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HULAN JACK 1st Black Manhattan Borough President

WHEN THE history of New York is written in the future, the chronicle will say that in the middle of the twentieth Century, a Black man, one Hulan Jack by name was selected as a compromise candidate and voted into the office of Borough President of Manhattan by the tammany hall democrats.

The historian will also have to say that before "the boy" was driven from Office under pressure from a reform movement spearheaded by Eleanor Roosevelt, Frank Fineletter and 10 reform disgruntled Jewish district leaders. The record will say Hulan, was responsible for rehabilitation of Manhattan which brought his island into the 21st Century.

The record will say that under Jack the city tore down all their old fashioned L's, a form of transportation at that time; did away with their old fashioned street cars; remade First, Second, Third, Lexington, Madison, Park Avenue, by replacing tenements with modern high rise buildings; Remade Sixth Avenue; built more hotels than anyone else to accommodate a Worlds Fair and to execute the slogan, "Manhattan the window of the world"; responsible for the building of Grand Central Parkway; the building of a State Office Building and, the construction of the Schomberg library in Harlem; the building of more low income projects and schools than any other Borough President; the building of a place called Lincoln Center, which Hulan did by signing over some city streets to pay off a political debt of a friend, a president of the United States; the only building William Lloyd Wright designed for New York, the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue was constructed while Jack was in office.

Hulan gained the office when the Republicans decided to name Elmer Carter as their candidate. The democrats had to come up with a Negro and selected Hulan, a loyal and vocal Tammanyite over Chauncey Hooper, a World War I hero, from Wappinger Falls.

The record will say that Hulan Jack never forgot his party and went down protecting it from onslaughts of an intercrime war waged in the name of reform of the party by Mrs. Roosevelt, Frank Fineletter, Mayor Wagner and 10 distinguished Jewish district leaders who were hell-bent on ending the reign of Tammany then led by an Italian named Carmine De Sapio.

Mr. Jack, as Borough President was recognized by custom as the top Black democrat in New York. He controlled five votes in the Executive Committee of Manhattan N.Y. County (Democrats) and Hulan always delivered his votes at the right time in favor of Tammany Hall. The battle to replace De Sapio failed so reformers turned their guns on trying to remove Mr. Jack in order to defeat Tammany. And they did,

The contract was accomplished by charging that Hulan had allowed a real estate operator to refurnish the apartment where he lived on 110th Street. Hulan was indicted and brought to trial and when all was said and done after a sensational trial in which the entire Board of Estimate testified on Hulan's behalf, Hulan received a hung jury. However determined ambitious Jewish leaders scrambling for their foothold in N.Y. politics and a District Attorney, seeking to become the main D.A. in New York brought Jack to trial again and at this second trial Jack was convicted.

The stakes were high when Hulan was ushered from office. The battle waged under the guise of reform, saw the putting in place of a new City Charter, which stripped the Borough President's office of workers and power; saw the event of a Jewish surge for control of Manhattan politics and the ultimate election of a Jewish Mayor in N.Y. saw the rules change to keep a Black, or Hispanic, although they had the numbers from becoming the mayor of the city which was to last for twenty five years and saw the ultimate decline of the Black vote and power as well as loss of black representation on the Board of Estimate.

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[[caption]] Campaigning with the beloved Joe Louis and Senator Hubert H. Humphrey in Harlem during the 1958 campaign. [[/caption]]

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