The Days of Wine and Roses Are Over: Governor Hugh Carey and New York State

The Days of Wine and Roses Are Over is an in-depth study of Hugh Carey's tenure as Governor of New York from 1975 through 1982. This book covers his life beginning with his youth, congressional career, and 1974 gubernatorial primary and general election campaigns. The steps he took from 1975 through 1978 to keep both New York City and state out of bankruptcy are analyzed. He not only lobbied the federal government vigorously and successfully to secure aid for the city but compelled the metropolis to abandon a well-trodden path of financial recklessness. This book outlines his touchy relations with Democratic Party leaders and the State Legislature and narrates his surprisingly difficult albeit successful reelection bid in 1978, a campaign in which he first had to defeat his own Lieutenant Governor before taking on his Republican challenger. The Carey Administration had a hand in many important projects, the modernization of New York City's subways and the rescue of homeowners living in the Love Canal neighborhood being just two, before Carey committed several serious blunders which lowered voters' opinion of him that he decided not to run for reelection in 1982. Through it all, this man with the embarassingly-low poll ratings turned into a superb governor.