Human Hunk of Gloom
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

For the kind of Independence Day in which fireworks explode in the air and not in the hands, New Yorkers can thank the late William Jay Gaynor, whose single term as mayor ended in 1913. A little man with a Vandyke beard, volcanic temper, and cold blue eyes, Gaynor was a pioneer in the cause of a “safe and sane” Fourth of July.
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