Boiardo is a salesman. Claiming the protection of the Fifth, Sixth and 14th Amendments, Addonizio refused to answer every question put to him—including whether he was mayor and when he was elected.