Photos: 100 years of Democratic mayors in Albany
Kevin O Toole, Paul Grondahl
Feb. 3, 2021
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It has been 100 years since the O Connell-Corning Democratic machine seized control of City Hall in 1921 by defeating the entrenched Barnes Republican machine. The Democrats have not relinquished power since.
Albany ranks first as the longest run of uninterrupted Democratic rule, longer than Boston (since 1930), Chicago (1931), St. Louis (1949), Philadelphia (1951), Buffalo (1962) or any other deep-blue city in the nation.
Democrat William Stormont Hackett won election in 1921, ending the Republican machine s longtime hold on the city s political levers. Hackett would be the first in a long string of Democrats occupying the mayor s office in Albany. That line of Democratic control in Albany continues under the city s current mayor, Kathy Sheehan, sworn in seven years ago.