Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910-1991) was a politician and diplomat who served as the 102nd mayor of New York City from 1954 to 1965. Along with Fiorello La Guardia, Edward Koch, and Michael Bloomberg, Wagner is one of four modern mayors to serve for a total of three terms. When running for his third term, he broke with his supporters from the Tammany Hall organization, beginning the decline of the political machine’s reign over city politics. The son of a U.S. senator, Wagner oversaw the City during a period of political and societal transformation.

He was born in New York City on April 20, 1910, to Robert Ferdinand Wagner, a German immigrant, and Margaret Marie (McTague) Wagner. His mother died when he was nine years old, and he was raised by his father in Yorkville on New York City’s Upper East Side. Educated at the Loyola School on Park Avenue and at Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut, he went on to receive his bachelor’s from Yale in 1933. He also studied at Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration and the School of International Studies in Geneva, and in 1937, he received his law degree from Yale.

From 1938 to 1942, Wagner served in the New York State Assembly. He resigned at the outset of World War II, and joined the Army Air Corps as an intelligence officer, where he achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel and received the Bronze Star and the French Croix de Guerre for his service. After the war, he returned to New York City, where he accepted a position as City Tax Commissioner, later holding the additional appointive posts of Commissioner of Housing and Buildings and chairman of the City Planning Commission. In 1949, Wagner was elected Manhattan borough president, a position he held until 1953. That same year, he ran for and won his first term as New York City mayor.

At the time, the Tammany Hall political machine was prominent in NYC politics, and Wagner won his first two terms with their backing. By 1961, in an attempt to appeal to a broader electorate, he broke with the group. His third-term win signified a shift in and reduction of the influence of large political groups in the city politics. Wagner’s accomplishments as mayor include granting collective bargaining rights to municipal labor unions and securing state and federal funds to help build public housing. He approved the law that led to the development of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, and he helped aid in the saving of historic structures such as Carnegie Hall. Wagner also promoted the arts, leading to the establishment of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and free Shakespeare productions in Central Park.

He is credited with the integration of City government through the appointment of more people of color to administrative posts, the development of the City University of New York, and with the construction of parks, roadways, and schools. In addition, despite losing the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to California in 1957, Wagner was instrumental in luring another baseball franchise, the Mets, to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, which opened as Shea Stadium in 1964. Following his years as mayor, Wagner went on to work as a partner at a New York law firm. In 1968, he served one year as ambassador to Spain in the Johnson administration, and later served as presidential envoy to the Vatican from 1978 to 1981 under the Carter administration.

In 1942, Wagner married Susan Edwards, the sister of his roommate at Yale, and together the couple had two children, Robert Jr. and Duncan. His first wife died in 1964, and the following year, he married Barbara Jean Cavanagh, the sister of Wagner’s former Fire Commissioner, Edward Cavanagh. They divorced in 1971. In 1975, he married Phyllis Fraser Cerf, the widow of writer and publisher Bennett Cerf. The couple remained together until Wagner’s death at his home on East 62nd street from heart failure on February 12, 1991. He is buried with his first wife, Susan, at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside.

Constructed in 1910, the Robert F. Wagner, Jr. Secondary School for Arts and Technology is located at 47-07 30th Place in Long Island City.