Sid Davidoff could be fairly described as a political prodigy. By his mid-20s, he was a trusted aide to John Lindsay, who swept into City Hall in 1965.

“Everyone else was tired, and he was fresh. And he brought young people into his administration — a lot of young people. And Sid Davidoff was one of those people,” said Elizabeth Holtzman, who also worked for Lindsay and would later become a congresswoman and city comptroller.

What You Need To Know

  • Legendary New York political operator Sid Davidoff died Sunday at age 86

  • In his mid-20s, Davidoff became a trusted aide to Mayor John Lindsay

  • He later built a 50-year career as a political power broker, informally advising mayors and governors

Davidoff was on the front lines, whether it was a nine-day sanitation strike or the unrest at Columbia University, where Davidoff was sent to negotiate with protesters.

“It was an incredible time,” Davidoff said in an interview with NY1 in 2019.

After leaving City Hall, Davidoff would build a 50-year career as one of New York’s premier political power brokers, an informal adviser to mayors and governors. He was a tennis partner of Mayor David Dinkins and a strong supporter of Bill de Blasio, who officiated his wedding to Linda Stasi at City Hall in 2014.

“He’s the alpha and the omega,” longtime Manhattan state Assemblyman Keith Wright said. “Anybody involved in politics or government knows the name of Sid Davidoff.”

Wright, after leaving the Assembly in 2016, joined Davidoff’s law and lobbying firm, which Davidoff built into a powerhouse.

“He was a real grio,” Wright said. “He knew the history. He had institutional memory. And people came from far and wide to seek his advice.”

Davidoff, who was raised in Queens and attended City College and NYU Law School, was described in a 1967 New York Times profile as Lindsay’s “walking guide to the streets of New York.”

“The mayor’s schedule, once he left City Hall, was mine,” he once told an interviewer. “When he went to the communities, into the neighborhoods, whatever it was — that was under my jurisdiction.”

Perhaps his biggest point of pride: Davidoff was No. 12 on President Richard Nixon’s enemies list, which caused him to be investigated by the IRS and others.

In an opinion piece last year for MSNOW, he wrote, “I think it should absolutely be carved into my gravestone: ‘He was lucky enough to be on Nixon’s enemies list.’”

“They saw the way to get to Lindsay was to go through me,” he said in a 2015 interview on CUNY TV. “And they made my life somewhat hell.”

Respected on both sides of the aisle, Davidoff was honored on the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday by Republican Rep. Mike Lawler.

“He worked right up to the end,” Lawler said, “always thinking about what more he could do for the city and state he loved.”

But it was the tumultuous Lindsay era where admirers say he truly left his mark.

“Sid Davidoff, in essence, helped make it possible for Lindsay to govern the city,” Holtzman said. “And we all still owe him an amazing debt of gratitude for that.”