{"id":370859,"date":"2025-11-11T05:34:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T05:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/370859\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T05:34:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T05:34:28","slug":"mayor-robert-wagners-wife-knew-being-nycs-first-lady-is-no-easy-task-politics-are-vicious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/370859\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor Robert Wagner’s wife knew being NYC’s first lady is no easy task: ‘Politics are vicious’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stand by your Mam<\/strong><\/p>\n

NYC\u2019s new mayor-elect<\/a> \u2014 a true mazel tov for 8 million taxpayers \u2014 has a wife. She so far hasn\u2019t said a word. Susan Wagner, whose husband Robert F. was first elected mayor in 1953, told me, \u201cNo fun place to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur official car wasn\u2019t safe. Springs were broken. Picking up dignitaries like General de Gaulle with wind blowing in on both sides? It always broke down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tall, blond, handsome, chic blue suit that she said, \u201cI bought on sale,\u201d told me: \u201cPolitician\u2019s wives need a sense of humor. Plus patience, thick skin and inability to hear remarks like, \u2018I\u2019ve seen that dress on her before.\u2019 I answer, \u2018And you\u2019ll see it again!\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RobertRobert F. Wagner and his wife Susan casting their votes at a polling place in Manhattan on Nov. 3, 1953. Photo by New York Post Archives \/(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images<\/p>\n

From a meeting in progress next door, stray commissioners wandered through while a secretary kept handing her messages. And a maid dusted nearby photos of Nehru, Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth. Meetings continued to her left, phones went off all around.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitics are vicious. I anticipated it would be not quite this horrible. I\u2019m OK because it\u2019s my husband\u2019s life. Our son was upset hearing his father attacked. He\u2019s seen his father misquoted. He missed school days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish we had some private time. Meetings are constant. Once, first in weeks, we had dinner home. But he dashed out afterward to make a speech. Everybody\u2019s trying to produce him at too many places. If I look fast I can see him across a dais. It gets lonely. I\u2019m marooned upstairs but we\u2019re never together. I can\u2019t even breakfast with him because who knows who\u2019s going to be here.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how about the food bills? A pushier person maybe this wouldn\u2019t affect but I\u2019m sensitive. Bills add up when you\u2019re not spending your own money. Nobody mentions Parks Department employees and police who grab big meals here midday. Plus bacon and eggs every morning.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s constant official entertaining. Aside from big affairs with 1,500 on the lawn, we clock about 600 a week \u2014 not counting the men who meet him on business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah .\u2009.\u2009. well, lotsa luck,\u00a0Mrs.\u00a0Mamdani\u00a0<\/a>.\u2009.\u2009. That\u2019s also what we think.<\/p>\n

Lately there\u2019s discussion about genetically altered fruits and vegetables. Food specialists \u2014 one who says he\u2019s trying to splice a head of cabbage with a razor blade \u2014 is looking to grow coleslaw.<\/p>\n

OK by me. I don\u2019t care. But I have a friend who says they better not start fooling around with the Jolly Green Giant\u2019s niblets.<\/p>\n

Oy. Only in the Food & Drug Department, kids, only in the Food & Drug Department.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stand by your Mam NYC\u2019s new mayor-elect \u2014 a true mazel tov for 8 million taxpayers \u2014 has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":370860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,74841,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5301],"class_list":{"0":"post-370859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-opinion","16":"tag-robert-wagner","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115529441096646463","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}