Al Smith Is Born on South Street

Alfred Emanuel Smith was born December 30, 1873, at 174 South Street in the Fourth Ward on the Lower East Side, in a waterfront neighborhood being remade around him as the Brooklyn Bridge rose nearby. His father died when Smith was 13, and by 14 he had left parochial school to work a fish market counter for seven years to help support the family, never setting foot in high school or college. He worked his way up through Tammany Hall and the State Assembly, becoming Speaker in 1913 and then governor of New York for four terms, building a reputation as a reformer who pushed worker protections after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. In 1928 the Democratic Party nominated him for president, making him the first Catholic ever put forward by a major party, and he lost badly to Herbert Hoover amid a wave of anti-Catholic sentiment.