The Writing on the Wall: New York, night court, and the reason for the season
By Brian Goodman, opinion editor
Posted on April 13, 2006

Legend has it that, in the winter of 1935, New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia wandered into night court and gave the judge the evening off. Mayor LaGuardia was known to occasionally relieve magistrates, as an old city ordinance allowed at the time, and arbitrate from the bench. Such unusual behavior was characteristic of “The Little Flower,” who has gone down in the annals of history as one of the city’s greatest mayors for carrying the Big Apple through the Great Depression and the start of the Second World War.

On this particular night, a bedraggled old woman was brought before him, accused by a local shopkeeper of stealing a loaf of bread. She explained in her own defense that she was the caretaker of her sick adult daughter and her two grandchildren, all of whom were starving. But the shopkeeper refused to drop the charges against the struggling matriarch; crime in the area was bad, he reasoned, and she needed to be made an example of to deter future theft.

Sighing, LaGuardia turned to the woman. “I’ve got to punish you,” he said, “the law makes no exceptions — $10 or 10 days in jail,” though the woman, if she was reduced to stealing a loaf of bread, would have no means to pay the fine.

As the story goes, LaGuardia was then seen reaching into his pocket, producing a bill, and throwing it down declaring, “here is the $10 fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.” And a grand total of $47.50 was handed to the liberated but bewildered grandmother as spectators, reporters, officers and the other accused on the docket paid their 50 cents and gave Mayor LaGuardia one of the rare standing ovations a courtroom has ever seen.

This shocking display of grace embodies the true, foundational meaning of Easter: the judge paying the penalty for the crimes we’ve committed, setting us free in a seamless fusion of mercy and justice. Yet as we increasingly subdue the celebration of Easter, we miss the point entirely. If interested at all, many of us find ourselves yearning for the Cadbury eggs and flowers we will find on Sunday morning. We have replaced an empty tomb with candy-filled pastel baskets, which is tantamount to turning down filet mignon for Spam. Not to badmouth candy, but it is no good when the traditions used to celebrate a holiday replace the holiday itself. If the spectators in LaGuardia’s courtroom had celebrated his actions like we celebrate Easter, they would have reveled in the applause instead of through the applause. We have gotten to the point that we can no longer see the forest through the trees or the cake through the icing. We can no longer see the grace through the jelly beans.

This Sunday, do not be willing to settle for canned ham. Spring for the steak — after all, Somebody else paid for it.

Brian Goodman is a junior communications major.